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As the media's eye has focused more intently on electronic music in the past few years, the guitar is discussed more in terms of its limitations than its capabilities. Bill Horist, a young Seattle musician, asserted his instrument's versatile role Sunday night in a performance of experimental compositions at the Paris Theater. With two amplifiers, a few effects pedals at his feet and an array of plastic and metallic devices that he placed under the strings, Horist elicited groans, beeps, washes and screeches from his guitar throughout a 45-minute set. He drew from his recent CD, Soylent Radio (Unit Circle), but also from a century's worth of musique concrète and avant-garde experimentalism traceable to composers such as Erik Satie, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Lou Reed. Their contributions to modern music were often dismissed, ignored or maligned, but their willingness to look beyond traditional structure and sound provided a framework for younger musicians like Horist to follow. Dressed modestly in a white T-shirt and faded blue jeans, he sat beneath a white spotlight, at first soliciting a series of blips that evolved into a percussive flotilla reminiscent of a gamelan movement. Horist played prepared guitar, sticking objects between the strings and fretboard to help skew the instrument's usual sound, then embellishing with digital delay and other effects. His music pulled the listener in different directions; an ambient wash would emerge in the foreground only to give way to a sonic squall that either continued indefinitely or faded rapidly. In one segment Horist's hands twitched against the strings, evoking sustained swoops that suggested trucks speeding through a tunnel. Within the same composition, he plucked out a lilting, almost flowery melody with overtones of Arabic street music. Halfway through his set, Horist made a transition into a noisier, at times nightmarish, aesthetic with metallic blasts that grew to a humming intensity similar to a busy construction site. For the fifth and final selection, however, he removed the guitar from his lap and placed it string-side down on a flat-top stand. Using drumsticks, he tapped out a taut rhythm against the various surfaces around him, which he then sampled to provide a percussive backdrop to the culminating section. Positioning a metal yard stick between the strings and fretboard, Horist manipulated the ruler with one hand while bowing the strings with the other in a visual teeter-totter effect. At once entrancing and dissonant, his guitar became a vehicle for a beautifully complex instrumental music. Before starting his own set, Horist sat in for the closing composition by the Portland experimental guitar ensemble Improvised Munitions, consisting of Doug Theriault (Office Products, King Frog), Eric Ostrowski (King Frog, Noggin) and Mark France (Minus). The trio's opening piece fascinatingly contrasted improvised violin and effected electric guitar with classical guitar--with France quoting from Satie's haunting "Gymnopédies" and other familiar tunes on the acoustic instrument. These acts played as part of the weekly Aural Fixation, a 11?2-year-old series that showcases local and regional performers. The organization overseeing the events, Third Pyramid, recently compiled and released a tape of previous live performances from Aural Fixation, including songs by Eternal Golden Void, A nat HEMA, Office Products and others. Many of these acts opt for machine-generated sounds, but the appearance of Horist and Improvised Munitions Sunday night hints at the guitar's continued presence as a vital and still-challenging form of musical expression--experimental or otherwise. For the Kids: Despite the closure in the past year of Thee O, Suburbia, the Maul and Oak Street Arts Center, another all-ages venue is about to give it a whirl. Friday marks the opening of 17 Nautical Miles (4609 SE Woodstock Blvd., 771-2411), a 150-capacity club in a space that formerly housed a laundromat. Co-owners Todd Patrick and Erin Gordy are ex-Austinites who say they'll book local and touring bands playing anything from punk to indie pop to math rock (for information on the May 15 opening, see listings). As for the name, Patrick says that he and Gordy are devotees of all things sea-related, and that the term is used frequently on weather radio to warn boaters of oceanic conditions. Portland Postscript: A few local bands have latched onto high-profile summer tours. The Dandy Warhols and Sunset Valley will both trek from Vancouver, British Columbia, through a dozen or so states in support of England's Curve. Meanwhile, Elliott Smith has tagged Quasi to serve as his backing band when the singer-guitarist hits the road along with Beck and Ben Folds Five. |
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