Stockhausen Syndrome
Forerunner of modern electronica he may be, but the easiest of listens he is not. Bookpacking is just back from a performance of Kurzwell (shortwave) at the South Bank. A collection of musos – including students from Leicester’s De Montefort University – manipulated a wide variety of analogue and digital devices to produce a bizarre mishmash of (seemingly, but obviously not) random sounds.
It’s all about the textures and the tones. We compare it to going up close to a painting and examining the brushstrokes and paint. And there’s a joy in that, for sure – the pleasure f a colour or a sound just for the hell of it. But when you’re used to melody, it’s a demanding exercise, especially when it’s early evening and your blood sugar’s low.
And now for curry and beer. Because Friday night is curry night when the social eddy doesn’t beckon (’whirl’ would be an exaggeration). The random synthesis of sounds is all well and good, but everyone needs a few firmly fixed points of reference to hold on to in uncertain times. And this is Bookpacking’s.