Nathan Davis, a drummer and DJ who performs tomorrow at the Nanhai Gallery (南海藝廊), was enjoying an experimental concert at last November's City on the Move Art Festival when he overheard the following discussion.
Guy: "I mean, what am I supposed to do with this?"
Girl: "You just have to kind of let go and don't think about it."
PHOTO COURTESY OF JO HUANG
Guy: "Yeah, but I just don't get it."
Girl: "I don't think you're supposed to get it."
A lot of people have probably been having similar conversations recently in Taipei, home to a growing sound art community and festivals like City Fables, Weather in My Brain (腦天氣影音藝術季) and last weekend's TranSonic at the Guling Street Avant-Garde Theatre (牯嶺街小劇場).
The scene thrives to a large degree because of city and central government funding for the arts - not ticket or album sales. While some practitioners like electronica collective KbN (凱比鳥) and pop star-turned-DJ Lim Giong (林強) might make what the ordinary listener would call "music," there's a lot of stuff going on - such as putting microphones in water and sampling the sound lights make - that most people would just register as "noise."
"I guess it's like a lot of things," says Davis, who sat down for an interview Wednesday night at Salt Peanuts cafe in the Shida (師大) neighborhood, where he deejays on Friday nights. "You probably really like it or you really don't."
Tomorrow's show, called Meditations, could serve as a useful introduction for anyone who wants to learn more about sound art or experimental music. It's also a good excuse to get acquainted with the Nanhai Gallery, which hosts avant-garde performances in a cafe-like setting on Friday and Saturday nights. The gallery serves inexpensive coffee, tea and Heineken, and is a short walk from The Source bar.
Also at Nanhai tomorrow, Andre van Rensburg, a South African alternative musician-turned professional avant-garde composer, will play a live solo set with an acoustic guitar.
"Anything bizarre, mystical and out of the ordinary attracts me," Van Rensburg writes under the Influences section of his MySpace page. His music, he says, sounds like "John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Arvo Part, John Cage, David Lynch, Derek Bailey, Marcel Duchamp, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Gorecki, Harry Partch, the world around you, ancient music, future music, industrial spaces … ."
Davis - who has also played with KbN and visiting musicians like Austin, Texas, world music group Atash - will do an acoustic set using a djembe hand drum and, possibly, a drum kit and/or some "random objects." He will improvise on the drums and run the beats through his Macbook Pro laptop computer. It's hard to describe exactly what this will sound like without using abstract words like "textural," "dynamic" and "Minimalist."
"I'm going to basically sample myself live," says Davis, who performs under the name (Sounds) In Transition. "Most people who didn't know what it was would probably use the word 'weird' to describe it."
So what is the uninitiated listener supposed to do?
"As lame and cliched as it sounds, I guess just experience this."
Nanhai Gallery is located near the CKS Memorial Hall MRT station. Leave from exit number 2, then walk west on Nanhai Road (南海路) past a Starbucks and a police station. Lane 19 will be on your right.
Last week the State Department made several small changes to its Web information on Taiwan. First, it removed a statement saying that the US “does not support Taiwan independence.” The current statement now reads: “We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side. We expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to the people on both sides of the Strait.” In 2022 the administration of Joe Biden also removed that verbiage, but after a month of pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), reinstated it. The American
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus convener Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) and some in the deep blue camp seem determined to ensure many of the recall campaigns against their lawmakers succeed. Widely known as the “King of Hualien,” Fu also appears to have become the king of the KMT. In theory, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) outranks him, but Han is supposed to be even-handed in negotiations between party caucuses — the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) says he is not — and Fu has been outright ignoring Han. Party Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) isn’t taking the lead on anything while Fu
Feb 24 to March 2 It’s said that the entire nation came to a standstill every time The Scholar Swordsman (雲州大儒俠) appeared on television. Children skipped school, farmers left the fields and workers went home to watch their hero Shih Yen-wen (史艷文) rid the world of evil in the 30-minute daily glove puppetry show. Even those who didn’t speak Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) were hooked. Running from March 2, 1970 until the government banned it in 1974, the show made Shih a household name and breathed new life into the faltering traditional puppetry industry. It wasn’t the first
US President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs on semiconductor chips has complicated Taiwan’s bid to remain a global powerhouse in the critical sector and stay onside with key backer Washington, analysts said. Since taking office last month, Trump has warned of sweeping tariffs against some of his country’s biggest trade partners to push companies to shift manufacturing to the US and reduce its huge trade deficit. The latest levies announced last week include a 25 percent, or higher, tax on imported chips, which are used in everything from smartphones to missiles. Taiwan produces more than half of the world’s chips and nearly all
RSS