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Open Frame Festival 2019

Carriageworks

Sydney, Australia

June 28-29, 2019

Open Frame is an annual festival of transgressive sound that is curated by the entity behind the moniker Room 40, an homage to the cryptanalysis section of the British Admiralty during the First World War.

Not entirely sure if Room 40 consulted the Signalbuch der Kaiserlichen Marine to determine the line-up of the 2019 incarnation of the festival, but to decrypt from the encoded messages emitted via the line-up and to realize that it was spiked with high-calibre performers does not prove too difficult.

The first night saw Stephen O Malley headline, preceded by Japanese avantgarde duo Eiko Ishibashi + Joe Talia; the debut of dark ambient act Loscil, local act Vanessa Tomlinson and Ears Have Ears DJs; who also appeared in between act during the second night, which culminated in Merzbow’s extravaganza after NYC based Rafael Anton Irisarri delivered an ambient set of epic proportions. Fia Fiell indulged in the creation of electronic, gossamery weaving of sounds as well as Sandra Selig, with what I would consider that most widely accessible set of the second night.

The significance of Stephen O'Malley for underground music at large is undisputed and started well before he gained bigger audiences with Thorr's Hammer, Burning Witch and the phenomenon known as Sunn O))). His performance saw both the spatial and sonic investigation of the cavernous industrial realm that the festival within Carriageworks offered. Given centre stage to his amps, his monotonous drone doom set meandered, build, ebbed and flowed in a stream of consciousness style that even though it was reminiscent of Sunn O))) at times, was way more arrhythmic, pulsating, simple in nature and thereby more confrontational than his previous work.

It was the first time I have had the pleasure of experiencing a live show of Masami Akita aka Merzbow, the godfather of harsh noise that has more than forty prolific years under his belt. While I am fairly familiar with his oeuvre, in the third dimension it is a monstrously physical experience in the best way possible, reminiscent of what a Sunn O))) show feels like.

The beauty I find in Merzbow is that it despite the superficial harshness of his emissions, I find it extremely meditative, structured and moving in seismic proportions. A powerful and intense performance of white noise that left me feeling euphoric and shaken to my core at the same time. While some might find it to be random, chaotic and nonsensical, his performance felt razor sharply structured with rhythms and patterns and at the same time pulverizing everything in its way yet also strangely consoling.

The annual Open Frame Festival and its unique curation has yet to underwhelm and the 2019 incarnation pushed the envelop to the next level.

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Photos by T

Camp: Notes on Fashion

The Met

Love wearing a furious look and strutting around like the good ole drama queen (or king) you are?

Ah, the world of fashion and the profound influence everything camp and queer has had throughout the ages – not merely on garments themselves but also in a more general sense when it comes to the aesthetic of the zeitgeist as well as accompanying political implications.

This brightly and beautifully pink tome was created to accompany the Camp: Notes on Fashion exhibition at the MET in NYC and starts with the cradle and origin of what could be described as a movement, i.e. three centuries ago harking back to French playwright Molière’s play The Impostures of Scapin.

 The book follows its development from the outliers of society where it existed in secrecy to the artistic mainstream and the development of a veritable culture through resulting osmoses, where it yields its power in a dominant manner. The beauty of the book is that it effortlessly makes a case that no matter what your style is, chances are it has been informed by campness in one way or another – be it through Louis XIV. When he held court, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood or Lady Gaga and ABBA’s outfits.

In a subtle manner, Camp: Notes on Fashion, it explores, analyses and questions the notion of masculinity and how it goes with and at times against haute couture.

Needless to say that what is depicted is wildly curious at times, e.g. Oscar-Wilde-inspired wool ensemble along with some of Gaultier’s emissions down to what Andy Warhol fabricated within the confines of his factory.

It is good to see that there is no fixed definition of “campness” the book oscillates around, and it is treated as one fact of the ornamental, highly stylized and artificial phenomena of the fashion world.

The takeaway is elation, as in the liberating effect this extravagant and by now omnipresent once niche aesthetic has become and the empowering effects it provides in the most unapologetic manner, i.e. the importance to be free and stay clear of judgment.

Thrones!

Opera House

Sydney, Australia

June 25, 2019

Full disclosure: I have never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones, which puts me in the same shoes as one of the main protagonists of tonight’s performance.  The beauty of Thrones! Is that despite me not having the faintest idea of what the actual show is about, the smart musical parody is nuanced enough to let one derive allusions to the show and has at the same time enough surprises to even excite the most hardcore GoT aficionados – not unlike the one I brought along with me who had a jolly good time.

The fact that the genre agnostic musical components are punchingly good (and ranging from gangster rap, via African-American spirituals to old form operatic vocal deliveries along with the odd pop cultural mash up), signalled early on that we were in for not just humour but a seriously fine night of entertainment, reverent fun and musical theatre. The fact that the performance steadily picks up pace and gets gradually more vulgar, crude, sinister and edgy, which only enhances the viewing pleasure.

