Bill Wells with Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Tenniscoats, Kama Aimi & Nikaidoh Kazumi.
Published by Matthias April 25th, 2006 in Reviews.
Woodwick House hosted the final leg of pianist Bill Well’s Scottish tour, featuring four modern Japanese acts as part of the Arts Council’s programme of cultural exchanges. The format of the gig was ill conceived, fragmented into many different sets that were too short to develop fully. The collaborative pieces, which should have been a highlight, proved under-rehearsed and were too shambolic to deliver on the promise of spontaneity and pure improvisation.
Nikaidoh Kazumi opened with whimsical Japanese folk singing, accompanied only by the simple fingerpicked melodies of her badly tuned guitar. Her voice was emotive and engaging, and as she enthusiastically nodded her head to keep time, much of the audience unknowingly nodded along too. By suddenly unleashing broken and jagged tones with complete abandon, Nika offset her initial childlike style and revealed a surprising expressive range akin to Bjork.
By the end of her set, Nika’s singing had become completely detached from the original melody, culminating in shrill improvised noises and even a convincing imitation of a trumpet. Due equally to her vocal talent and charm as an entertainer, Nika was the only act to pull off the innocent spontaneity that the gig as a whole had aspired to, and the standard declined after her short set.
Multi-instrumentalist Kama Aina (Island Man) followed on a six-string banjo and kazoo, laying out simple but well developed melodies with the backing of a sampler and some clever loops. Tenniscoats attempt at twee Japanese pop quickly descended into tuneless noise, with an overly distorted guitar playing out of time with the piano as well as strangling an already shaky vocal.
In the second half, various member of the other groups joined Bill Wells and Maher Shalal Hash Baz during their set, culminating with all of the artists performing two tracks together. With Wells at the helm everything came together for the first couple of tracks, but sadly this didn’t last. In the end the whole performance unravelled, but something about it sounded hauntingly familiar: the discordant racket in the corridor between two school music rooms.
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