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International Looping
Festival
Drum Machine Museum
Thursday, October 18th, 2007 |
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Acoustic instruments, synths and raw creativity intermingled with multiple layers of
loops, creating sounds and rhythms that flowed with an intense musical life; at times
extremely beautiful and delicate, at others moving into a space of extreme
experimental distortion and grit.
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Thanks to the hospitality of the Drum Machine Museum of Oakland, a rogue collection of
international loopers converged for the 6th Annual Y2K7 The International Live Looping Festival.
It was the opening night for a weekend long festival, featuring 47 artists from 11
countries.
The converted loft space was just large enough to contain the bodies of musicians from
Turkey, Italy, Sweden, Japan, USA and El Salvador, although the sounds created quickly
moved beyond the confines of man-made matter.
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Henry Kaiser
and Chris Muir opened
the night, setting an intimate atmosphere. Live guitar and bass loops joined with
delicately subtle sounds, creating a rich, complex musical structure.
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Per Boysen,
hailing from Sweden, created an intricately laced set, guiding and expertly crafting the
loops of his electronic wind instrument and flute (with a pickup).
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Erdem Helvacioglu
(visiting all the way from Turkey) and Rick Walker created a wide open meditative space of
sensual noise and meditative melody. Erdem played the guitar through a looper, with
intense patience and focus, gently forming a distinct chamber for Rick Walker's
improvisation.
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Fabio Anile
(from Italy) played a melodic minimalist set, infused with a classical spirit. Classic
synth drones combined with minimalist piano loops and quick runs, forming a clear bed for
constant static movement.
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Mickey T
started with sudden sharp bursts of sound that slowly compounded into driving rhythms and
deep basslines, only to disband again into noise. The constant shift back and forth,
the tension of the noise and the welcoming arms of the dance rhythms, formed a
perfect balance.
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Juan Carlos Mendizabal, aka Kyron
and
David Molina brought the evening to a close.
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Molina played home-made and acoustic instruments, while Kyron’s attentive
manipulation of loops created a virtual stringed orchestra; alive, haunting, and always
moving.
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Working with the musicians in another genre was Warren Stringer. Taking
advantage of the high ceilings and smooth white walls of the room, he meshed visuals and
sounds with his real-time created projections.
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Psychedelic and avant-garde, the colorful images would ebb and flow with the sound
structures, moving quickly or meandering, depending on the loops.
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The golden string that bound everyone in the room was the love of sound. On this
evening, music replaced the need for language. Raw musical emotion and melody was alive
and mutating, live and unapologetic. Sounds spoke and communicated, causing bodies to sway
and groove, bob and muse. With chords, melody, and electronics, we took a journey; moving
beyond imposed boundaries into a darker space, full of speckled stars and limitless notes.
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