i *LOVE* last night...

last night i went to Schiphol 2, by arraymusic. arraymusic does "new music" - and i don't mean just, like, creating original works. new music is a special breed of music that fucks it all up more than jazz ever did. even the freaky jazz. often called "honk and squawk," it challenges classical definitions of music, reinventing the way we savour sounds. it never really appealed to me much, but the ticket was free. reading the program notes, i prepared myself for an onslaught of the senses as i witnessed the musicians waging war on composition.

but this was no war.

there was no conquering, no resisting. they savoured musical energy with wisdom and fraternal familiarity. they really were transforming time, clasping it their souls and crafting it into chaos. home.

the first piece, assume sometimes by Michael Oesterle, was all tempestuous, frenetic, sweeping dyschord. a single moment of instant wisdom repeated, repeated - never monotonous, never redundant. the way these people understand rhythm is overwhelmingly impressive. it was followed by Scott Wilson's Netori, which played into the crevices and slid into the depths of everything i know to be true, and exclaimed it out loud in a mathematical poetry of sounds. the third piece and final performance of the first act (ABCDE by Maarten Altena) blasted life into my lazy lungs; the strings' bows sliding against my firework nerves as the percussionists slid their fingers in, under my heart, and tapped its back - gently. insistently. in my fingertips, i could almost feel the piano man crushing or caressing the angel moans of his whore. ..or was it the whore moans of his angel? they're both so damned beguiling.

intermission was marked by the soft electronic tone shepherding us back into the auditorium. bing. bing. bing. bing. bing. bing... it seemed to me it could, at least, have been syncopated. although - is that even possible with a single sound? i guess not. well... it could've at least been asymetrical.

the evening's fourth performance (soccer by Scott Godin) seemed to grapple with time. wrestling it - or no wait, being wrestled down by it. alert, probing and delinquently deferential. crash. bang. siss boom bah. the final offering, Triple Concerto by Peter Adriaansz, was tittilating - a tongue darting purposefully across my flesh. like a train charging deep, deep into the west on a dark, cold night. charging, onward. and yet then: a lament. wildflowers crushed in its wind as it charged on, relentlessly. it was like being high on speed and reading a Jackson Pollock painting like braille.

hunh - and here i thought i didn't like new music! in fact, i've avoided the threatening "honk and squawk" of new music since i tried, tried, and failed to be able to appreciate it, years ago. i don't know if i've changed, or if there was something in their work that just spoke to me. something i could understand, or relate to. wherever the truth may be, all i know is i liked it. i reeeeeeally fucking liked it.


and then...
oh and then....
beautiful sleepless night alight on hot kisses and penetrating gazes. beauty beauty intense yes yes yesness.
mmmmm

last night was a great fucking night.
(la la la-laaa)