pacificlectic : concert reviews & eclectic music news

Sigh… I’ll miss the Fanfarlo Fall 2009 North American Tour due to vacation.  Boo… :(  Their record, Reservoir, is great!  I’m bummed I’ll miss their Portland show, but all things considered this year, I can’t really complain much about a “lack of shows.” :)

Fanfarlo’s Fall 2009 Tour Dates

• Schubas Tavern, Chicago IL – November 09, 2009
• Triple Rock Social Club, Minneapolis MN – November 11, 2009
• Moes, Englewood CO – November 13, 2009
• The State Room, Salt Lake City UT – November 14, 2009
• Knitting Factory, Boise ID – November 16, 2009
• Crocodile Cafe, Seattle WA – November 17, 2009
• The Media Club, British Columbia – November 18, 2009
• Doug Fir Lounge, Portland OR – November 19, 2009
• Great Basin Brewing Company, Sparks NV – November 20, 2009
• Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco CA – November 22, 2009
• The Echo, Los Angeles CA – November 23, 2009
• The Casbah, San Diego CA – November 24, 2009
• Muddy Waters, Santa Barbara CA – November 27, 2009
• Club Congress, Tucson AZ – November 29, 2009
• Sante Fe Brewing Co, Santa Fe NM – November 30, 2009
• The Independent , Austin TX – December 02, 2009
• The Loft, Dallas TX – December 03, 2009
• Walter’s On Washington, Houston TX – December 04, 2009
• The Bottletree, Birmingham AL – December 06, 2009
• Metro Gallery, Baltimore MD – December 09, 2009
• Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia PA – December 10, 2009
• IOTA Club & Cafe, Arlington VA – December 11, 2009
• Brillobox, Pittsburgh PA – December 12, 2009
• Majestic Cafe, Detroit MI – December 14, 2009
• El Mocambo, Toronto ON – December 15, 2009
• Il Motore, Montreal QC – December 16, 2009
• T.T. The Bear’s, Cambridge MA – December 17, 2009
• Webster Hall, New York NY – December 18, 2009

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Incubus guitarist Michael Einziger likes experimental music.  And I like that he likes it.

He just posted on MySpace that he’s performing a new piece of music at an event in Los Angeles on November 21 at the Disney Hall.  Here’s some info about the concert.  The piece is entitled “Forced Curvature of Reflective Surfaces.”  Apparently, he’s not even finished with it yet (as of 10/28/09)!

Forced Curvature was inspired by a combination of the physical appearance of the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Einziger’s studies in the philosophy of quantum mechanics.

The music was written for 12 electric guitars (played with a slide), 12 strings (violin, cello), and is based on the glissando. The instruments have been orchestrated in terms of corresponding high and low registers, that reflect each other as though being viewed through a mirror. The exterior shape of Disney Hall informed the shape of the sounds created and by necessity, was first drawn visually in the form of architectural-like renderings, before being committed to paper in the form of a hand-written score.

“This building is obviously a solid, immobile structure”, Einziger says of the Disney Hall. “But it looks like a series of reflective waves that have been frozen in a specific state at a specific place in time, and I wanted to try and imagine what it might sound like if that idea were to be expressed as waves of sound. Adding a 4th dimension of time to the picture would force the structure into a Minkowskian space-time manifold, and it would therefore become directional. It would be as though time itself were forcing the curvature of the reflective material in a forward-motion, because time appears to be directional.”

The piece has no apparent formal structure and has been through-composed. All of the instruments will be fused together, forming 2 distinct ‘mirror images’. The strings and guitars combined will not sound like separate groups of instruments, but rather as dense units of a single instrument uncharacteristic of entirely one or the other.

Einziger conceived of the piece at Harvard University where he is currently a student, and has studied the history and philosophy of physics with physicist/historian, Dr. Peter Galison.

~Dan – np: Fred Frith – Freedom in Fragments