This was my second time at Triest, the first being the James Emrick / RM Francis gig a few weeks ago. It’s primarily a DIY gallery, and while the bright, cold lighting probably works during the day when there’s also natural light to supplement it, the experience of walking in when it’s dark outside is pretty damn cursed. The vibes warmed up a lot once the fluorescents shut off and a sole yellow lamp lit the small but comfortable space.
STAR is a project most people are at least aware of. Sam Franklin’s enigmatic analog rituals have an unusual crossover appeal: though a lot of the praise I’ve heard has come from friends in the noise sphere, and the releases that haven’t been produced via in-house imprint I Am Elegant have come out on heavy-hitting labels like White Centipede and Hospital, the crowd for this show seemed more on the improv/sound art side of things. (It’s strange to even separate the two, but no one can deny they feel very separate in New York.) I’ve never seen him play and have only heard a few tapes, so I was unsure what to expect setup-wise, and yet I wasn’t surprised by the simplicity: a minimal array of two cassette players (one deck, one Walkman), a stomp controller, and a mixer. The ease with which Franklin operated the system gave the impression that he’s been working with it for some time. The set immediately settled into a freeform drift of overlapping loops and organic feedback, with milestones marked by the addition of a vocal mic and a small melodica. It started to meander once the latter came into the mix, but ended strong with a satisfying final rally cut off by a sudden killswitch flip.
KIERAN DALY, who’s on a mini-tour right now that will conclude with a set with frequent collaborator Sam Weinberg at Figure8 tomorrow, has been making some of the most interesting, and often baffling, improvised (etc.) music in recent years. His recent aptly paired splits with kindred spirits Luciano Maggiore and Ashcircle are great examples of his humbly radical approach. The familiar silhouette of an Epiphone SG set the tone for a memorable solo performance full of stuttering, stumbling monophony. I sometimes feel a bit gaslit by an audience’s stone-faced silence when confronted with some of the more ridiculous strains of experimental music—I was the only one laughing my ass off during the (excellent) RM Francis set—but that was thankfully not the case here. The comedic timing of Daly’s dissonant waddles was perfect, and he even cracked himself up a few times. Even putting aside the hilarity it was an enthralling combo of technicality and clumsiness, all of it intentional. The legacy of Derek Bailey is alive and well; there’s nothing so thrilling as being gathered around a single devotee of the guitar as they push the iconic instrument to its most absurd limits.
Noise Not Music 