Recorded live in New York in April 2010, this recording sees vocalist Jennifer Walshe and sound poet Tomomi Adachi come together to form a duo performing sound poetry centered around extended vocal techniques. Make no mistake this is sound poetry in the Kurt Schwitters or Antonin Artaud sense of the phrase, and if those names mean something to you then you might get something out of this release. If they don’t then it’s likely you’ll raise your eyebrows in confusion five minutes in to the first track.
While this is a live recording, there is no real sense audience presence here, and the fact that each recording is simply named ‘Track 01’ and ‘Track 02’ seems to suggest that these pieces are largely improvised. 15 minutes in length, the first track consists of the two vocalists bouncing off one another, creating evolving forms of gibberish and half-caught vocal sounds. This interplay is engaging for much of its duration, working up into frenzied bursts of explosive vocal percussion, creating an almost comically Beckettian outline of human communication.
The second track has a running time of 40 minutes and its here that it all starts to wear a bit thin. The second track introduces Tomomi Adachi’s electronics, mostly noisy synth bursts and squeals, while Jennifer Walshe responds vocally. There is some creative interplay between these two elements, but instead of coming together to create a coherent piece of music, they sit somewhat uncomfortably with one another. Up until about the 15 minute mark Adachi’s noise becomes more and more engaging, while Walshe’s vocalizations gradually become more and more uninteresting, without much respite for the rest of the performance. While there are interesting parts of this track, its running time makes them difficult to digest and enjoy, causing what should be a tight composition to sound meandering, which results in the listener becoming disengaged from the performance at the points that should be most intriguing.
The biggest problem with this release is that there is just much more interesting music of this style available, which inevitably limits the appeal of seeking out Live @ WKCR. This sort of live vocal performance tends to be most engaging in the flesh, and so a recording is going to come into some stiff competition with other, more composed releases. For those that are are interested in wading through and analysing contemporary dadaist sound poetry, this release will keep you occupied for a while. For anyone with a passing interest in the genre, there are more important recordings out there to explore first.
Sam Gillies
