May is undoubtedly the greatest month of the year in Brighton – The Warren makes its home outside St Peter’s Church, The Great Escape Festival comes through town and the Brighton Festival takes residency across the city. Established in 1967, the Brighton Festival is an annual celebration of arts that consistently throws up extra-special events which are unique for the festival. Guest director Laurie Anderson has put together an incredible list of amazing shows for fans of music, theatre, dance, art and literature to get involved in, including a memorable showcase event for post-classical record label 130701.
Created on 13th July 2001 by Brighton-based record label FatCat Records, the 130701 imprint delivers the very best in post-classical music. On the eve of their 15 year anniversary, 130701 brought together three innovative and interesting artists who they have recently released to celebrate “New Blood” in the label. Better still, The Spire at St Mark’s Chapel played the perfect host for what was set out to be an incredible evening of supreme artistry.
As I entered the tall musty chapel, packed full of people, a blue hue filled every space in the airless hall. A beautiful stain glass window sat graciously above the alter at the top of the room, giving light to the gloomy stories being painted by Dmitry Evgrafov and his grand piano. The self-taught Moscow-based composer was then accompanied by a female musician who took control of a synth which added an electronic edge the Dimity’s piano. Twinkling chimes of delayed reverbing piano changed the room’s bleak mood, adding yellow streaks of light to the room, then changing to a complete turquoise which complimented the aquatic feel to the song. The best and worst songs were in one – chirping loops of slow synth stabs created a lovely relaxed spring morning, highlighted by the pink light that filled the room, only to be rudely awoken by military drums and thick heavy piano chords which disrupted the peace. With the introduction of a minimal beat taking away some of the seriousness to the latter song’s emotion, each piece seemed to be stuck in a duality of ruptured bliss.
Second act Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch was a far lighter affair, bringing sweet string sounds and soft glistening piano to the chapel. For the most part of the French pianist/composer’s performance, the piano was at the forefront with the strings accompanying each piece – Emily on the grand piano and a string quartet to the side of her, the music had a more natural and organic sound which was mirrored by the lighting surrounding the chapel. Songs felt like they were depicting classic tales of folk stories in a cinematic kind of way – the feeling of horror that you get from a M. Night Shyamalan soundtrack kept coming to mind. Instruments would come in and out of each piece without you noticing which made for a sound that was absolute and complete, and painfully beautiful.
An astounding headline set came next from 130701’s newest signing, Resina. The Polish cellist sat on her own in the middle of the stage, armed only with her cello, an effects box and a looping peddle, and immediately began to mesmerise the room with her unique talent. Her show started by building layers of looping cello, following a burning blue dot on the screen behind her, getting bigger with each sound adding to the strangely quaint noise. Her next piece began with what sounded like howler monkeys in conversation, looping more and more voices into the dialogue before turning into a more audible tune that resembled parts of the BBC’s Only Connect theme tune – a totally entrancing track. The song that followed was a more atmospheric event and let the listener’s mind paint an image of what was going on – for me, I was looking up from the depth of the sea at the glistening sunlight hitting the water’s surface, occasionally seeing little glimmers catching tiny microorganisms floating in the water. The songs menacing rhythm and pace was relieved by a delicate and alluring track that saw Resina opt for a picking style and her ethereal vocal sounds, alongside the bow that she was using before. Resina’s unbelievable knack of transporting you to an alternative universe, with each song visiting a different world or life for the listeners’ consciousness to explore, is miraculous and unparalleled.
This was a showcase of three very different styles loosely held under the post-classical category. Whereas Dmitry Evgrafov was classical music with modern ideas and Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch was modern classical, Resina’s sound was like nothing I had ever experienced before – playing a more neo-classical type of music. She managed to call on a thousand strings from a single cello to create an utterly absorbing performance that, when matched with the venue, verged on the extraordinary.
Iain Lauder