The Venetian Affair: Biennale Musica 67th edition International Festival of Contemporary Music October 2023

By David Cristol

Venice: its gondolas, its San Marco square, its Palazzo Ducale, its mass tourism... and its Biennale, created in 1895 and whose different sections highlight contemporary art, architecture, theatre, dance, cinema and music. I had the good fortune to attend four evenings in the latter category. The music edition is programmed by composer Lucia Ronchetti (who studied at France’s IRCAM) and focuses on electronic music, itself divided into subcategories – Club micro-music (focusing on the more experimental side of clubbing), Sound Microscopies, Sound Studies, Digital sound horizons, and Stylus phantasticus – The Sound diffused by Venetian organs via the works of five composers, among whom John Zorn played the first date of his mini-tour in Europe on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Finally, the Sound installations/exhibitions category allowed us to sit in front of a video work by Brian Eno. An array of venues provided the listener exposure to innovative representations (questioning the relationship between visuals and music, how to adapt listening to different spaces, etc.) of little-known and often unreleased works, from which improvisation was not absent, even if composed material dominated the performances.

In the Teatro alla Tese, a vast complex of hangars at the end of the gigantic Arsenal, the live set of Autechre is held. The duo appeared with a bang in the early 90s, at a time when electronic music was enjoying a boom (as well as a revival), in the aftermath of the hip-hop and acid house wave. I didn't know that Sean Booth and Rob Brown were still active, but also that they performed live – here in total darkness. The following evenings, audiences will be returning in the same club space, dedicated to the Club micro music section, to listen to several projects in comparable configurations, with various strategies of eliminating the spectacular dimension to better confront the audience with sounds alone. Autechre delivers a compact, busy set, technically impressive, with a dizzying level of detail and a bewildering pile of sounds, but without great contrasts or grand design. A certain monotony emerges from the sonic escalation. In electronic music, we must not forget the music. Electronics, like extended techniques, are tools, not necessarily an end in itself. On an unchanged hour-long 4/4 beat, decibels are unleashed. No change of frame, point of view or dimension here. Perhaps it is not be asked of this music what it does not intend to do. A mechanical waterfall, it feels like all the data that has ever circulated through the Internet has been compacted and restored during this crushing set. We regain hope with old school scratches, but these are not at the level of the best practitioners of the game, and the fun visual dimension is absent. We’re left with an interesting desire for self-effacing, finely selected and sharp sounds, but the duo does not provoke a particularly noticeable enthusiasm in the venue. 

La Notte di Nero - Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Andrea Avezzù

Returning to the club the next day, La notte di Nero includes a live performance by Loraine James followed by a DJ set by Kode9. A flashing white then purple light brushes the crowd. We hear a derivative of house music with a stiff beat, which, compared to the previous day displays a more hypnotic, enveloping aim, an escapist aesthetic, made up of repetitive vocal samples and generous on the bass and sub-bass. An idea of groove, trance permeates the performance, even if there isn’t much dancing to be seen among the audience. The artist injects a definite dynamic, if not form, into his sequence, relaunching frenzied breakbeats in an incessant cavalcade. The room fills up with calm young people, sitting at the back of the room or on the (dance)floor. Again, there is nothing to see on stage. So why do all eyes remain in that direction, in search of a ghost of sorts? There is only sound here. And a guy in a cap with his nose bent over some machines. Moving around the room, measuring the sound from different places seems to have more meaning. I admit to being surprised by the mostly peaceful and silent listening, far from the supercharged club atmospheres of yesteryear. DJ Kode9 promotes more or less the same aesthetic, based on repetitive vocal samples, bass and beat-heavy structures. A rhythmic music of great stability, without the physical commitment that would transpire into the sounds and help us get into the trance. Layered loops instead of harmony or melody, irrelevant in this context. For your scribe, this aesthetic could be seen as the sound equivalent of mechanized society, the infernal roaring of traffic, the circle of consumption, the unconsciousness and search for escape rather than awareness and action to transform reality. An model train shining with a thousand flashing lights, going nowhere, in circles.

On the third day, the same venue welcomes La Notte di Battiti with a more engaging triple set. 

