Spaced Out

On Thursday, I was at The Burdock for the sophomore year of the Women From Space festival. The organizers wanted to focus on women playing creative, jazz, and improv music. Tonight was the first of 4 nights and it was a bit of hit and miss for me.

The stage was decorated with the psychedelic logo and people got face markings from the face-painting station. A few black lights scattered about made some clothes glow.

Elisa Thorn was one of two performers who debuted new material. Both suffered from a lack of familiarity with their composition. That might seemed strange given that it was improvised music but as an audience member, you can feel whether someone has had time to fully live and experience their songs. I'm also no longer enamored with numbers relying heavily on looping. But I liked the range of sounds Thorn got from her harp. With the 20-minute undulating soundscape, I took the opportunity to meditate.

Amy Brandon also got a wide variety of sound effects from her acoutic guitar although it was pre-recorded. It started with scratchy ASMR-esque creaks and scrapes which wasn't unsurprising. But then proceeded to ocean waves, rain, lightning crackle, and even a sudden clap of thunder. For the live part, Brandon gave us a glimpse of her improvisation prowess on her guitar.

Using a drum sampler and some synth, Claire Yunjin Lee gave us a looping collage of designed sounds. Unfortunately, she only made them recently and it showed in her weakness to coax a coherent feel from her set. This was not as fun as her set with Mingjia.

Susan Alcorn was the highlight of the night. A veteran musician of the steel-pedal guitar, she regaled us with stories from 40+ years of playing music and touring. She "transformed" her instrument from the twangy country guitar into a theremin, a synthesizer, and even a piano without effects or looping. The first half was more experimental including her tribute to Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum called And I Await The Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar.

The latter half of her set was an arrangement of songs she titled Liberation Suite. Inspired by an anti-fascist march in Mantua while on tour in Italy, and feeling tired from the rhetoric of her very fascist local roadie, she played a snippet of Bella Ciao during her concerts. Some thought her out-of-touch, but she received emails thanking her for including this old protest song. From that came this suite which encompassed several songs including Víctor Jara's El Arado, Vitali's Chaconne, and ending with Oscar Peterson's Hymn To Freedom. After a short take on Quartet for the End of Time, Alcorn dedicated the last song, a beautiful rendition of Song of the Birds, to exiles and refugees. She explained that its composer Pablo Casals was a refugee from Franco's fascist Spain and never returned to his homeland.

It was a wonderful close to a so-so night. I was glad I changed my mind about leaving the show before the end.