HCMF : AMM

Sunday 29th November - St Paul's Hall

John Tilbury – Piano

Eddie Prévost – Drums

Keith Rowe - Guitar

After the workshop with Eddie Prévost the day before, I was really looking forward to this performance, but I have to say I actually found it rather disappointing. The sounds made were fairly quiet and minimal, which in itself wasn’t the problem, it was more they way in which the sounds worked together, or didn’t work together in this case.

For some reason I didn’t really feel the performers were really listening to each other, maybe it was their lack of interaction in terms of body language although for performers who are used to playing together, which I’m sure they are, this isn’t always a problem. For me the techniques used seem to be for show rather than to contribute the music. John Tilbury, an outstanding experimental pianist by all accounts, spent the entire performance moving his arms slowly up and down the piano. This was interesting at first, as the moment seemed to pick out certain notes at random, but the sound did not change or develop in any way. Perhaps this was the effect he was aiming for, but for me it didn’t really add to the field of sound, it just worked more in isolation in the background.

Eddie used techniques very similar to the ones I had seen in the workshop, such as using a double bass bow on a cymbal, placing cymbals on a drum, using the bow on the cymbal on the drum… Generally I didn’t find this very exciting or new; once you have heard someone bow a cymbal you’ve heard someone bow a cymbal, the sound doesn’t really change or develop. So, although I found the interaction between Prévost and Rowe slightly more interesting, it still seemed very much to me that he was working in isolation. Although, there was a very lovely moment where he rolled a ball round the edge of a bass drum and it hit a tiny cymbal with a rather satisfying ‘ping!’.

Keith Rowe had his guitar laid flat on a table top and used several implements on the pickups – this was the most interesting part of the performance for me, but because I felt as if the other performers weren’t really reacting to the sounds, again it seemed very much in isolation for me. However, as a variance of sound I thought it was very successful; I particularly liked that he used a radio on the pickups which added a strange sense of nostalgia to the performance.

Overall I actually found the performance quite stale and uninteresting, other than the brief moments mentioned above. It was doubly disappointing in that I know the three are such incredible musicians and it could potentially have been awe inspiring. I have decided today to search for a performance which I find more inspiring, as if to prove to myself that I wasn’t just in an irritable mood yesterday evening! And to my joy, I have found one. The below video is a recording of John Tilbury, Eddie Prévost and Evan Parker; the quiet use of slowly moving harmony and the wonderful way in which the bow on a cymbal interacts with it is both relaxing and fascinating to listen to.