These tracks, from Phillip Jeck's new album Sand, seem much brighter than I remember his stuff to be. The last thing I'd heard of his was Stoke, and that was all spikey textures with something of an industrial, oily layer on top. These two tracks, at least, are sounding very much like healing music for me now, given that my brain feels very much like mush. I keep thinking about my trip to Dunedin on Friday; one of those road trips with people you don't know that well where you end up bonding and having amazing times. Well, I've been on a couple of these. They're the best sort. We took turns sleeping in the back, sharing a pillow, and when I woke up, it was like we were on the surface of the sun; the sun had lit up the wet and dusty windscreen so bright it felt like we had driven onto the sun, except we were on a strangely drab back country road. I lifted my dewy head up and squinted and it was impossible to open my eyes.
In Christchurch, in the dingiest pub you can find, a bunch of people put on music shows with an emphasis on the experimental. It's called Borderline Ballroom, and the venue, The Media Club, is a surprisingly good place to hear interesting sounds, despite the place being less of a club in which media is seen and heard and more of a place with broken TVs playing rugby and Speights pints for $4.90. Daniel Menche played there a few weeks back and it was the scariest and loudest thing I've ever seen. He was like Bob from Twin Peaks falling down an abyss, hitting himself with this weird metal stick that had a pickup or something on the end. He could bend it and make different sounds and it was ferocious and visceral, a massive canyon of noise and dark texture that was as human as any sounds of that sort can be and as raw as emotion can be put into sound. It was the most physical sort of experimental music performance I had seen. I imagine Philip Jeck, who plays there this Wednesday (21/5) will be less animated but just as engaging. His textures are strange and unweilding and will sound terrific against The Media Club's scratched and battered walls.
No comments:
Post a Comment