Judith Wright Centre             Thu Dec 13  

Exploring the sonic characteristics of the guitar as a thing rather than a musical instrument, Candlesnuffer (a.k.a. Dave Brown) uses a host of attachments to tap, buzz, scrape, twist and snap at the piece of wood and strings in his lap. The result is something akin to walking down those dark hallways in horror games, or the sounds the leaky pipes in your mind make when all your other thoughts quieten down.

Chris Abrahams’ solo piano piece begins with a noir-ish blues prologue before collapsing to a stormy low lumber. Gradually Abrahams adds subtle licks of brightness, slowly pulling the piece out from the dark towards a beautiful crescendo. Foot firmly on the sustain pedal he layers a deluge of harmonics, which so permeate the grand instrument, resonating fiercely with the scores of strings, that it sounds as if Abrahams has a quartet accompaniment. His piece then moves away from the wall of resonance to a more skittish flutter about the keys that sounds like a flock of toy helicopters.

The two artists’ joint performance is less successful than their solo efforts. While the coupling of Candlesnuffer’s guitar meddling and Abrahams’ distant and paranoid piano is complemental, the chemistry doesn’t appear to be working; Brown doesn’t seem comfortable enough with the pairing to do much adventuring and Abrahams appears to be just going through the motions. The set ends with each looking at the other wondering if they should keep going.

PAUL RANKIN

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