Music, DIY, Recording, Drums, and Other: Kronos Quartet Concert Review- Lied Center 4/13/10

Last night I saw the Kronos Quartet perform a wonderful concert full of contemporary string music. Terry Riley was heavily represented, and they also played interesting pieces with ethnic heavy overtones (which I love). Some pieces were perfect combination of ethic
timbres and scales with in the context of a modern Western musical performance.

As a warning, my head was completely right for this event. I did the usual sacrificing of plants to the emperor god Destcardon from the planet Murkium, but instead of burning all of my environmental science homework, I made like a dog and just ate it (a nic of hood, and two little bats of good). I only mention this so you know where I was at in the mental stability department. And for all you non believers out there, you aint gotta cook that shit up with butter or fat, just chew it up and swallow it. I promise it will be worth the $10 spent on a trial run.

As a review, I do need to note that tickets for this were listed at $32 (would have been $38 with fees) but I got a deal for $20. I wan't going to go for $40 (I have principles and addictions guiding me here), but the half off deal talked me into going. This was a really good show, but it would not have been worth $32. Maybe this is just another reason why "new" classical music and the artzy folks surrounding can't fill up a venue, do come off as pretentious, alienate people, and make art that I feel the masses could benefit a lot from seem to be too uppity for the masses. Or maybe they just think they are better than they are. Why does strange new electro acoustic music seem to a part of the aristocracy?

In addition, I heard 2 squeaks that were obviously not intentional and three different parts where the quartet was sloppy and un-uniform with some string plucking, not what I expect from a $32 ticket.

So, as I melt into my seat and try to get my eyes to focus, the show starts. The lighting through out the show was very subtle and morphing the whole night. Changes in colors were happening but so slowly you couldn't tell unless you took your eyes off the back drop. It was only colors too, no other visuals. In "Crossfader", they had some back lighting on the players, and the shadow cast onto the proscenium where the players looked like 50 foot tall silhouettes. The lighting guy also created a shape with bottom and top lights near the back drop that created an strange gas mask looking figure that morphed in and out throughout the show.

The Cello player had some hot metalic moon kicks that even Gray would approve of.

Music wise, the Riley Pieces were as expected; very emotional, repetitive, and abruptly segwaying from one part to another (see video near the bottom, they performed this piece, just with different lighting), much like what I recall from Music Theory IV (and what I would have learned in Music History III if I had went). These were the first Riley performances I have seen live and I highly recommend seeing one if you get a chance, if you appreciate wierd music you pychos. Other than the Riley works, the remainder had very Eastern ethnic overtones them, while some were completely ethnic. Thus use of violin in non western diatonic scales was a highlight of the evening.

The quartet played with backing tracks of various textures, some melodic, and some noisey ambient shit I would make. At first, I thought they were a CD track, and then I got really pissed at the ticket price, but the sound engineer was using Ableton Live to sample various sounds, and he seemed he had a mutli track out so he could control individual parts form Abelton on the mixing console. (panning really was noticed with the quartet in the center and the speakers spread wide). Still, they used a simple tabla like and tamborine loop that could have been played by a real person (yes, one of the heads of electronica BFC is saying this). This was very apparent in "Tashweesh" (see in the videos at the end of the article). This song was the one of the most perfect combos of white people performing ethnic influenced music, sort of like what I wanted MuslimGuaze to be but never was.

Aheym (see below) was by far the oddest piece they performed and got pretty noisy with bouncing bows on the strings like a drums stick, muted plucking, and general other "non standard" playing techniques. The encore was off the chain and they played ethnic (Northern?) Indian instruments and drones instead of all 4 on strings. It was a perfect cherry to the concert milkshake.

Minus my rant about the cost of the show, this was a kick ass event. It really opened my mind and ears to some new creative juices that will help generate some musical output from me. Catch these guys when tix are cheap, and at any price if they perform some Steve Reich works.