at Volkspark Schönholzheide

solo Seiji Morimoto (polythylene band,whitsle)

duo Seijiro Murayama (voice, percussion)

Axel Dörner(trumpet)

Review “Merged into there“

Thanks to the beautiful weather that truly announced the arrival of spring, we held a picnic concert at a public park in Pankow, about 20 minutes from the city center.

Personally, this was the second time I organize a concert at this location. Compared to the previous occasion—when we used a battery-powered setup with a small amp and mixer—this time was more purely acoustic. The environment felt a bit busier and more sonically distracting, as there were already many people around enjoying the park.

As an opener, Seiji Morimoto caught everyone’s attention with his walk across the space, masterfully controlling a long strip of tape fluttering in the wind. First of all, the tape, which looked like something easily found at a stationery store, created a dry, industrial sound. Each flutter of wind blended the tape’s artificial tones with the rich acoustic ambiance of the freshly grown woods and grasses. When it comes to the structure of the performance, The visual development of his performance begging at a plain park grass space into the one with a spectacle with an approximately 60m object streching over the space set our attention ready for what comes next to our ears. Then, its melds of sounds brings the heterogeneity of this synthetic material to the meetingpoint to become a medium for audience to achieve a wider perspective with the guidance of Seiji as a performer. While this object could stay to be only as installation, the way he showed a process of installation as if as an instruments turned the object alive and transformative, which embodies one of current performitive forms in posthumanisum sound art. No one could be the better first to to give people with reduced auditory attentiveness due to city lives—an artistic invitation to expand our auditory awareness.

The highlight of the event was a performance by a duo of virtuoso improvisers. While Seijiro seemed more frustrated than usual—understandably, given the imperfect conditions and surrounding distractions with random people—the structure of their music rejected passive continuity and conventional musical obedience. Their use of silence and its reflective power added an existential depth to the experience with coexisting with the acoustic environment such as black birds and crows chirping, also the sounds from Seiji’s installed waving tape . It was obvious for me to conclude that they are intended(but still totally improvised) in that ,just before the performance, they asked us to change the spot 30m away from where they are going to perform from what we planned in order for them to focus on their performance. Each sound event occupied its own distinct time. Through their experience and technique, they offered a kind of phenomenological reduction—a world that unfolds from pure sensation, before intellectual understanding.

For those who attended, the concert was deeply rewarding and well worth the journey to the outskirts.

for all black and white picture by Orange Ear Frank