FESTIVAL MUSIC | Previews & Reviews
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E L A N N E R T R H U R E D R Ü F N N A M G R E B E G N O W © O T O H P
PREVIEW DELUSION OF THE FURY Music-theatre with song, glass bells and a goat
Consider a picture of Ensemble musikFabrik playing the music of innovative 20th-century composer Harry Partch. It is not immediately clear what is happening. Is this a kinetic sculpture or art installation? Should they even be touching these giant glass bells?
Similarly with the sound. This is not familiar to our ears: Partch was a pioneer of microtonality, developing unusual harmonies within his own highly complex pitch system. To realise this music, a regular old symphony orchestra is not fit for purpose. Over the course of his life, Partch designed and built a complete ensemble of instruments to bring his aural vision alive.
He died in 1974 and his original instruments are held by the
Harry Partch Institute of the Montclair State University in New Jersey. Happily for those of us on the other side of the Atlantic, German avant-garde music collective Ensemble musicFabrik has reconstructed the full orchestra and is bringing it, with some difficulty, to the Edinburgh International Festival. They will be playing Delusion of the Fury, Partch’s expansive music-theatre piece that draws on the Japanese Noh tradition and Ethiopian myths as well as deploying the most extraordinary pieces of kit.
Thomas Meixner, a career percussionist, has spent the last
two-and-a-half years building these instruments (working 16–18 hours a day, seven days a week, that’s 15,000 punishing hours). ‘It is easy to build musical instruments that look like Partch’s, but very difficult to make sure they comply with all requirements of the scores,’ he explains.
Now the instruments are as finished as such delicate, climate- sensitive, one-off pieces can be, Meixner can revel in the way Ensemble musikFabrik bring Partch’s extraordinary music alive. So can we. (Anna Burnside) ■ Kings Theatre, 473 2000, 29 & 30 Aug, 8pm, £15–£35.
REVIEW THE FACTORY Fun Kiwi musical with an edge of social consciousness ●●●●●
Presented here as part of the NZ to Edinburgh showcase season, this fun musical theatre piece hits the right note both in terms of its light-hearted musical tone and its packaging of a slice of New Zealand's social history, which is doubtless largely unknown outside of the country itself. The Factory of the title is a mid-70s vintage Auckland textiles factory whose bitter, recently widowed owner Richard is using Pacific Islanders as cheap labour, easily controlled through the threat of deportation. Into this mix comes young Samoan woman
Losa and her father, who are rechristened ‘Lucy’ and ‘Kevin’ by Richard, whose generationally racist views are well-conditioned. Yet when his son Edward falls for Losa, a disco-soundtracked Romeo & Juliet dynamic appears, and it can only end in tragedy. As a musical it’s fun, although the song and dance sequences never quite hit a height of invention so as to be extremely memorable. Yet the drama makes all the right moves for a piece of popcorn theatre, and the sense of history offers a window on a time, a place and a people we’re unused to seeing on a British stage. (David Pollock) ■ Assembly Hall, 623 3030, until 25 Aug, 7.15pm, £15–£17.50 (£13.50–£16).
74 THE LIST FESTIVAL 14–25 Aug 2014
REVIEW BEEFHEART'N'CHEEZE Tribute to avant-garde weirdo rocker ●●●●● REVIEW KLANGHAUS Immersive, disorientating industrial gig ●●●●●
Captain Beefheart has become synonymous with avant-garde rock. An innovator who rejected the boundaries of genre, an explorer who blasted into the sonic soundscape. 1969's Trout Mask Replica has become the go-to album for lovers of the weird and unusual. Orange Claw Hammer (themselves named after a track on aforementioned magnum opus) pay tribute to the music of the good captain, Don Van Vliet. Deeply rhythmic and rooted in the blues before spiralling off into free association, their music is a wondrous cacophony of finely tuned chaos. Or 'totally mad shit', in the words of OCH's frontman / saxophonist Steve Kettley.
Even though the vast majority of the music is instrumental, there's a humour at play, a desire to stimulate and titillate through complex offbeat grooves and a clatter of noise. It's an exhilarating recreation of Beefheart's experimentations, improvised and reinterpreted by Kettley and crew. Kings of Cheeze play original acoustic music
but it's equally playful, from off-the-wall whispered lyrics to sweet harmonies via pounding beats and stuttering riffs. An intriguing double-bill for fans of adventurous rock. (Henry Northmore) ■ Henry's Cellar Bar, 226 0000, 22 Aug, 8pm, £9 (£7), reviewed at 3 Aug gig.
KlangHaus, the House of Sound, smells of antiseptic, is dimly lit, and echoes with the sounds of dark lounge music and clattering snare drums. Part gig, part sound installation, KlangHaus is presented by the Neutrinos, ‘a female fronted alt- rock band’, with help from visual artist Sal Pittman. It’s by turns disorientating and soothing, a sleepy swirl of anaesthesis and gentle confusion, scented with hospital corridors and close-up skin. Summerhall’s former small animal hospital is the perfect backdrop for their black lullabies. It’s an industrial gig, with sugary cabaret solos
and baritone lyrics, cross-bred with an a cappella ghost tour round an amazing space, where 1970s whiteboards still wait for the animal’s breed and surgeon to be inked in, and stainless steel operating tables carry battering drum solos. They wanted to create ‘a 360-degree immersive experience’, exploring ‘the extremes of performance’. It may never get particularly extreme, but there’s something special about a gig that ends with singers disappearing up a ceiling hatch, and listeners being released, blinking, out a back door next to a gin still. (Claire Sawers) ■ Summerhall, until 24 Aug, (not 18), times vary, £12 (£10).