Despite precedents in vintage electronic music and in rock--Iannis Xenakis' pitilessly deafening Bohor I (1962), Herbert Brün's Futility 1964 from the same year, the sludgier rock groups of the 1960s (MC5, the Fugs, Velvet Underground), and Lou Reed's utterly feral Metal Machine Music (1975)--Noise remains a cult music mostly confined to intimate venues and obscure labels.
Not all Noise threatens listeners with a relentless broadband avalanche of feedback, juddering rumbles, and other sonic horrors, but the deliciously dramatic threat of aural assault, unpredictable structures, and strange sounds makes this a music for adventurous souls.
The Seattle Noise Festival ranges from the loud to the blisteringly loud. Performers include Portland's Daniel Menche (Fri May 28), who amplifies bodily sounds to extreme levels, Noggin's hyperactive dueling acoustic violins (Fri May 28), and the jagged datascapes of the Mutant Data Orchestra (Sat May 29). Also on the bill: up-and-comers Black: Japan and XISIX (both Sat May 29) as well as esteemed experimental sound guru Vance Galloway's collaboration with Intonarumori (Fri May 28).
If you've picked this up on late Wednesday, May 26, catch the first (and free) night of the festival at Coffee Messiah. Open Music Workshop's resident laptopper Jason Anderson, Nth, Shinshuke, and subduction, a collaboration between xaxis wye and glitchtempo duo bios+a+ic, kick things off. Otherwise catch the Seattle Noise Festival Fri May 28 at Polestar Music Gallery, 7 pm, $7, and Sat May 29 at Hanta House, 7 pm, $7.
With the season coming to a close for the various symphony orchestras around town, I've girded myself with several recent releases of orchestral music. Perhaps the most politically left wing and least doctrinaire of the post-WWII avant-garde, Luigi Nono (1924-1990) is all but forgotten in America. His Composizione No. 1 (Wergo, dist. by Harmonia Mundi) contains two fine orchestral pieces: the clangorous title track, an early work which simmers with elegant melodic tension, and the agile ballet music of Der Rote Mantel.
I'm also enamored with Christopher Rouse's Der Gerettete Alberich (Ondine). Rouse, currently a professor at Juilliard, is a master orchestrator; I find the disc's three lush, loud, percussion-heavy scores exciting, especially Rapture, a sonorous, Sibelius-influenced pocket symphony.
For a guaranteed thrill, seek out Otto Klemperer Conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (Testament). Klemperer, one of the great conductors of the 20th century, sometimes succumbed to slow, leaden tempi, but this performance is taut, forceful, and dramatic. Despite mono sound, a few coughs, and a thin veil of hiss, this one stays on the shelf.
