John Moran...and his neighbor, Saori

Yesterday I went to see a music/theatre performance called "John Moran... and his neighbor, Saori" performed by the duo of that name at Soho Theatre in London, and it blew me away!  How to describe it? Well, there was sound, music, movement, drama and comedy. One thing is for sure: if you like sound, you'll benefit from hearing John Moran! 

What I heard was lots of 'found sounds' used to make rather sophisticated music, musical structures that ran in and out of each other, and narrative that was making a social commentary behind a fog of complete DaDa. Your experience may vary! If I let my visual senses back in to the picture I can tell you that the piece was also made of beautifully intricate choreography from both performers, with stunningly evocative movement and expression from Soari. I really don't know how much of the show was improvised because they played with the choreography and things seeming random when in fact harmonious repetition indicated you should not trust your initial assumptions. The narrative seems disconnected, but the experience felt like it was a journey (destination Newfound Sound via 'throat singing and falsetto in the same sentence').

On to the sound! The experience was really very ear opening. Sound was used as music, but to a much greater depth than I've heard before: it wasn't just a case of sampling or setting music to 'found sound', there seemed to be a much greater democracy between the notions of sound and music. For example, there were compositions that had traditional instrumentation with human-noise based instruments woven in with consummate musical gesture (just to qualify my phrase 'human-noise', I mean machines, voices etc). This made a soundscape that had pleasant harmonic foundation which would musically sooth, but then you found yourself listening to the sound of the city as much as any traditional instruments. The connection between life, sound and music was highlighted for me.

Not only was sound used as music, but music was used as sound - other pieces emphasised traditional musical values less than the one I described above. If I think back to my untrustworthy memory of others moments in the show, I remember play back of the human voice (seemingly found voice rather than created especially) used as the 'lead instrument' with accompanying live voices... or though my perception of the live voices is questionable because of what happens earlier - you'll just have to see it to know what I'm on about. So much of the work presents a sound scape of sounds you might hear in everyday life, and traditional musical elements fuse into a single sound within that context (or at least they did for me). The spoken words too often fuse into a single sound, and the specific meaning of the language just becomes a mood or a counterpoint. The composer plays with our perceptions, and elements you initially latch onto become part of the environment, and sound from environment become the music you latch onto.

The use of repetition is astonishing. I cant really get my head round it but lines of music/sound/voice would begin and seem to loop, go in and out of phase. Lines that were separated were brought together to make conversations, some of the conversations were out of context but went together, some sounded like they should have been together from the beggining. This concept of bring untoward sounds together in harmony is extended into the musical realm with two well known tracks from different eras overlayed to make a beautiful duet. Some lines of music/sound/voice seemed to have varying start and end points - a fusion of granulation within the musical macro structure of life. I'm starting to make less sense now, I think the piece affected me quite badly.

Casting my mind back there are moments of humor, poignancy, social comment, and myriad meanings. My jabberings will not do it justice, so I urge you too see it if you can or do the next best thing and listen to some recordings.

Ta Ta for now,

Joe

http://www.myspace.com/johnmoranandsaori