I confess on the night I didn't go back for the second half. Went down to Tesco Metro at the interval and the short distance seemed like a long walk back. It was probably 10-ish by then anyway. But if I disliked the entire combination in a piece of the free and dance music; if the stylistic contrast seemed to render the music for all its complexity simplistic (A-B-A), nevertheless the dance itself, the getting there and the passing between were enjoyable.
I am reminded of Anthony Payne last year who I heard talking about his 1st string quartet. He referred to himself, self-deprecatingly, as falling between two stools. The people who liked his modernism, he said, disliked the romantic elements in his music, and the ones who liked the romantic elements disliked the modernism. It struck me when he said this - I had a very clear impression - that what this meant was that he had a different perspective because his musical position was an unusual one, between.
To make a parallel but not a likeness, Snakeoil/Payne feels like mixing pop art with action painting, like mixing what grins with what glowers. The effect isn't roundly pleasing - an appealing conceivable 'whole' isn't made - but the music can still be sincere and of interest.
I am reminded of Anthony Payne last year who I heard talking about his 1st string quartet. He referred to himself, self-deprecatingly, as falling between two stools. The people who liked his modernism, he said, disliked the romantic elements in his music, and the ones who liked the romantic elements disliked the modernism. It struck me when he said this - I had a very clear impression - that what this meant was that he had a different perspective because his musical position was an unusual one, between.
To make a parallel but not a likeness, Snakeoil/Payne feels like mixing pop art with action painting, like mixing what grins with what glowers. The effect isn't roundly pleasing - an appealing conceivable 'whole' isn't made - but the music can still be sincere and of interest.
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