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Review: Hidden Notes Festival, Stroud – ‘An eclectic day hallmarked by musical integrity’
If those Notes were meant to be Hidden then someone clearly hadn’t done a good enough job: when Daniel Inzani opened the festival on Saturday afternoon Stroud’s capacious St Laurence Church was already full to bursting.
It stayed that way through to Will Gregory’s Moog Ensemble’s final notes some seven and a half hours later, testimony to the growing appeal of original contemporary music hovering between classical, jazz, ambient and performance art.
Hidden Notes Festival: Daniel Inzani, Asha McCarthy, Hugh Blogg
With an impressively eclectic triple album just released, Daniel focused in on his smaller scale work, starting with solo piano pieces before being joined by Asha McCarthy and Hugh Blogg on cello and violin respectively.
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Pieces like The Zodiacal Light were stripped back, revealing the clever use of thematic ideas restlessly evolving as they passed from player to player. Influences of Asian music and modern minimalists balanced against the use of simple memorable melodies evoking Debussy or Satie.
It was a fine start to things, brought together by an intently listening audience in the crowded church.
Hidden Notes: Will Stokes, Ye Ling, David Sheppard
In sonic contrast Will Stokes’ set began with brash electronica, David Sheppard’s throbbing synth drones under Will’s crashing guitar. Falling piano chords from Sarah Nicolls resembled church bells, an effect heightened by harmonic guitar notes.
As the piece progressed it was surprising to realise that through this Glenn Branca-like wall of sound Will was singing the classic folk song Lowlands, albeit through a distorting microphone.
The set was nicely unpredictable: later moments included Ye Ling’s quiet poetry in English and Chinese surrounded by dirty rock guitar and jaunty electro beats, looped guitar riffs overlaid with melodic piano and guitar that gradually decayed into a sludgy abyss – all nicely judged and distinctive.
Hidden Notes: Katherine Tinker
Classical pianist Katherine Tinker must certainly be used to playing great instruments but if the Hidden Notes upright was a challenge it didn’t show.
Beginning with a beautifully rhythmic seven-time piece by Meredith Monk and Alex Groves’ gently modulating Curved Form she surprised with John Cage’s delicately ascending Inner Landscapes.
After the more intense arpeggios of Floating Points’ Birth she switched to electronic piano and a Terry Riley inspired reading of Philip Glass’ Two Pages. This strangely stuttering composition used steadily rising bar lengths over an off-beat pulse eventually growing into a four-to-the-floor groove.
It was a thrillingly complex piece, played with seeming effortlessness, that capped an excellent selection of contemporary music flawlessly delivered.
Hidden Notes: Galia Bisengalieva
With the evening darkening outside solo performer Galya Bisengalieva was able to use the gloom and lights to great effect, weaving processed violin and electronics into a powerful drone-driven orchestral sound.
One theme was the past abuse of her Khazakstan homeland for nuclear bomb testing by Soviet Russia, hence a simmering tension and voice samples speaking of ‘preparing for war’.
The sense of threat and vulnerability was heightened by her barely lit figure in the darkness of the church’s nave, while the strength of anger and resistance permeated the scale and grandeur of her atmospheric music.
Hidden Notes: The Will Gregory Moog Ensemble (pic: Tony Benjamin)
Throughout the day each performance had been surrounded by a tangled mass of technology: this was the set-up for the Will Gregory Moog Ensemble, an eight-strong team of analogue synth players backed by Harriet Riley’s percussion.
They provided a suitably jaunty party to end the day’s proceedings, combining classic tributes to synth pioneers Wendy Carlos, Vangelis and John Carpenter with Will’s own music including tracks from their debut Archimedes-themed album.
It was a joy to bask in that distinctive pre-digital sound cascading through Bach’s third Brandenberg Concerto, throbbing darkly for Purcell’s Funeral Music For Queen Mary or assembling into a brass band tribute for Gregory’s Brass Blocks.
Hidden Notes: Will Gregory Moog Ensemble
Will also contributed Noise Box, a strangely eloquent electro-stomp using the noise generators of the synths, and three tracks from the Heat Ray album.
Archimedes’ Legacy was a stunning off-kilter cannon as each player took the theme slightly out of synch in a wilfully misleading contemporary echo of earlier Bach pieces.
They closed with the distinctively rich and fat sounds of John Carpenter’s music for Escape From New York, driven by relentless ticking and slathered with cheesy melody.
The ensemble had a fine sense of dynamics – often missing from the original recordings – and with only the most minimal of conducting they were nevertheless super tight, but it was salutary to remember how often those early electronic instruments need re-tuning.
The Moog Ensemble’s set rounded off a day hallmarked by musical integrity, albeit expressed in very different ways. It is always heartening to be with so attentive an audience and to realise just how many people are drawn to the more experimental side of contemporary music making.
Both through the festival and their own record label. Hidden Notes are doing a fine job in bringing this music to the fore so it can be justly celebrated.
All images: Tony Benjamin
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