DRONES NOT DRONES 2023
I posted some shots on the Cool Cat Audio Instagram from Drone Not Drones at The Cedar Cultural Center last night. From the schedule I believe these are excerpts from performances by some combination of Matches, Portal III with Charlie Parr, Pelt, and Circuit des Yeux. A beautiful event; I thought I was there for the beginning of it, but then it ended (by which point I was, fortunately, satisfied) and I realized yeah, it makes more sense for a 28-hour drone event to start on a Friday night than a Saturday night, yes?
This event was the occasion of the most compelling sonic moment I've experienced in a long time. As the performances unfolded as a series of crossfading tableaux, each taking its time to settle, I noticed what sounded to me like playback of a female operatic vocal performance, presumably having been sampled and mixed in. Then at one point I heard this voice in what sounded like the rear of the auditorium, so I started wondering if the show was mixed in surround. Then I heard the vocalization right next to me, which freaked me out because I realized it was an actual person singing there, and that what I'd been hearing the whole time was Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux wandering around the space singing, unamplified, in a voice so present and full that it carried clearly over the rest of the amplified ensemble.
That was a wonderful moment to experience— thinking something was a recording, when in fact it was a human being generating sound in space just a dew feet away. Beautiful.
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