News / / 11.06.14

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER + NATE BOYCE LARAAJI & SUN ARAW: THE PLAY ZONE OSCILANZ

Arnolfini, Bristol | 8 June

Having been unable to attend the ‘Laugh With Laraaji’ meditation workshop held at the Arnolfini earlier in the day, we redeemed ourselves by heading over to the Bristol institution in order catch some of the most exciting outernational practitioners among music’s peripheries.

Catching Ralph Cumber‘s latest project in the midst of a particularly disjointed section, it was hard to tell how the rest of it would play out. Taking the work of 12th century composer Hildegard Von Bingen as a launchpad for free jazz-informed sonic explorations, they fumbled around each other’s sounds, seemingly trying to make sense of the weighted source material while interpreting it in a cohesive and fluid manner. With Cumbers manning his mix of a trombone and unclassifiable electronics, prolific sticksman Charles Hayward stroking out rhythm and texture in his own inimitable way and Laura Cannell’s unique approach to folk and ancient music (the simultaneous playing of two recorders being a particularly good example), it was a curious performance by a group that, while still finding their way, seemed to revel in the open-ended nature of the process.

The Play Zone is a show that combines Sun Araw‘s loose and discombobulating sense of rhythm with Laraaji‘s celestial, Zither-based summonings and God-like incantations. Both work with structures beyond Western standards that definitely involves some rewiring on the part of the listener. But once you’ve managed to get around that cultural barrier, the effects are bewildering and hypnotic. Finishing with a version of Laraaji’s euphoric Bring Forth – first released all the way back in 1986 by the unfuckwithable Shimmy Disc label – he seemed genuinely awed by the thunderous reception from all in attendance once the last plink was plonked. To paraphrase – For every vibe, there is an equal and opposite vibe.

Fresh from playing the cavernous expanses of the Resident Advisor stage on a glaringly bright Saturday afternoon at London festival Field Day, Oneohtrix Point Never bought his post-hauntological futurism to the Arnolfini’s dark confines. Nate Boyce, the V to OPN’s A, set up alongside and between them they created a atmosphere that was equal parts unnerving, beautiful, melancholic and euphoric. Utilizing sounds and objects dug straight from the bottom of the uncanny valley, reality and unreality are twisted together like two strands of DNA into something recognisably oblique and sharply abstract. When the percolating arpeggiations of Boring Angel (the one with the incredible video) burst through the choral synths like hope through despair, life through death, everyone felt it. We leave purged.

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arnolfini.org.uk

Words: Steven Dores 

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