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[WARPbot] Aphex Twin: Remote Orchestra show at The Barbican, London

Joyrex

By Joyrex
in Aphex Twin

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mcbpete Grand Master

mcbpete

Posted
Posted

Sounds good, I wonder if they're playing that stuff tonight as well. Have you checked out -

 

 

It starts off [a little too, for me] wild but at 40 seconds it all comes together brilliantly.

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Guest Masonic Boom

Guest Masonic Boom

Posted
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If you were one of the blokes in the front row who let me read Aphex's "sheet music" then thank you so much.

 

(I am really really hoping that scans/photos of that turn up online somewhere because they were awesome.)

 

The pendulum piano was jaw-dropping. Was that actually the Drukqs piano?

 

But the thing with the lasers and the disco balls and the feedback... I want that in my brain forever. I wanted them to come back onstage and do it all over again, honestly, that could have gone on all night and I would have been perfectly happy.

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mcbpete Grand Master

mcbpete

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Hey that was nice - Sat in front of some bloody numpties (in fact I felt an overwhelming sense of schadenfreude after the first half when they were utterly baffled and disappointed about wasting their money, saying they were waiting for it to 'drop' at some point, one of whom were expecting it to be like 'Bucephalus Bouncy Balls' - a track which "Samples a whole load of those Newton clicky things")

 

The first half was the Remote Control orchestra as seen on his Poland performance. If I had any criticism of this section it was that the choir section didn't really nail the transitions between dynamics as well as the strings - they seemed to either be loud or quiet with little inbetween. There was also one vocalist a little too loud (and I think, not 100% sure due to the semi-atonal nature of the performance) slightly out of tune ruining some of the harmonics. I think I pretty much nailed all aspects of the on-screen display, so much so that with a bit of knowledge of Max/msp and a decent string & choir VST I could probably create a midi controlled recreation of the set with not much hassle.

 

The second half was split into two sections. The first was very much unexpected to me (any I think most of the audience), there was a piano on stage (well a Yamaha Clavinova) that slowly suddenly started swinging left-to-right like a pendulum and as it built up so momentum individual notes of a broken chord started, with each swing an additional note was added to the chord until it was a beautiful arpeggiated thing that reminded me a bit of William Basinski's Melancholia. Obviously as it swung the notes caused a naturally panning and resonance and it was over far too soon for my liking. I think something might have cocked up as when it 'finished' the chord that each note was being played in the arpeggio just came out of nowhere, which I'm pretty sure wasn't meant to happen

 

The final section of the second half had about 6 people come on stage who each swang two (what looked very much like) disco balls, on this mini pendulum structure. At the base of the structure I think was a sensor, next to which also shot out a laser beam upwards - the sensor (I'm guessing this is what happened) then detected when the disco ball crossed the sensor and let out a brief sinusoidal-like feedback (kind of like when you put a mic to a speaker). I'm not sure if each sensor had it's own frequency or that it reacted to the speed at which the ball passed but either way it started off with a range of frequency feedback sounds (kind of like Florian Hecker) that slowly descended into bass and sub-bass rhythmical drones. It also looked ace as when the laser hit the disco balls it then reflected all over the auditorium - It was like falling inside a level of Rez, I bet those that thought to indulge in chemicals before hand had they entire brain melting at that point.

 

Finally Mr. James gave two big thumbs up to the audience and buggered off.

 

In conclusion - A little scatty in places, some great ideas (and a lovely little piano performance), had a laser show that beats any 3d film hands down, and idiots remain idots.

 

(I'm going to live on the edge and not proof read what I wrote, I bet it's nonsense)

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Guest frankbank

Guest frankbank

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second half was fucking amazing, first half sounded excellent at some points but perhaps a bit over my head. the piano piece was incredible

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