MUD at Ern Malley Bar. 6 Jul 2024
The Ern Malley Bar in Stepney, which has become a vitally important venue for poetry readings and music and a meeting place for all kinds of creatives, hosted composer-performer Joseph Franklin’s residency in July.
In preparation for the 6 July performance to conclude his residency, Franklin, together with collaborator cellist David Moran, conducted a workshop on 4 July, in which they spoke about their approach to composition and performance. Franklin also indicated that he is from a working-class background and is concerned with the wealth disparity that affects the ability of budding musicians and composers to access training and resources and thus to progress their careers.
Franklin’s residency was conducted under the auspices of the MUD Collective which has been running performance events at Ancient World and Queen’s Theatre over the last three years. MUD Collective’s homepage indicates that:
“MUD: Improvisation and Extended Domains is an arts and culture collective supporting trans-disciplinary communities of artistic practice across conventional and unconventional domains.
“MUD exists to empower individuals and communities to improvise and experiment together, and in doing so, produce research, orchestrate events, make work and braid networks of care and support.”
Franklin and Moran’s 6 July performance involvedadditional collaborators — instrumentalist Gabriella Smart of Soundstream New Music, vocalist Tina Stefanou and poet Tadhg Porter-Cameron — in a loosely structured event. And what an event it was!
In introducing the first half of the event, David Moran indicated he was using a cello with the E string tuned to E flat and that around half the composition was notated and the rest improvised.
Initially performing solo, Moran explored all the possible sonic properties the cello possesses and played with the back of the bow and with fingers, palms and various objects. He treats the cello with great reverence, working with it as a partner rather than a tool, and at times the action borders on the erotic. In the absence of the kind of thematic development typical of classical music and jazz, one listens to every tiny sound, and every gesture becomes important. You relearn to listen.
Franklin then joined in on his six-string semi-acoustic electric bass guitar, using a variety of objects including a vibrator, inserting pieces of carboard between the strings, and using capos to create a range of tunings and sonic effects.
There is an art to such improvisation in framing microtonal and chromatic motives and phrases, using extended playing techniques, shifting tempos and arhythmic passages to create novel effects, and working all these into a coherent and expressive musical language. Franklin and Moran bounce off each other to weave an absorbing sonic tapestry.
After playing for around twenty minutes, this duo was joined by Tina Stefanou, whose vocalisations transformed their performance and created a remarkable sound world. In her webpage she refers to her vocal work as ‘embodied’ and as ‘voice in the expanded field.’
Responding to Moran and Franklin’s sound palette, Tina Stefanou’s improvised contribution included everything from hissing, growling and humming to passages of operatic mezzo soprano singing, recalling such vocalists as Cathy Berberian and Meredith Monk. (The legend of Cabaret Voltaire and the vocal work of Dadaists Hugo Ball and Kurt Schwitters also leap to mind.)
Such performance demands focussed listening by the audience, and one feels as much as hears the sound, as the resonances are so important. The lack of developmental order in the music means that you cannot predict what will come next — motivic material appears and disappears or evolves into something else. You experience sound differently and you also experience the physicality of the performers.
After the interval, this trio was joined firstly by Gabriella Smart, using her electric crystal, which comprises a set of closely microphoned, microtonally-tuned glass rods that she rubs with moistened fingers to produce singing, humming and droning sounds. As this performance unfolded, it became much more complex sonically and structurally.
The four were then joined by poet Tadhg Porter-Cameron, known for his passionately stentorian denunciations of capitalism, the class structure, Adelaide’s conservatism, war and every other undesirable manifestation of human society. His darkly comic recitation included such memorable lines as “The dole is a state of mind — double the dole and double my mind”, and “There is no god in Edwardstown!”, with the audience joining in.
The most riveting element of this forty-minute performance was the to-and-fro interplay between Porter-Cameron’s declamation of the ills of society and Stefanou’s mesmerising vocalisation that deconstructed the very idea of intelligible speech in an intensely performative, intuitive and experimentally musical way. As the performance became more theatrical and more political, it became quite overwhelming.
Franklin’s resultant ‘composition’ thus involves not only the development and realisation of a musical score, but also the orchestration of an event involving the interaction of several performers that evolves out of that score, working with collaborators to allow their musical and theatrical voices to become part of the composition.
Joseph Franklin’s concert was immensely successful and signals a significant development in composition and performance.
Chris Reid
When: 6 July 2024
Where: Ern Malley Bar
Bookings: Closed
