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First off, for some scintillating photos for use in your esteemed publications, click here. Now on to the lovefest: Anti-Social Music There's this stereotype of music in the big city. Kids leave home playing Mozart and Bach, go to music school in, say, New York, and come home playing some of the weirdest stuff around. Suffice it to say the folks who are collectively known as Anti-Social Music are never going home. Which isn't to say these pieces are truly off the map. There isn't the almost-blinding idiosyncrasy of a Philip Glass at his most maddening. Nor is there the "concept for concept's sake" form of experimentalism epitomized by John Cage. Rather, these always-engaging works push the envelope by melding together rather disparate styles. Imagine some of Ornette Coleman's mouthpiece squawks dropped into some Gershwin-style classical jazz. Or a little Vandermarkian riffing within a romantic (if a kinda atonal) atmosphere. In any case, this music is most definitely written and performed to the letter. Improvisation is not on the menu here. If you're surprised by something you hear, it first occurred to the composer. Which makes these pieces almost more impressive. Improv can bring out some wonderful ideas. But to conceive and then preserve such creativity is truly the mark of greatness. Anti-Social Music knows a few good composers, and the collective knows how to make these works sing. |
| From Evilsponge: After they were done, i wanted to sit and relax, so Tracers and I trudged up to Earthshaking Music to see Anti-Social Chamber Music. We knew nothing of this band, but figured that given the name, we had to check them out. And they were very very fun. ASCM is, apparently, a musical collective from NYC. There were 4 members present tonight: a keyboardist, a cellist, a saxophonist, and an accordianist. They played a sort of whacky free-jazz, and just seemed to be having so much fun that the crowd was happy. And it was an odd crowd -- i supect that most of the people were like us in that they had wanted to sit down, and the name intrigued them. Most of the people that is -- Binary System (the free-jazz keyboard combo from last night) were there and they were ecstatic. ASCM played several pieces, all of which i remember enjoying as i watched. The only one i remember is a solo cello piece. The cellist played along with some drones looped on a CD, in a beautiful exploration of the capabiliites of his instrument. Otherwise, they were different, and they told jokes and silly stories between songs. What fun, and totally unexpected. [Evilsponge also rated us as one of the three best touring acts at Independent Georgia, saying:] Anti-Social Chamber music. O.k., I don't like free jazz, and this was free jazz. Still, this four piece (more or less) was having so much fun and was so into it that I had to buy into what I was watching. I especially liked the cellist's solo piece. |
