Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
From Scratch: Songs for Unsung Heroes
A film by John Pain
Academy Cinema
July 24 7.00pm (one night only)
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
From Scratch: Songs for Unsung Heroes is a new film of From Scratch performing at St Davids church in Auckland earlier this year produced, directed and edited by John Pain.
The film also includes two shorter works from the same event of the ensemble accompanying video art from two of Aotearoa’s leading practitioners; Black Moon by Teresa Peters, and Metroplex II by Gregory Bennett.
The five members of From Scratch (Phil Dadson, Adian Croucher, Shane Curry, Darryn Harkness and Chris O’Conner) play their assorted instruments ranging from standard musical instruments such as the melodia (keyboard harmonica) used by Phil Dadson to the hand-crafted instruments like the PVC piping which have been central to the group’s activities.
The instruments produce a range of percussive sounds, which help create a sonic ambience somewhere between the primitive and the highly sophisticated.
The words of Songs for Unsung Heroes are sung in a monotone and at a pace determined by the players. The low sounds of the song are not clear but fit well within the ambience created by the musicians like a musical drone adding to the mystery and power of the work.
“Let us sing for unsung heroes, Those who lay their dreams aside. Sing a song for unsung heroes, Sing from sea to shining sea. Sing the song of liberty.”
The enjoyment and novelty of a From Scratch performance is from the seemingly uncoordinated waves and ripples of sounds which are created by the group who appear to concentrate on their individual instruments, but they are in fact intricately linked, their individual sounds and rhythms merging and diverging in surprising and innovative ways.
At times each of the players seems to be in a trance-like state focussed on their own individual instrument but through their performance are producing a soundscape which contributes to a breathing and heaving structure.
The endless variety of sounds, rhythms and movements has its visual equivalent in the two films which make use of Gregory Bennet’s animated films which explore a synthetic world, using high-end 3D animation. These endless parades of figures performing within an Escher- like environment, morphing into various patterns and creating weird environments mirrors the sounds of the music.
Songs for Unsung Heroes is focused on the performers as much as their playing. Their concentration seems to suggest that their focus is on inner linked patterns and rhythmic fields.
New Zealand Arts Review 