Looping show: Glen Kotche and Nels Cline solo/duo

[improv@peak.org]

Saw a pretty amazing show with much looping Saturday night at The Doug Fir
in Portland. Started with Cline solo, heavy use of his EH 16 sec delay, he
is an absolute master of that pedal. His set varied between between
Merzbow-scale noise and some very pretty melodic guitar playing. The thing
that always amazes me about Cline is that he can alternate between such
extremes and it never seems forced or trite. Also, even when he is doing
extreme noise, it's still nuanced, he seems to be able to pull an amazing
range of noise from his guitar and effects.

The real surprise, for me at least, was Kotche's solo set. I know him only
from his and Cline's "day gig", the band Wilco, and while I respect the
band and what they have been through over the years, I'm not really a fan.
But Kotche delivered one of the most amazing and musically satisfying solo
drum kit sets I've ever seen! His kit was augmented with an electric
kalimba, a set of small amplified gongs and bells, and I believe a
celeste. I couldn't tell what he was looping with, I was too far from the
stage to see. One of the things tht made his show so satisfying was that
he was playing compositions, both his own and some from surprising
sources. He played Steve Reich's Clapping Music, by looping the original
rhythm played as a melody on kalimba, and then playing the
variations/displacements against it on drum kit. I wouldn't have
recognized the piece if he hadn't announced it afterwards, the minimal
melody of the kalimba loop gave it a very different quality from the
original. The biggest surprise was his solo drumkit transcription of the
Balinese Ramayana Monkey Chant. When he announced the piece, there was a
lot of laughter in the audience, but I'm pretty familiar with the
Monkeychant, and he was actually playing it! He used different springs and
gongs, amplified by his snare, to represent the various characters, and
then played the full chant, the "chak chak chak" part that most people
should know, as a groove on the kit. It approached metal intensity, and
amazing performance. I've seen a lot of solo drum shows, Tony Oxley,
Andrew Cyrille, Joey Baron and others, but Kotche's was among the best.

The duet portion was very cool as well. One piece was a simple, slow, open
D strum against a minimal drum groove that reminded me a lot of Crazy
Horse. Cline and Kotche were clearly having a lot of fun, and it was
contagious.

I was also pleasantly surprised at the turnout for the show, the Doug Fir,
one of Portlands trendiest hangs, was packed. I imagine a lot of the crowd
came out because of the Wilco connection, but they stayed for the music
and seemed genuinely entertained by some very non-mainstream music. It was
a great show, and I highly recommend checking it out.




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