"David Lynch is dead," Higgins said, and he picked up his guitar and started playing. Higgins' latest work in Brooklyn. It was a cold, tiny, snowy January evening. It was like a sound planetarium twinkling on a dry and chilly night. With An electric guitar and a few effects, Higgins improvised along with The pre-programmed program, which included electronic, drums, and brass sound. I was fascinated by the soundscape, which lasted more than 40 minutes. At times, it felt like liquid metal was being combined through a chemical reaction and reborn as a completely different mineral. Rhythms and melodies appeared and disappeared faintly, but certainly, in the mosaic of his memories and techniques and Higgins' universe created from a single guitar. That was rough, lyrical, and full of expression. I could feel the route of the music we followed from time to time, and it gave me a strong and warm feeling of nostalgia and newness.
「デビット・リンチが死んだ。」ヒギンスはステージに現れるとそういってギターを構え演奏しだした。１月、細かい雪が舞う冬のブルックリンで、ヒギンスの最新作を聴いた。乾いた冷たい空気の夜のブルックリンに瞬く音のプラネタリウムだった。エレクトリックギターと数台のエフェクター。あらかじめ打ち込まれているプログラムには、ドラムやブラスを含む、電子音が含まれていて、ヒギンスの即興と繰り広げられた。時々、液状の金属が化学反応で結合して全く別な鉱物に生まれ変わる様子を目の当たりにするような、40分を超える予想を超えた音のサウンドスケープに魅了された。リズムやメロディは、彼の記憶と技術のモザイクに遠くかすかに、しかし確実に表れては消え、やがて一本のギターから創造されるヒギンスの宇宙は荒々しくリリカルで表現に溢れていたし、私たちがたどってきた音楽の軌跡を感じることが出来て、懐かしさと新しさが入り混じった強く温かい感覚を与えてくれた。
Full live link: ROULETTE: PATRICK HIGGINS & YARN/WIRE
PROGRAM:
Patrick Higgins - Three Lines of Flight
Patrick Higgins - Versus
Combining composed and written elements with highly-focused lyrical improvisations, VERSUS shows Higgins at his best — bridging styles and innovating new music that is harsh while seductive, intense while inviting, and always unexpected.
Three Lines of Flight” engages a new music in a position of constant threshold — a music forever in-between states of becoming, fleeing from itself, tracing the world of its wake against the world it escapes. The unique instrumentation of double piano and double percussion frames a particular vision of symmetry in this work — a symmetry which will be consistently questioned, exploited, undermined, exaggerated and liberated throughout the performance. The use of complex counterpoint, stubborn unison, solo, duet, trio, and quartet arrangement, as well as electronic interference, push the territory of the traditional ensemble to a fragile and ultimately elastic point of transformation: suggesting other instruments, other modes of being and hearing altogether —towards ecstatic new planes of connectivity. This work is written in three movements, each in its way is situated within a small moment of crisis. Sprung from a particular trap — the question of freedom is posed anew each time. Each movement of the work is an attempt to trace, to articulate, or perhaps to stimulate a way out: a line of escape, a path through the labyrinth. Invention within aporia. Between moments of confinement or definition, a fragile infinitesimal escape: a transition between regimes, a flicker, a brief vibration, the hint or taste or scent of a new path — a potential connection to a new outside.
Venue:ROULETTE
