Music / improvised music
Review: Vava Maudit/Tim Hill, The Cube – things proceeded according to their own random logic
Sometime earlier in the week word started to go round about this ‘Juke Joint flash show’ in the Cube’s bar. Enough intriguing details leaked out via a hasty Headfirst listing to gather around 30 people on Sunday night ready for something surprising, vaguely involving punk/folk/improvisation …
Tim Hill ‘a jumble of folk noise’
The first surprise was musical shaman Tim Hill abandoning his electro drones and tipping out a suitcase of random acoustic noisemakers. Announcing his act as Ruination comprising “scraps, heaps and jumble of folk noise” he proceeded to deploy everything at his feet from animal horns to a kitchen rack and – hoorah! – an old school football rattle. These connotative interruptions punctuated a stream of folk-consciousness on clarinet and alto sax that played with traditional tunes in countless creative ways.
Adding a swagger of swing here, an Ayler-ish howl there and a dub wise clench when you least expected it he nonetheless held the thread of performance in a perfect balance. It was a bravura piece of meaningful musical nonsense true to his mission of rooted celebrations for the future that made a perfect way to frame the event.
Vava Maudit recorder wizard Alex Riva)
Swiss drummer Gabriel Valtchev’s involvement in the mighty Orchestra Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp may well have been the big draw for many in the audience but his Vava Maudit duo with radical recorder player (yes – recorders!) Alex Riva was definitely something else. They opened with an almost Arabic theme from Alex on bass recorder, a richly resonant sound quickly deranged by overtones recalling Mongolian throat singers or the self-counterpoint of Evan Parker. Gabriel’s drumming, at first quietly restrained, suddenly burst into a big rock-style tumult punctuated by machine gun bass drum bursts powered by a twin pedal set-up. This prompted droning recorder and the occasional vocal yelp from his partner in crime before clattering to a halt.
Drummer Gabriel Valtchev delivering seismic tumult
After that things proceeded according to their own random logic. At times simple recorder riffs met minimal drumming, at others distorted megaphone noises balanced Dadaist Schwittering vocals. There was a spell of anarcho-birdsong, some call and response drumming exhortations, some visceral neo-feedback recorder howling and a seismic tumult of percussion.
Vava Maudit’s eternal triangles
Finally the pair were joined by their driver (“and friend!”) for an elegantly folksy soprano recorder number pulsed by twin triangles. It was all a part of making nonsense intensely musical and making intense music nonsensical and provided us with a captivating evening.
Their tour poster showed nine planned dates from Zurich via Paris and Liverpool with a simple ‘tba’ for the Bristol venue – but could it ever have been anywhere other than The Cube?
(all photos by Tony Benjamin)
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