Issue 84 / Dec 2017/Jan 2018

Jane Weaver and IMMIX (Rob Godfrey)
Jane Weaver And Immix Ensemble
+ Dialect
+ Andy Votel
Lutyen’s Crypt – 09/11
All stars rise in the east. In ancient times, soldiers of the
Roman army were initiated into the cult of Mithraism by dining
together, ritually, in secret grottoes. A bringer of light, Mithra’s
birth was celebrated in midwinter. There are obvious parallels
with another subterranean sect from the Middle East, one
that erected cathedrals around the world with crypts below,
filled with initiates. In present-day Liverpool, those who know,
know, and they have climbed down into the hard sandstone of
Brownlow Hill to hear IMMIX ENSEMBLE and JANE WEAVER in a
twentieth-century cave.
It was a stroke of genius to make all screws and their
threads twist likewise. This succession of tones, DIALECT’s first
commission as Immix’s composer-in-residence for 2017-18, is
perfectly fitted to the snug rifling of the ear canal. It bores in and
holds fast. Interplay between laptop and ‘traditional’ instruments
is a recurring idea, trading throbbing rhythmic patterns. The beat
eventually softens, but doesn’t let up on its muscular insistence
à la St. Vitus’ on the currents of the bloodstream. Late on and far
off, a lofty violin note falls in a desperately slow glissando; it’s like
seeing Lucifer himself expelled from heaven.
The accompanying visuals consist of whole screens of
block colour – it’s interesting to see how much light a monitor
gives off when it isn’t showing anything except a very unblack
black – and their flashing produces a brilliant strobing effect on
our surroundings. The players are neither hidden nor on show,
perceptible only by the glow of their music stands, so sending
your eyes a-wandering up pillars and round domes is to be
expected. It’s as if the bricks themselves are lighting up in turn.
The main event tonight is a three-way collaboration: Jane
Weaver presenting her latest album, reworked with Immix as
Kosmologie Ancienne, with visuals by artist SAM WIEHL. The
latter are at their best when simplest: flanking the players with
close-ups of a hard, dull orange sun as seen through the visor of
a welder’s mask while a hyperprism busies itself centre-screen
behind the action. Nebulae, and the stars graduating from
them, fit around the celestial Slow Motion and The Architect,
with Weaver’s lyrics never quite in the foreground, but still
intelligible. The ear automatically finds a dialogue between the
Modern Kosmology songs and Dialect’s piece from the first half
(each work was produced independently, sound unheard). It’s
interesting to compare, for example, another violin glissando
(upwards this time), or the contrary motion that does with scales
what the earlier piece did with rhythm. It’s an intense set which
ends with the brightest-burning fire, I Wish, prefaced by the best
cello playing I’ve ever heard from Abel Selaocoe.
A lot of this music is how Olivier Messiaen’s Interstellar Call
(from his suite From The Canyons To The Stars) might have
sounded if it had been written for clarinet, not horn. Weaver’s
voice is gentle and flutey, a complementary tone colour against
the fricative sounds of Immix’s brass, reeds, and bowed strings.
She’s also playing guitar, gently strumming, bypassing all
the usual problems incurred by orchestral instruments in the
company of electric guitars. Credit to Immix leader Dan Thorne.
This gig doesn’t fit into any of the neat compartments of classical,
jazz, or pop music. As he explains, “We like interesting, creative
statements, however they’re made.”
Stuart Miles O’Hara / @ohasm1
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