JJJJJerome Ellis, La Notte di Battiti - Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Andrea Avezzù

JJJJJerome Ellis presents himself as a “black person wearing a beige dress.” He initially plays the tenor saxophone, in a style evoking the most meditative moments of the late Pharoah Sanders, over arrhythmic electro loops. Then he sits down at the piano, and proceeds to sing. His hands are shaking while his voice is imbued with a certain softness and serenity. A high and calm voice, a zen and hushed sound design, an atmosphere of contemplation. Forget labels. Ellis defines himself as follows: “I am a person who stutters – Io sono balbutiante.”  Stutter pride is new to me and a welcome acceptance of social handicap. I’m caught thinking we should hear more stuttering presenters on the radio. Dramatically slowing down his speech allows him to get around the obstacle. His goal is to “research and celebrate the way that stuttering can create time and offer us time.”. Stuttering indeed implies an intense relationship with words and with temporality, uneven, elastic. Ellis uses wordless chants, moaning, on sustained synth chords. After the noisy excesses of the previous evenings, this minimalism lacks a little substance to back its claims, making the message stronger. The ethereal approach is interesting but I understand that it can test the patience of those waiting for action. This consummate slowness borders on the abolition of time. Slow is the new fast. 

Lamin Fofana, La Notte di Battiti - Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Andrea Avezzù

For Lamin Fofana’s “Shafts of Sunlight,” mirrors are placed on the proscenium, facing the room. All means are used to hide artists from sight. Shyness of the performers? Disembodiment towards pure spirit? Provocation? These devices call into question the traditional standing position facing the stage, since there is nothing to see except blinding reflections. The spectators, however, stick to their traditional positions, not moving much about the space, although it lends itself to walking around. All focus on sound. This time it’s ambient music, dear to Brian Eno, rich in textures, evoking some ice-covered planet. The mirrors offer the audience its own reflection. Speeches in English question the relevance of the salvation of humanity. Which tends to confirm the perception of a desire for erasure, resignation perhaps, an implementation of civilizational or biological disappearance. A sample of Sun Ra's voice proves that the cosmo-philosopher of Great Black Music remains influential in 2023. His visionary concepts have caught up with the times; his once cryptic words now seem crystal clear. Here we are more in the field of conceptual art than music per se. It lacks a vital impulse, it seems that the machines are leading the dance instead of the humans who trigger them. 

Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner de Jace Clayton, La Notte di Battiti – Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Andrea Avezzù

Jace Clayton/DJ Rupture is the architect of the ambitious “Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner,” with David Friend and Emily Manzo on piano. We immediately feel on more familiar ground thanks to the presence of the acoustic keyboards, the players of which however turning their backs to the listeners. The multidisciplinary artist Jace Clayton takes on the role – in auto-fiction mode and using a meta approach – of composer Julius Eastman, author of thirty works between 1968 and his death in 1990. After decades in the purgatory of composers, a compilation in 2005 paved the way for his (re)discovery, and several albums have been published since (one recently on the Swiss Intakt label). African-American, gay, minimalist composer, Eastman was not easy to classify, reduce or fit into the codes of musical publishing of his time. The interpreter also operates an electronic console, while pianists hammer away on successive small sections of the keyboard, in tight clusters of notes. A percussive flood, where a theme ends up emerging. The music goes from one extreme to another, calm to storm, several times. The sounds of a creaking door, footsteps, a ringing telephone and we are presented with a “dialogue” between a pre-recorded video speaker (Arooj Aftab) who “responds” to the man on stage, about whom it is asked if he's the best choice to play Eastman: a job interview of sorts, and the meta dimension I was referring to. Around this humorous sketch, we hear scholarly music, rich in nuances and constantly evolving even in its repetitiveness. 

Live de Nicolas Becker et Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe – Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Andrea Avezzù

Finally, the duo of composers Nicolas Becker and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, also sound designers for the cinema, made for a good time – so enjoyable in fact that this reporter forgot to take notes. Powerful ambient landscapes made notable use of the processed, wordless vocals of Lowe, an artist which I have kept exploring the works of since discovering him that night in Venice. 

Songs&Voices de Francesca Verunelli avec Ensemble C Barré et Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart - Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Andrea Avezzù

The other concerts, spread over other venues, allowed for more traditional listening – although barely. Day 2 opened at the Teatro piccolo where “Songs & Voices” by Francesca Verunelli was presented as a world premiere. Six vocalists, ten instruments and electronics made for a fully satisfying work in both its concept and execution. Improvisational techniques are imported into the contemporary classical domain; borders are disappearing. The pageantry is indeed classical : dress, discipline, head posture, composition strictly followed, conductor leading the troops. Many good ideas are explored, forming as many segments of a suite, via an unorthodox use of all instruments. Certainly, John Zorn's “Cobra” went further – and since several decades already – in the playful manipulating/derailment of genres and expectations, and the circulation of conducting. Here we remain in a more traditional configuration, but the music proves original and both the effort and result are to be commended, and proof that distinct musical worlds can no longer ignore each other. A clever confusion was created between sound sources, voice and instruments. The accompaniment by sound effects of unknown origin was fascinating to hear and the work appeared like a film without images, or “cinema for the ear”. Like almost all concerts of this edition, the music is submitted to a play on the visible and the invisible, the uncertainty of sources, certain participants removed from view. At the end the lights go out to give way to a general tingling, taken up and prolonged by the electronics before an abrupt cessation of all sound emission. 

