John Hurrell – 14 September, 2024

Elemental was originally the name of a Phil Dadson exhibition held at Trish Clark’s in February 2018, but here it was appropriately used again for yesterday’s concert organised by the Audio Foundation, as part of the 636 Moons series of events held to celebrate fifty years of the innovative group From Scratch.

It was held in the wonderful venue of Kāhui St. David (a Presbyterian church on Khyber Pass Rd, now brilliantly converted into a community music venue) and the first section was a typically pulsing performance by From Scratch themselves—now expanded with six members (Adrian Croucher, Phil Dadson, Darryn Harkness, Peter Scholes, Anita Clark and Steve Cournane) not the usual three or four—and astonishingly, including clarinet and violin.

The music on Friday night, though starting with a thundering bass drum duet from Croucher and Harkness, was overall delicate, intricate and deliberately not as driving or deeply sonorous as that created by the long PVC pipe instruments used by From Scratch in the past, but capitalising instead on strange unanticipated harmonics and piercing dissonances through strange instruments such as bows playing the ends of aluminium extrusions.

Most of the second half of this concert consisted of pieces by Dadson (From Scratch‘s instigating founder) written for a solo percussionist, here performed by Californian artist, now Christchurch resident, Justin DeHart. DeHart also presented a work by Reuben de Lautour with the composer contributing electronics, inspired by the Waimakariri River in Canterbury and the aural qualities of stones in its bed, and performed two other compositions by Liza Lim and Alvin Lucier.

DeHart’s repertoire of musical activities on stage went a lot further than merely hitting accoustically interesting objects, though his use of a hollow woodblock and eerily resonating triangle in a couple of non-Dadson compositions was wondrously controlled, for when presenting Dadson micro-works he also explored the aural textures of poured aggregates hitting canvas ‘triangles’ placed on the floor, swished around groups of stones bundled in wet fabric, and aggressive boot stomps smashing down onto crunchy pieces of crushed rock—all effectively capturing Dadson’s highly visceral, constantly enthusiastic, audio-tactile inventiveness.

Bodily sensation in the last example went far beyond the eardrum to include also the vertical axis of the spine and extended downward muscular reach of the lower leg. DeHart celebrated Dadson’s practice of moving his body to accompany his singing, or pebble clicking, stone scraping, growler whirling and on occasion water-pouring—or other inventive sound production methods—as pure, energised, sound-loving, joyous exhilaration.

625 Moons: Celebrating 50 years of From Scratch. On @ Audio Foundation.                          5 - 28 September

John Hurrell

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