KVT – Classic Music Performance by Austrian Band z.b.+

A musical math lesson at the Youth Theater

z.b+ were at the Youth Theater on Sunday night as part of the EU music festival and just like their name implies, the two man band is a bit of a mathematical function. As far as my non math brain can decipher, the name z.b+ can mean an extreme continuous function property to do with the transmission of a binary signal (it also seems to have something to do with the multiplication of cells but I’m sure that any advanced math or sciency types could set me straight).

So here’s my interpretation of a mathematical music abstraction that could have had its roots with minimalist composer Phillip Glass.

Playing an electronic dulcimer and double bass the Austrian duo started off with a repetitive sound like a mathematical bolero that took me along into a trance/dance state and hypnotically progressed into mood as lonely as anything Gorecki composed in his ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’;then to a lone, deep, soulful baritone that had me in the deep south of the US; then to a conversation between two unimpassioned males in positions of power; then into a lost and forgotten rural arcadia before a sudden drop into a busy and impartial cityscape before we progressed back into that bolero that took me back into my body after about three quarters of an hour of intense listening.

For me there’s a fine line between pleasure and pain in minimalist music and just as my pleasure with z.b+ was at its replete best it turned into a dull pain that kept getting more intense (sort of like listening to our neighbor continuously cut ceramic tiles for his new floor) as the duo kept on and on. Unfortunately it became a bit like watching two musical geeks in a boring stage production of Waiting for Godot. I wanted the naughty little imps from one of artist Pham Huy Thong’s latest canvasses to rush the stage en masse and carry the musicians aloft and into the wings still repetitively z.b+ing.

Click on the image above for a larger version.

After about an hour and a half, and as the crowded theater slowly depleted its population, the duo phased out its binary reproduction of sound and the remainder of the audience burst into really appreciative applause.

Which just goes to show that as far new music goes I’m still a binary virgin with a lot to learn.

Thanks to The Austrians for sharing this avant garde music with us. It was very worthwhile.

Special thanks to artist Pham Huy Thong for the photo!