At the end of the performance, the audience was all abuzz on how “different” this show was. One sound engineer and musician even remarked, “In all my years here in Lubbock, I have never heard or seen anything like this.” What was it about Tatsuya Nakatani’s “frenetic solo percussion” that set off such a proclamation of novelty? It made me think on what sounds would be accustomed to make one hear and then proclaim, “Yup, that’s Lubbock!” If sound and music have the power to transport us, where did we end up after the performance?
The performance was set up in one of the spaces at the Charles Addams Studio Project. I have been in Lubbock in less than seven months and I have been to the area only thrice, but I can surmise that the spaces are near areas of industrial activity which perfectly segued to the opening act of Satin Spar. One of the musicians, before starting the performance, muttered that they come from the “area” then adds the “ish” after; making it as if they are in the place but not of the place. Which is highly indicative of their music, they are in the realm of sound, but not of the traditional notions of music as entertainment. It is interesting to note that both performances delved into the feelings, into the motions, into the sounds of place. Not quite space, for that would connote containment and parameters. These two performances did not respect cartography and we were all relegated into an “area…ish” of sonic experiences.
Satin Spar basically had two men go up front and produced sounds that were manipulated by multiple synthesizers. It could not be truly experimental because one of the musicians used a trumpet, but the sounds produced went beyond the recognizable, nay, expected and pleasant, easily digestible. The sounds they produced are familiar – these are cacophonic overlapping of the sounds of cities punctured by video games and cartoons sound effects. I was later told that the performance hinged on how the synthesizers “conversed” with one another. This is quite interesting for the sounds of the frenzy of the urban centers not just converse with each other, but feed off each other clamoring for your attention and, yes, irritation. I come from a city of 20 million people and from a capital where silence is literally golden or an attribute of privilege. The shanties of Manila are brimming with sound, some say noise, where people live in shacks that are smashing to each other cheek by jowl. In Manila, hushed conversations and whispers are uprooted when the currency is space, which many cannot afford it. When I first set foot in Lubbock, the first thing I noticed was the sound of expanse. Perhaps, this is what people in Lubbock were saying about not used to these sounds. The music produced by Satin Spar are waves of industrial activities that are relentless ergo belying Lubbock’s almost fragile sleepiness compared to the bigger cities where these sounds are inherent as they are expected. The sounds punctuate what it would be like to be inside a machine where there is no exit. The way synthesizers had conversations with each other were enabled by the musicians twisting the knobs and flicking the switches – such acts belong to a factory which is perfect for this meditation and mediation of urban foment. In contrast, I am reminded of the Icelandic singer Bjork’s Medulla album which has been marked as both great and experimental when it was released for its ambitious take on the dexterity of the human voice machine. Satin Spar extended the conversation and used the voice machine to do a very human act which is to converse with each other.
After Satin Spar, it was Tatsuya Nakatani’s turn and he was the sun in the center of the solar system of drums, snares, gongs, cymbals, and East Asian purification bowls. That would be an apt description because Satin Spar offered a look into industry and urban ministrations, but Nakatani’s sounds overlap majesty, nature, and ritual for the next thirty minutes. With the giant flat-faced gong used typically in announcing the arrival of royalty in East Asia, Nakatani managed to pull from this orb many sounds while he used a bow to do saw-like gestures in one hand, handling the rope that secures the gong in another. With deft precision, he managed to wrangle sounds that are unearthly and, yet, familiar, particularly to somebody like me who grew up in East Asian culture. We grew up with stories of the gong summoning dragons, spirits, or a way to placate the space with its reverberations that travel across the room. Nakatani turned the gong into something that was more akin to summoning winds, for the cluster of his performance reminded me of the sounds of a typhoon ripping apart roofs and lifting debris with such ferocity and yet you could still make out the wind chimes tinkering playfully amidst such destruction.
Mostly throughout his performance, Nakatani had his eyes closed and you could see his brow having a sheen of sweat coagulating with the music he produced. This was both hard work and meditation, which has been hilariously classified as “emptying of the mind.” That is not quite accurate, for in many Eastern cultures, the emptying of the mind is not an eradication of identity but a dissolution of desire, which in Nakatani’s music is about being responsive as opposed to be being utterly calculating. The sounds he mounted each provided for a setting up for the next cluster of sounds which is like a building up on clouds as to prepare to let go the driving rain. He would toss the many sized cymbals onto the top of the drum as he used the edge of said cymbals to skim off the skin. The most interesting part for me was when Nakatani used the ceremonial purification bowls and upended them. He would toss the smaller bowls into the bigger bowl and roll them creating this frenetic sound of panic. I find it interesting because these purification bowls are held in high regard in many Eastern superstition. We “activate” charms, crystals, amulets placed in the bowl as a rod is then struck at the side while it then touches the lip of the bowl elongating the sound. This is the purification ritual, a calling onto the spirits to give the crystals, amulet their power. And, yet, Nakatani collapsed the bowls into each other and was shaking them, dislodging the notion of purity.
My friend Eric later said that the clanging of the cymbals and gongs reminded him of a kitchen with the pots and pans collapsing on top of each other.I told him it reminded me of days in Manila when we are hit by typhoons; the power is out, no network coverage and it is just you in the room with the windows shuttered and you can feel the outside shake with such fury.And that is what Nakatani’s brilliant performance was, a fury that understood its own containment.In such fervent moves that is reminiscent of the whirling dervishes, Nakatani entered a place wherein we are witness to the occurrence but not quite inside such a place with him.I have heard from classmates in philosophy about “entering the zone.”This is Nakatani’s zone now and many of the audience are transported to such an unfamiliar place that some of us are left reeling after and thus one could hear proclamations of “I have never seen or heard anything like it.”True, I do not think Lubbock has had a typhoon.That was Nakatani’s piece exactly: a force of nature.