LIVE REVIEW: MERZBOW / CURED PINK / SIMON WHETHAM
MONO10 - MERZBOW / CURED PINK / SIMON WHETHAM Judith Wright Centre – Thu May 10 2012
Curator extraordinaire Lawrence English introduces Mono10 and encourages tonight’s very healthy audience to get comfortable for a blackout performance by Sydney-based sound artist Simon Whetham. His exquisitely restrained, digitally rendered composition swells, crests and contracts with sounds from nature and the built environment and is easily the most beautiful set of the evening.
Cured Pink are an experimental trio with a sprawling setup of junkyard constructions and conventional instruments used in unconventional ways. A working angle grinder is bolted to a box and dragged through the audience, creating a current of curious bodies while amplified whispers and heavy breathing generates an almost schizophrenic droning rhythm. The rhythm develops organically as they gravitate towards an electric bass and drum kit and the improvisation continues until a consenting silence is realised.
Earplugs are required for the internationally renowned Japanese noise-art pioneer Merzbow who wastes no time decimating the eardrums of the brave few with his extremely loud and abrasive sound manipulations. He callously strikes, scrapes and plucks an intriguing stringed instrument, sending the resulting cacophony through an array of electronics that modulate, delay, distort, amplify and loop. While some punters enjoy a boogie (yes, really), most, like myself, withdraw deep into themselves, letting waves of floor shaking vibrations induce a nihilistic catharsis, the likes of which I haven’t experienced since his Mike Patton collaboration Maldoror traumatized The Capitol in 1996.
JAMES STAFFORD