kagablog

Embracing dissonance

At the Independent Armchair Theatre on December 9

Don’t be fooled by its ironic billing. Pop Shield: An Evening of Improvised Experimental Music and Film by Some Umlungus is not just another underground sales pitch selling improvisation as an excuse for a self-indulgent jam session. Not if the umlungus in question happen to be an all-star cast of collaborators, including electronica poster boy Felix Laband, legendary dub surgeon Kalahari Surfer Warrick Sony, the Buckfever Underground’s abstract guitar adventurer Righard Kapp and prolific author, filmmaker and cultural provocateur Aryan Kaganof — that’s for sure.

felix laband

The evening begins with the Cape Town premiere of Aryan Kaganof’s experimental 45-minute documentary Unyazi of the Bushveld (2007), which documents Africa’s first international festival of electronic music held in Jo’burg in 2005. Thereafter Kapp sculpts an improvised soundtrack for Kaganof’s set of accompanying spoken-word poetry based on feedback sourced from electric and acoustic guitar and a no-input mixing desk, as well as other peripheral guitar sounds. Finally, the pick of the Pop Shield pack teams Kapp with Sony and Laband for what the press release describes as “a loosely structured, improvised sonic tableau, involving esoteric, mostly locally derived samples, fractured, dubby moodscapes and prepared song forms attempting to convey a sense of the hardwired dread and cognitive dissonances embedded in the contemporary South African psyche”.

righard kapp

Hang on. How are you supposed to dance to such dissonance? Well, that’s precisely the point of staging such an event. Rather than serve up an easily digestible “pop” entertainment package of “phat” electro beat sedatives or colour-by-number indie-rock sales pitches for punters to passively party to, Pop Shield prompts audiences to engage with actively and make sense of the experimental improvisations emanating from the stage. “Improvisation is about broadening my musical vocabulary, acknowledging the beauty in contingency and accident — and by implication foregrounding the physical and textural over the cerebral, that which the mind has mulled over,” explains Kapp. “[But] I hesitate to call myself an improviser, as I cultivate playing habits. I prefer to say I compose with elements beyond my control.” The gig starts at 8pm. Admission is R40. — Miles Keylock

this article first appeared here