From: hsu@sp24.csrd.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu)
Subject: LA improv: Anna Homler, Fat & Fucked Up
Organization: Univ of Illinois, Center for Supercomputing R&D, Urbana, IL
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 00:55:40 GMT


Some stuff I saw in LA:

Anna Homler & Frederick Moore/Fat and Fucked Up at LACE

Got there late, but caught the last 30 mins or so of "The Falling",
a "work in progress". It's easy to dismiss Homler as yet another
female extended vocalist. She's not as pyrotechnically exciting as
Shelley Hirsch or Diamanda Galas. What distinguishes her (to me)
is the effective use of texts. And she makes excellent and tasteful
musical decisions, working with minimal gestures materials where
Hirsch might simply launch into another (albeit impressive) routine.
Just compare them on the Direct Sound CD on Intakt (5 vocalists
including Greetje Bijma, Carles Santos and David Moss).

The first half was mostly Moore reading poetry (very effectively) with
Homler commenting on the proceedings over a backing tape of quiet
synthesized sounds and music. Homler also has several sections where
she is the lone lead voice using by now familiar extended vocal 
techniques. All elements of the piece are very well-integrated,
and I didn't get the mechanical feel of a lot of pieces with similar
setups (live vocals over tapes.) 

Unfortunately the sound was just uneven enough that some of the
texts were difficult to understand. The Falling is rather heavily
text-based, and I'm not very good and textually dense pieces in live
situations.

The second half is more impressive. Homler is the only live performer.
She scrapes on a homemade "violin", and plays a number of "little
instruments" (including many kitchen appliances), over a backing tape.
This section plays perfectly to her strengths: restraint, sensitivity
and effective use of limited material. The taped sounds and visuals
remind me of early Laurie Anderson, but Homler is a much better improviser
and musician. (By the way, a friend just picked up a castoff Synclavier II
and showed me all the presets that Laurie Anderson used. Yeah I know she's
more interesting as a conceptual artist, but it made me lose a little
respect for her as a musician.) The entire performance was warm, sensitive
and accessible, with enough of an edge that it doesn't degenerate into
pleasant mush.

Overheard at the half: "That was weird." "She stutters a lot."

Fat and Fucked Up is an "avant chamber improv" outfit, basically
whoever's playing with violinist Josie Roth that day. This incantation
had violinist/vocalist, cellist, French horn player, a woman on
clarinet/bass clarinet/vocals, bassist and organist. When I talked
to Roth later, she agreed that it was an exceptional show for them,
but unfortunately no tape was made. A tape wouldn't have captured
the visuals anyway: the bassist running across the stage dragging
and scraping his bass on the floor, or a sombre march would be on
and a roll of toilet paper or a chair would fly across the stage.

As might be expected from the lineup, it's very easy for this
group to sink into muddy improv soup, but they managed to avoid
that most of the time. The organ was worked with foot pedals and
not amplified, which helped not to muddy up the texture. This
also meant you can't hear the organ a lot. Roth is an excellent
musician, spinning ecstatic atonal Berg-ian melodies or ripping
away on vocals through an effects box. The cellist and bassist
were equally versatile and careful improvisers (the bassist even got
out the mallets to lead an African percussion jam). Most of the
pieces were based on a strong but flexible pulse; the tempo can
be pushed by either the rhythm players or the soloists. (The group
responded so quickly in a few instances that it's hard to believe
they just play together casually.) Most of the material has the
twisted classical flavor of that jaundiced decaying romaticism of
the 2nd Viennese School. The pieces that worked best usually had
the group separate into a rhythm section and a lead section of
2 or more players, creating interesting transparent textures
that maintain a precarious balance. 

Anna Homler joined the group for the last piece, a pleasant enough
jam, but both violinist and clarinetist decided to switch to vocals
and didn't really leave Homler a lot of space to work in. (They both
turned in excellent performances tho.) Homler is generally not very
assertive in these situations (again, check out the Direct Sound CD), 
but her contributions were tasteful and effective.

I'm supposed to get a tape sometime from Josie Roth, but they didn't
seem very organized (or ambitious), so I'm not holding my breath.

Bill