KVT – Sound Stuff under the Big Top

Then the duo took me into the 1930’s and 40’s with their jazz instrumental sounds wonderfully gearing up and then we were into a more apocalyptic phase that made me realize that perhaps with all this we were metaphorically descending through the nine levels of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ until we pounded, sweat dripping into the fiery nightmare of the everlasting flames.

A great piece of sound artistry that didn’t seem to smash too many new boundaries but sort of encapsulated where good DJ electronic music has come from and hinted at where it may head in the future as valid and artistic music composition….the sooner the better!

My imagination could have done without the occasional voice texts that came through.

I kept on imagining the duo performing with a live backup (say a Tri Minh type fusion band, or a full blown symphony orchestra a la Mahler…which could be mind blowing).

The Duo did a much better job with time allocation than most concert style sound stuff music composers who often never seem to know when enough is definitely enough and begin to stretch it out into performance art tedium. For me, Montana and Rogenhofer could have been 10 to 15 minutes shorter and then been of standing ovation type quality.

Exhilarating!

Due to a date with ‘The Messiah’ I missed out on the Sound Stuff big night out on Saturday.

Great to see the big bods like Goethe, Japanese Foundation, British Council and The Austrian Embassy (plus others) getting behind the development of the good music of the future in Vietnam and hopefully tempering the popular obsession with vapid boy bands, adolescent techno rhythms, the schmaltzy pre-teen themed love songs and the adoration of western geriatrics who just keep on keeping on.

Great work Tri Minh and Sound Stuff Friends….keep up the essential efforts to turn the tide.

All photos courtesy of the Japan Foundation (Photographer: Hoang Duc Thinh)