'Kept Impulses'
with Anni Rossi + James Blackshaw + Duane Pitre's 'Ensemble Drones'
at Redland Park United Reformed Church
(Sat 18th Oct 2008 / 7pm / £7 adv)
Often it is an impulsive thing, the way we react to music. Music can make you jerk wild, hot flush, grow fins, bear gifts or just close eyes and dream. Tonight we have put together an awfully good evening of acts who all harness their impulses (all three acts rely on a deep well of emotions and freeform sensibilities) and keep them in a beautifully controlled condition that allows their music to touch wonderful places. This includes a favourite adoptive daughter of Bristol, Ms Anni Rossi who still travels the world to great delight, the gracious guitar playing of Mr James Blackshaw and a VERY special assembled drone orchestra led by Duane Pitre featuring some of Bristol and London's ancient and new outer-fringe musicians. Early arrival is pretty much demanded for a night of 'Kept Impulses'.
So it will be evening of strings plucked and bowed, heavenly art song, intermingled drones, and resonant acoustics from a trinity of acts who know how to create a special atmosphere. Taking place in the brick and wood setting of Redland Park Church with tea and cakes, this will be a night to savour.
Anni Rossi sings songs that delight in being half wild, half controlled. A performer who wows audiences with her unique blend of classical virtuosity,a beautifully tamed viola and her vocal acrobatics. Hailing from Illinois, USA, she is blessed with a distinctive voice that leaps effortlessly across registers, while simultaneously playing the viola as she sings. Her songs are alive with possibility and she has that Greenwich Village class via East European barn dance mixed with a artful singer/songwriter allure all in bundles. Like Beirut or Kate Bush she has hit upon a sound that is idiosyncratic, un-contrived and wholly adorable. Where ever she plays audiences go crazy for her coffee hit songs.
Anni has been caterwauling and foot stomping her way into audiences' hearts across Europe ever since Kieran Hebden spotted her and invited to perform at London's Homefires Festival in 2005. She caused a stir at Venn '07 and returned to Bristol back in January for a sell out Cube show. Now she's signed to 4AD and has a debut EP called 'Afton' out this October, fleshing out her unique sound with clarinet, hand percussion, double bass and lush string arrangements. Somehow her songs manage to capture the vitality and abandon of her live shows as she pushes her voice and viola to the limit. Uplifting, joyous and totally unique.
James Blackshaw plays straight for the heart, 12-string guitar music. Magic, spirit-lifting compositions for the agnostic age from one of England's finest young guitarists. Meditative in quality, like a twig in a river, this music gracefully moves and spirals into different patterns, motifs and harmonics. Open tunings, fine ears and an ability to drift into extended emotional pieces make his work resonate as much with minimalist composers like Terry Riley as exemplary contemporary finger-pickers like Jack Rose. He has released prolifically and Michael Gira is the latest to be entranced by his unique guitar style and has signed him to Young God records (Devendra Banhart, Akron/Family). A man who can coax out overtones and harmonics to send tingles down your spine. Lushness extended forever.
'Ensemble Drones' really plans to be something special, to set the tone for the evening and quash the raucous capitalist Saturday night melange occurring outside the doors. It will reconfigure your inner ear and make time elastic. Duane Pitre is a Brooklyn-based composer and performer who is going to collaborate with a large ensemble of Bristol and London based musicians to fill the church with transcendental drones. 'Ensemble Drones' is a composition for 12 or more acoustic/electro-acoustic instruments (strings, wind, brass, sine-tone generator). Reading from a score that provides a basic structure around which they can improvise, each player contributes towards a composition that is focused yet fluid, minimal yet dense. An exercise in discipline and freedom, in the refinement of music, and in communal focus. The results should make for ethereal, slow-motion chamber music that will be amplified by the church's natural reverb.
So it will be evening of strings plucked and bowed, heavenly art song, intermingled drones, and resonant acoustics from a trinity of acts who know how to create a special atmosphere. Taking place in the brick and wood setting of Redland Park Church with tea and cakes, this will be a night to savour.
Anni Rossi sings songs that delight in being half wild, half controlled. A performer who wows audiences with her unique blend of classical virtuosity,a beautifully tamed viola and her vocal acrobatics. Hailing from Illinois, USA, she is blessed with a distinctive voice that leaps effortlessly across registers, while simultaneously playing the viola as she sings. Her songs are alive with possibility and she has that Greenwich Village class via East European barn dance mixed with a artful singer/songwriter allure all in bundles. Like Beirut or Kate Bush she has hit upon a sound that is idiosyncratic, un-contrived and wholly adorable. Where ever she plays audiences go crazy for her coffee hit songs.
Anni has been caterwauling and foot stomping her way into audiences' hearts across Europe ever since Kieran Hebden spotted her and invited to perform at London's Homefires Festival in 2005. She caused a stir at Venn '07 and returned to Bristol back in January for a sell out Cube show. Now she's signed to 4AD and has a debut EP called 'Afton' out this October, fleshing out her unique sound with clarinet, hand percussion, double bass and lush string arrangements. Somehow her songs manage to capture the vitality and abandon of her live shows as she pushes her voice and viola to the limit. Uplifting, joyous and totally unique.
James Blackshaw plays straight for the heart, 12-string guitar music. Magic, spirit-lifting compositions for the agnostic age from one of England's finest young guitarists. Meditative in quality, like a twig in a river, this music gracefully moves and spirals into different patterns, motifs and harmonics. Open tunings, fine ears and an ability to drift into extended emotional pieces make his work resonate as much with minimalist composers like Terry Riley as exemplary contemporary finger-pickers like Jack Rose. He has released prolifically and Michael Gira is the latest to be entranced by his unique guitar style and has signed him to Young God records (Devendra Banhart, Akron/Family). A man who can coax out overtones and harmonics to send tingles down your spine. Lushness extended forever.
'Ensemble Drones' really plans to be something special, to set the tone for the evening and quash the raucous capitalist Saturday night melange occurring outside the doors. It will reconfigure your inner ear and make time elastic. Duane Pitre is a Brooklyn-based composer and performer who is going to collaborate with a large ensemble of Bristol and London based musicians to fill the church with transcendental drones. 'Ensemble Drones' is a composition for 12 or more acoustic/electro-acoustic instruments (strings, wind, brass, sine-tone generator). Reading from a score that provides a basic structure around which they can improvise, each player contributes towards a composition that is focused yet fluid, minimal yet dense. An exercise in discipline and freedom, in the refinement of music, and in communal focus. The results should make for ethereal, slow-motion chamber music that will be amplified by the church's natural reverb.