Real Live Action

Destroy Vancouver III

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Vivo Media Arts Centre; October 25, 2012

Real Live Review by Dan Adleman


Recently imported Montreal expat John Brennan has been staging a fantastic recurring noise event in Destroy Vancouver. Over the course of the October 25 show, which was the third installment, nine dumbfoundingly talented noise acts played for 15 minutes each at VIVO Media Arts Centre on Main Street.

Audience members were treated to a panoramic spectrum of beautiful cacophonies. There were too many highlights to mention: William Young and Matty Harris’ creepy-crawly voice-percussion duo had the people sitting next to me improvising their own ways to sing along; prOphecy Sun’s warbly, ethereal one-woman reverb performance received multiple ovations once folks had emerged from their respective somnambulistic trances. I’m not sure I’ve even snapped out of mine yet.

Aerosol Constellations’ pensive industrial symphonies so stimulated me that I’ve taken to playing them at bedtime (check out “Never in a Dream” on their MySpace page); Kristen Roos’ droning, vibratory atmosphere probed the thresholds between meaningful signals and vaporous, but never vapid, distortion; Whip of the UFO violently inserted our brains into the turbine of a futuristic lawn mower with giant machine gun turrets.

By the time my auditory ganglia had recovered from the pleasurable thrashing, I was ready for John Brennan’s own prodigious, percussion-heavy harmolodic noise project, along with guitarist Poib Fehr, Female Blue Balls, which would have had Ornette Coleman busting a move. I really have to take my hat off to John. He brings an erudite, unneurotic curatorial sensibility to orchestrating these fantastic events, that you know he’s not from around these parts. Here’s hoping that Destroy Vancouver and all those who make it happen continue. And remember to grab some earplugs at the door.