Sinewaves
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Sinewaves
Here is the review of the first concert from the band!
Sinewaves @ The Orsett Cock on
This review contains a collection of thoughts, impressions and comments about the concert and was assembled by yours truly, the Nutty French Woman…
Sinewaves: 4 men, 4 keyboards, wires and leads everywhere, a pc… Yamaha, Technics, Apple Mac and Roland + Mike Parrott, Lee Linley, Gordon Shears and Keith Upton…
Their first live concert at The Orsett Cock Pub on
First impressions: Margaret’s experience of her first contact with the world of technology:
“I asked one of the group what this square box was and he said “pass your hand over it….”
Well! It shrilled at me and I jumped a foot! I made the whole place laugh!!”
The first piece, Sequence 3, was an improvised number initiated by Mike Parrott and you could nearly hear the rain drops fall although it was sunny outside… “The sounds they made were very uplifting”, I quote from Mag’s little notebook.
The second composition was from Gordon Shears himself: Moon Madness he calls it…Well I don’t know about the moon but according to Margaret the sea wasn’t far…
They kicked off the second part of the concert with one of their regular anthems called OOBY ( Out On Blue Yonder)… Now don’t ask me what this woman in the sample was on about because I’m only French, I don’t come from another planet… Anyhow, it gave a mysterious and eerie feel to this transparent composition, which left a lot of room for our minds to wander in alien worlds…
I think this is what I liked most when I heard Sinewaves for the first time last August: the idea that listeners can enter their own world and create the images they feel like producing at the time…
During that particular piece, you could wonder what this woman, who became a man in the end, was on about; or you could just forget about finding out and leave the mystery intact… “The little box was used a lot…”, noticed Margaret.
A German Folk Song with a jivy twist came next and got our youngest listener clapping ( 20 months old and good taste in music already!)… I thought Margaret was going to ask me to take her for a spin on the dance floor but she was too busy writing her own impressions about the gig!
This was refreshing and light and nearly made Lee smile!
“Oh I liked that one!” said Margaret as she was clapping at the end…
Lee Linley
Cue the Indian Woman: a mystery title for secret languages… Mike couldn’t even translate it into French for me!…We were definitely off to
The following piece (Elbow Greece) we could play in our gardens for it started with a million birds singing before moving towards a darker feel… The boys were looking at each other? Improvisation requires communication… Mike said he needed warm fingers for this particular one. He was leading the way and I had my eyes glued to Lee, Keith and Gordon to see how the others were going to respond to his call… It was so subtle and swift that I never got a clue!
Then the wind started blowing from one the machines just as the sun went down outside and I forgot all about finding anything out about who was doing what as I was too wrapped up in the whole atmosphere…
A new experience for Margaret’s mind too, she seems to have written down…
Sequence 22 got Mike to find out something wasn’t working… It wasn’t a UFO but Mike had to put his sun glasses on…didn’t he look cool?! A touch of the hand on his special sound machine and we were off to another world again… after taking off we were definitely gliding happily guided by Gordon’s subtle melody lines… And here comes the smoke machine adding to the already surreal set… Knowing all of this was improvised you can’t help wondering if the next sound comes to their fingers just when it comes to our minds?
This, to me had a more techno music feel and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find it on some Belgian DJ’s desks as background for one of his hard-core sessions... especially as it grew and developed a more bassy sound near the end…
Astra: the name of the next piece. Not an improvised one this time we were told… “Stand by for the drive of your life”! said Mike
Here again Mike was assisted by Gordon’s clever tunes, Keith’s weird noises and was Lee actually driving that one? No! I was recently told Gordon was driving that one!
Gordon Shears
Lee was certainly driving the Fiesta 1.4 LX which opened the last part of the concert… “Ford signature tune” whispered Margaret… Maybe they should use it for one of their ads?… Such a catchy tune, the kind that brings peace in your heart… It had a more “pop music” resonance with a near to disco beat springing up from time to time; I definitely saw the audience tapping and humming to that one… Very nice guys! Jean- Michel Jarre can eat his heart out!
The next number was started by Margaret just to prove it was improvised completely from the start… our young friend Charlie thought it was hilarious… kung fu fighting? Hypnotic from the start it got spiced up by another spasm of well thought-out bongos while our 4 artistes seemed completely wrapped up in productive mode… There again, it was evident that Gordon’s fingers always find the right keys to press and add the most welcome notes to each hypnotic lines…
I was wondering what he was signing to the other 3 when the song finished! The end evidently…
Lee started the last piece… waves… the right key?... pretend it never happened…
This was a well-known piece called “Albatross “ and I’m finally noticing Gordon’s crazy frog!
“This isn't music, This is high-frequency sinewaves music”, read the sign Mike was holding whilst playing…
The encore was another improvised piece… “anything could happen” warned Mike…Galloping horses on that one? According to Owen and Margaret: “Yes!” Then we were going to space… the smoke was there! Where was this going to land us? Air raid war sirens!… Now I’m getting worried! “The police are coming!” laughed Mag… All is fine: Keith and Lee were smiling!
Keith Upton
It can’t have been that scary, little Charlie was dancing to it…
The cavalry is coming we all thought suddenly before it all calmed down and became a lovely neo-classical piano tune… magic-fingered Gordon had done it again! ...
Here are a few comments from the audience gathered at the end as they were leaving:
Christine: “Charlie loved it!”
Kay :” The raffle was a fix!”
Clive thought the concert was good because he likes that sort of music.
Jasmine also thought the concert was brilliant because she won a box of chocolates and as Mike kept saying it was all made up, she thinks they all did very well!!
Mark Reed: “Very very good and different . Should have left albatross out though ( guitar piece)… being a guitar player I’m a bit biased…” It reminded him of Depeche Mode early times:”…except that with the help of modern technology they can do so much more nowadays…”, he added. His favourite piece was Astra.
Jim Kirkwood: great fun! Let’s have a lot more… his favourite moments were sequence 22, cue the Indian woman and… He also enjoyed the last piece…
It looks like this could be the first of many occasions then, when we all sit down, open our minds to different ways of appreciating music and share this unique experience…
I tried to keep this review as spontaneous as possible to echo to the fact that it was mainly an improvised concert.
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