Smoo Cave, Durness, 23 June 2006

John Butcher.

THE FLAPPING MAKESHIFT SIGN at the cliff edge above Smoo cave read “long way avoids stepping stones’. Not sure of what we were about to experience, but having heard that one of the performers makes music from pebbles, some of us – a ragbag of locals, artsfolk and curious tourists – considered this remark for hidden meanings, before descending to the cavern below, inevitably coming a cropper on the stream flowing fast into the sea, and the precarious rocks that cross it.

An appropriate introduction to the Resonant Spaces tour, which foregrounds the environment in which musicians perform. Tonight’s concert, curated by Barry Esson of Arika, was to be the latest in this year’s excellent series of Scottish Arts Council Tune Up pairings (Bill Wells and Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Will Oldham and Harem Scarem, to name but two).

Coming straight from a disused oil tank on Hoy to a dank cave in Durness, the night featured two artists who work directly with the acoustic properties of a space. Akio Suzuki is a Japanese musician and instrument maker, famed for performing music by throwing junk down a staircase. Tonight’s set was altogether more delicate. Emerging from the second chamber behind us he blew a pebble whistle as he crossed the stream to the ‘stage’, then swapped it for a glorified pair of tin cans on a string.

With the aid of an assistant, he stretched the instrument across the stream, singing into one can then scraping his hand across the connecting wire. Without electric amplification, a haunting reverberating ambient sound was formed, with hints of a melody coming from Akio’s falsetto musings. Finally he took timpani mallets to a minimalist glockenspiel, before rubbing water over the metal keys to produce a clear tone of sound.

As a riposte to this achingly beautiful first half, English saxophonist John Butcher hit us where it hurts with a loud, angry amplified set, drowning out the sounds of kids dashing across the stream. Saxophone always sounds best when it sounds least like saxophone (hmmm, bit of a contentious claim – Ed), and the range of groans, shrieks and rumbles Butcher produced was astounding.

The set reached an extraordinary climax with Butcher manipulating feedback with the keys of the instrument, then blowing into it to create a quite different but simultaneous sound, the two combining to fill the cave with a majestic and terrifying noise.

Finally the two joined to perform a duet, Akio wading through the stream in gumboots, tapping pebbles together to produce subtly varying percussive tones, whilst Butcher kept pace with him, stepping gingerly along the bank emitting staccato grunts and the occasionally melodious yelp.

Though not quite the community event imagined in the publicity – instead of the promised bonfire and barbecue we got pre-packaged sarnies at canny prices – this was a memorable performance and a brave concept, which abandoned the conventions of live music to bring to the north coast an undeniably unique experience.

© Matt Lloyd, 2006

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