Terminal de Leonie Strecker (Biennale College 2023) - Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Andrea Avezzù

At Tese dei Soppalchi, the Digital Sound Horizons / Biennale college section allows to discover two artists (born in 1995) using the most current possibilities of technology. We won't pretend to grasp the mechanics of it, but nonetheless enjoyed “Terminal” by Leonie Strecker. The audience in complete darkness – a decidedly recurring scenography – is exposed to heavy smoke blurring and a curtain of blue light around the performer, standing behind a stand like a campaigning politician, a shadow silhouette. A barely perceptible metronomic rhythm circulates through the sound system. Added to this are onomatopoeia, crackles and rumblings broadcast throughout the space. A speech is heard but it is not uttered by the person who appears in front of us, who instead generates, via slow gestures and inaudible utterances, the constituent elements of an impressive sound design. Glottal sounds, crowd voices, liquid splashes recall the works of Luc Ferrari. The lights intensify towards the audience, we can no longer see anyone on stage. And wonder about the necessity of human presence, because it is above all a listening session, anti-spectacular, with this paradox of the seated position facing the stage. 

Soft Matter / Hypersensitive Instruments de Alexis Weaver (Biennale College 2023) - Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Andrea Avezzù

“Soft Matter / Hypersensitive instruments” by Alexis Weaver is next. On stage, only a MacBook sits on a pillar. Who and what are we watching? The walls, the stairs, the computer on its perch? The performer appears, blonde dressed in white. Her speech deals with resonant frequencies & body harmony while precisely the interpreter, although an affable (even angelic) presence appears disembodied and impersonal, suggesting a robotic rather than human presence. Should we be charmed by this creature, or be afraid of it? We are presented with a discourse on the medium, both limpid and cryptic, in the tone of the obvious, of unquestionable truth, and from which we do not know with how much of a grain of salt we should take it. An Orwellian vertigo, radiating copious amounts of oscillating energy.

The Hermetic organ de John Zorn – Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Lucio Fiorentino

For the very first date of his European tour (continued in Italy, Paris and Den Bosch), John Zorn unusually agreed to only give an organ recital rather than come with several of his current groups. The indefatigable New Yorker presents “The Hermetic organ” at Conservatorio B. Marcello, an ancient hall located in another district and whose organs, less grandiose in appearance than on other occasions (Lisbon, Hamburg...) are embedded in the side walls of the empty stage. After having asked of the audience to applaud the instruments and taking off his shoes, Zorn takes his seat on the organ on the right. The drawbars create rumbles and whistles, to the maestro’s pleasure, who moves a bundled weight on the keyboard and does not hesitate to press the keyboards with his whole forearm. First wearing a hoodie, perhaps to avoid distraction, he manipulates zippers and joysticks with vivacity, in a spirit of experimentation. One can almost see the thinking that comes before it translates into creative gestures. Clusters are superimposed with muted bass sounds on the pedals. This particular recital benefits from the proximity between artist and – very quiet – audience. Zorn lingers for a moment on insistent high notes à la Morricone, giallo period playing with our nerves: tension, stridencies, menacing vibrato. Rough and surly sounds, far removed from the woolly characteristics of the modern organ of the Elbphilharmonie. Sounds evoking bagpipes and harpsichords are generated, among different possibilities and combinations. Zorn installs paper spacers between keys of one organ, maintaining a continuous sound, then runs across the stage to settle on the other side, where he does the same thing, before pulling all the knobs all the way out, putting the weight back on the first keyboard to drive the point home. He goes back and forth from one instrument to another, giving life to his ideas like a mad scientist at work. The approach is neither rhythmic nor melodic, Zorn constructs powerful layers which make the conservatory vibrate, like a child delighted with his misbehaviour. We hear chords befitting a gothic horror film. As an encore Zorn agrees to “a piccolo”. A sound makes him turn to the audience for a second, wide-eyed, like a cartoon character. Zorn is having fun, and the audience is game for the ride. After all the exploration of sounds is an integral part of music.

This is merely one glimpse among a multitude of acts, since the Biennale Musica ran from October 16 to 29. It welcomed 19,000 visitors with a carefully considered programming to correspond to the chosen themes. Unusual music and sounds, far from the forms and techniques that make up the daily concerns of the jazz & improv reporter, but all the more exciting to lend a couple ears to.