The cast members gel well with each other, with each seamlessly transitioning between different roles, harmonisations and choreography that are flawlessly performed in makeshift costumes and props.

The quality and simple vim of the singing of Thrones!, which was originally performed in Los Angeles before it took on the old world in a storm, is reason enough to attend and does not really necessitate prior knowledge as one of the protagonists is educated with the audience along the way, i.e. given CliffsNotes on the series, which is a smart move to avoid preaching to the converted and provides a bit of a retrospective on plot landmarks.

While piss taking is par for the course with all the in jokes and topical gags one could hope for, one can tell that the Thrones! started from a place of sincere admiration and appreciation for the series – after all parody is the ultimate compliment.

I’d go as far as claiming that if you are a hardcore fan of the series and in need of consolation for what was commonly perceived to be an underwhelming final season and ending of Game of Thrones, this parody musical is what you need, especially since the Sydney run includes exclusive added-on bits pertaining to the finale, which is testament to the dedication and wit of Thrones!’s creators.

Water of Life – GlenAllachie

I am all about Islay and its distilleries when it comes to whiskies that excite me, which is not to say that I am unable to appreciate and enjoy drops from other regions for their own idiosyncratic flavours and merits.

Speyside is an interesting region as quite a few of the “Glen- “whiskies have established themselves as go-tos, specifically when it comes to travel in Asia. I have come to enjoy the two ends of the spectrum that most of them are situated in, i.e. the richer and sweeter one that is informed by an underlying sherry character and the lighter ones that feel like you can indulge in them at all hours of the day.

One of the more interesting varieties of Speyside whiskies is emerging from a relatively young distillery that goes by the name of GlenAllachie.

Using local water and deliberately limiting and slowing down their production to ensure that allow for a longer zymosis, it enables GlenAllachie to pay utmost attention to finetune each step of the distilling process and alter the depth of the character of their emissions, in layman’s terms: GlenAllachie refuses to take shortcuts and takes pride in their status of being one of the Scottish distilleries that have not been absorbed by a bigger multi-national conglomerate.

My first exposure to GlenAllachie was their robust and fun 10-Year-Old Cask Strength expression. Being non-coloured and matured in what reads like a dream line-up of casks, i.e., Pedro Ximénez, Oloroso as well as fresh casks from the new world and bottled at a whopping 57.1% ABV, the spiciness that tickles the nostrils was intriguing as after a peak it blends in with charred vanilla.

“Pleasant” would be an understatement when it comes to what materializes on the top of the mouth as marmalade, honey is married with light chocolate and by adding a drop or two of water, nutmeg makes an entry, but it finishes with oak and more intense honey notes.

As one would expect, their 12-year-old single malt Scotch whisky from GlenAllachie takes things up a few notches: Imagine the 10-Year-Old on steroids, i.e. bigger, bolder flavours with the nose already promising what will then serenade the palate: Buttery vanilla, almond and an elongated soft and oily finish that borderline touches milkshake territory, based on a bed of tropical flavours.

So far, so good.

Now enter the GlenAllachie 18-Year-Old and its nose heave on the cinnamon will win you over instantaneously. There is also something tarty to it, which adds intrigue that is given additional layers on your receptors with highlighted barley, sultana and peanut butter nuances.

The 18-Year-Old is one that drives my much better half crazy as it delays my replies in conversations endlessly because I tend to swirl around each sip forever before letting it go down the hatch.

Beautiful.

Caramelised stone fruits meet a dairy finish that gives this one a rounded, complete feel that covers and ticks all the boxes of a well-chosen flavour territory.

This one does not need to show off with overwhelming flavour nuances – it is sophisticated and the crown of the GlenAllachie portfolio.

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photo from company website

AUDINT -- Unsound: Undead

Urbanomic / Art Editions – The MIT Press

Noises. Sounds. Frequencies. Ultra-. Infra-. Audible. Inaudible.

An endlessly fascinating realm that the UK based research unit AUDINT group has been exploring, with a focus on shedding light on the outliers and the peripheries of sonic perception (unsound) and the potential that lie therein to open portals to new dimensions. An when I say “new dimensions”, I mean transitions between the dead and the undead and passing the threshold between fiction and fact.

This wonderful tome is comprised of sixty-four essays penned by luminaries of their respective fields, which investigate from different and at times never attempted angles how the inaudible can be channelled to communicate and infuse the undead with life.

The territories that are explore demand an open mind, at times a bit of technological understanding and most importantly a readiness to follow thought experiments and how they related to tangible and intangible phenomena harking back to the eight century before Christ, drawing parallels to how we have perceived and defined until now and, most interestingly, casts projections into the future, i.e. the second half of the twenty-first century when it comes to the exploration of what holosonic, directional ultrasound and haptic feedback devices can be used for.

A testament to the fact that what we might perceive to be set in stone when it comes to “vibration” and what can be accomplished through it, is actually, based on ever changing goalposts that are being re-engineered on an on-going basis and – most importantly – in areas that are no longer perceptible.