The Skaņu Mežs festival of untamed music recently took place in Riga—for the tenth time, making it an anniversary edition. It was already our fifth visit, if not our sixth. I’ll briefly jot down my impressions. All photos are from easyget.lv
The first day took place at the Splendid Palace cinema, formerly known as Riga. Nearby (next to the cinema foyer) is the TINTO Vina Telpa wine restaurant, which was selling wine and croissants by the entrance to the main hall, so many festivalgoers were holding enormous glasses filled with red liquid. A little later, I joined their ranks.
But I’m supposed to be talking about the music. Though, to be fair, it was often accompanied by visuals on the screen.
The first composition was something droning beneath an opera. The authors talked about the piece without a microphone, so I didn’t hear everything, but I think the opera was by Strauss, and for some reason they were talking about Stalingrad.
19:00 Jan-Peter Sonntag & Lars Guhlcke (DE) – “Sundogs’’, “612.43WEISS’’
At first, the screen was completely white, and nothing could be seen except the canvas. Then it became apparent that snow was falling, and once it thinned out a little, you could make out a wartime photograph: an armoured vehicle and several soldiers. I think this was taking place near Stalingrad. Overall, I liked the concept with the photograph and the snow, but the music somehow left me indifferent.
The next piece was droning, rustling and crackling accompanied by black-and-white silhouettes of leafless trees in Sweden, filmed in winter from a moving car. Sometimes the trees gave way to power-line poles or railway tracks, but the overall picture did not change much. It all looked and sounded atmospheric, and by then I had settled into the right calm frame of mind, so I enjoyed this melancholy scene.
19:45 Peter Brotzmann & Mats Gustafsson(DE/SE)
The next performers were avant-garde jazz musicians, and they unleashed such a storm that they nearly blew my poor brain apart. According to Wikipedia, Brotzmann is an outright icon of European free jazz, and Gustafsson of Swedish free jazz. Both are saxophonists, while Brotzmann also plays the clarinet, as he brilliantly demonstrated. Personally, I don’t listen to jazz and understand nothing about it, but I somehow find free jazz easier to take, especially live. Even if you dislike the lack of melodies or find the sound of two saxophones too monotonous, you can at least enjoy the furious energy, force and effort the musicians put into it—they gave it everything they had, and there’s no arguing with that. At times I was afraid Gustafsson’s head might burst from the strain, so hard was he blowing into his instrument. I can’t listen to this sort of thing at home, and I wouldn’t last more than an hour even at a concert, but it was just the thing to add some variety to all the droning or crunching electronics. Thanks to the festival organisers for bringing in such famous people. It’s a pity, though, that the hall was only two-thirds full. It feels as though Skaņu Mežs attracts fewer visitors every year, which personally saddens me considerably, although I should have got used to the fact that avant-garde and experimental music is called that precisely because it does not appeal to the broad masses.
Unfortunately, the performance was marred by the fact that the third musician who was supposed to perform with Brotzmann and Gustafsson had died a few days before the concert.
Mats Gustafsson
Peter Brotzmann
20:55 Francois Bayle (FR)
Francois Bayle, the patriarch of electroacoustic and concrete music, studied alongside John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer (a pioneer of musique concrete). He was born in Madagascar all the way back in 1932, which meant he turned 80 this year. Unlike all the other performers, he stood in the middle of the auditorium rather than onstage. As I understood it, this was so that he could hear the eight speakers positioned around the perimeter of the hall and manipulate them to create the best possible spatial sound.
The old fellow did not disappoint—to me, his performance sounded like an enormous crystal palace made of tetrahedrons and dodecahedrons, with multicoloured spotlights reflecting and refracting across its roof. There were, incidentally, spotlights like that in the hall, and they were used during the performance, although I spent most of the time sitting with my eyes closed to immerse myself more deeply in the music. I was sitting next to Francois, so I could hear everything perfectly.
By the end of the set it was no longer quite as impressive; after all, concentrating on such a complex piece for so long does become tiring. Nevertheless, I consider the Frenchman’s performance one of the best at this year’s festival. I later discussed Francois’s work with other visitors, and some even found it excessively piercing—one girl actually became physically unwell from the overly penetrating, sharp sounds; apparently, shards from my crystal palace had rained down on her and wounded her.
I think you can see my hairy head here, to the left of someone’s bald one
Francois Bayle at the console and laptop
22:25 Santa Ratniece (LV) composition “Ondulado” performed by Edgars Rubenis, Karlis Tone, Maris Butlers, Davis Burmeisters and Lauris Abele
This time, renowned Latvian composer Santa Ratniece delighted us with a piece for five guitars. The sound rose from quiet strumming to a literal wall of sound, or even a wall of noise. Quite impressive, and it was interesting to watch the performers too; the lead guitarist was especially entertaining with his expressive movements and facial expressions.
Incidentally, according to Andrey, many of the guitarists here come from alternative and metal bands
23:15 Machinefabriek soundtrack for Imants Ziedonis “Krasainas pasakas” / “Colour Tales” (NL/LV)
Behind the pseudonym Machinefabriek is Rotterdam-based Dutch designer Rutger Zuydervelt. He is fond of twiddling the knobs on various analogue electronic devices, which he duly demonstrated. To be honest, after the intense sound of the previous musicians, I somehow failed to connect with Rutger’s quiet drone-and-rustle, so I have no opinion on whether he played well or badly. The audience seemed to like it, at least the person with whom I exchanged a few words did. He had barely heard Bayle, though, having arrived rather late.
00:15 Forest Swords (UK)
The guitar-and-laptop duo from Britain offered no surprises: dubby, meditative noise riffs, just like on the album. I used to like the band Psyhic Ills, and they also enjoyed immersing themselves in this kind of thing, although their sound was not as dense and dirty. I like Forest Swords quite a lot on record, but live they held only moderate interest. Not bad, but nothing more. It’s hard to say why. I think it’s partly because I can no longer listen attentively to music for six hours straight, as I could in my youth.
A brief summary. Skaņu Mežs remains a cultural event for everyone interested in avant-garde, experimental and sophisticated sound, and it turns out that attending on Thursday is essential too, otherwise you’ll miss what I consider the most interesting part. The Saturday concert in the church always seems a little too calm to me, while Friday is now a dance night, and that format does not suit everyone (although I had a fantastic time there).
I should say that the concert in the vegetable pavilion at Balta Nakts could easily have competed with this day, although Murcof plays techno, which is still simpler and more accessible than Francois’s acousmatic music.