BRÖTZMANN & LEIGH / HALFTONE | LIVE REVIEW
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Mon 9 Sept
Halftone, four women based in Bristol, are debuting in Cardiff this evening, and find an appreciative audience in Chapter where a respectable crowd has gathered for headliners Brötzmann & Leigh. Minimalist in their approach, the three stringed instruments (double bass, cello and violin) are treated as canvasses for rhythm at times, wooden bodies resonating and gut clashing against neck as a flute cuts through with a few snaky excursions. Sometimes the quartet drop to near-silence and dare you to listen closer, neither party knowing where they’ll go next. Halftone look very serious while playing, but there’s a pleasing – almost cartoonish – sonic levity to their clonks, creaks and trills.
Peter Brötzmann and Heather Leigh exhibit a drily droll wit in their mode of performance, too. A duo playing, respectively, saxophone and clarinet (Brötzmann being a veritable, and venerable, gamechanger in the evolution of free jazz) and pedal steel guitar, both musicians employ noise and dissonance, their playing feeding off each other’s generation of the same. At no point, though, do Brötzmann or Leigh outwardly acknowledge their partner during the 40 minutes or so under the spotlights. We’re left to consider a deep psychic connection surpassing the need for cues – and to get whacked by the waves of gnarly tone.
There’s no easing in with these two, Brötzmann charging straight into obscene bouts of skronky muscle-flexing as Leigh subjects her instrument to fuzzy clouds of free rockin’ distortion. Streets away from the clean, mournful sound more commonly associated with the pedal steel – figuratively dressing it in shades and a leather jacket, much like the ones she actually is wearing – the Texan folk experimentalist can calm the sound down when required, conjuring a fine haunted-desert atmosphere on what I think is It’s Almost Dark as Brötzmann gives his inhuman lungs their latest workout. The German veteran doesn’t supply aggression for the sake of aggression, it should be clarified: great physicality in an unusually low register, sure, but respectful to the fundamentals of jazz, with moments of eerie contemplation.
The duo conclude and Leigh departs backstage to applause, whereupon Brötzmann is approached by a gentleman not too much younger than he. This turns out to be performance artist Mike Pearson, who joins the saxophonist for an unamplified quasi-encore: Pearson delivering a biblically dramatic monologue as Brötzmann roars along in implied approval. A nice linkup: an elder statesman of Welsh experimental art and two globetrotting exemplars of the form in Wales for what I believe is their first time.
words and photos NOEL GARDNER