CONCERT ONE, BRISBANE
A room beside the Rooftop Terrace of the Powerhouse provided an intimate site for the first Brisbane Liquid Architecture concert. Performers scattered across the space and audience members sat amongst them; on pillows and lying on the carpeted floor. It was an environment and acoustic space that played positively with the performances by Joel Stern, Perlonex, Jason Kahn and Kontakt der Jünglinge (Thomas Köner and Asmus Tietchens).
Joel Stern opened the concert. The room was darkened and Stern huddled over a microphone equipped with what seemed to be home-made air horns. There was an ambiguity to the timbre of Stern's playing; one could hear traces of familiar wind instruments, but the slight otherness of these sounds seemed constantly present, taking the listener on an intriguing and always fresh sonic journey. Stern's rhythms gave the work a certain hypnotic quality, and this was perhaps referential to what was to come. After a silent pause, the artist activated a strobe light; listeners could make out a quiet popping from the speakers as the strobe intermittently flooded the blackened room with light. Electronic sound elements began to emerge with choppy clicks and beats, then in a spout of humour came a voice-over recording of a man instructing the audience into hypnosis. Slowly the spectators were led into an overwhelming wave of sonic blasts and strobing. Stern's performance seemed to be conducive of the rhythmic trance of dance music, though rather than causing involuntary movement, the audience were kept still and focussed, as if in a sound-induced spell.
Next were German group Perlonex. Consisting Ignaz Schick on live electronic manipulations, Jörg Maria Zeger on electric guitar with effects pedals and Burkhard Beins on percussion, Perlonex immediately demonstrated a confident mastery in the timbral qualities of their instruments. Burkhard Beins created a textural wash of sound by rubbing the surfaces of his drum kit skins, Jörg Maria Zeger produced lush and detailed drones with his guitar and effects, and Ignaz Schick managed to conjure an impressive palette of sounds from a turntable with objects touched on and near a small microphone above it. Ranging from drone and feedback to busy and active noise, through to very subtle, intent listening, Perlonex beautifully crafted their improvisation into a captivating range of interconnected sonic environments. Situated perfectly in this relatively small acoustic space, every occurrence of sound in Perlonex's performance, from harmonics created by the bowing of Beins's cymbals to their meeting with Zeger's amplifier feedback, seemed considered and in their right momentary place.
Image above: Perlonex; Liquid Architecture, Brisbane Powerhouse, 3 July 2009. Photo: Tom Hall.
Images below: Perlonex, Jason Kahn, Joel Stern, Kontakt der Jünglinge; Liquid Architecture, Brisbane Powerhouse, 3 July 2009. Photography: Tom Hall.
