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Luscious Looping

Jessica Balik on June 8, 2009
Amy X Neuburg
I left the performance I attended on Thursday with the feeling that I got two concerts for the price of one. In truth, it was just that one musician, cellist Zoë Keating, opened for another, vocalist Amy X Neuburg. The concert, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, functioned as a CD release party for Neuberg and her accompanying Cello ChiXtet, a trio of female cellists. Even so, Keating was such a one-woman wonder that the program offered two substantial performances. Both these women are fascinating musicians. Although Keating and Neuburg do use similar compositional techniques, notably live looping, perhaps the greatest similarity between them is that each creates music so unique as to make describing it a challenge.

The evening began with Keating playing several solo numbers. Then again, “solo” seems not quite a fitting adjective, because she uses live looping and processing to make her solo cello sound more like a chamber ensemble of strings and percussion. Keating produces the percussive sounds by variously striking the strings and body of her instrument. Using her feet as control pedals, she records samples of these metric and rhythmic phrases, and then loops them while superimposing expressive melodic lines.

Zoë Keating

This process creates a hybrid musical genre. Despite using these “experimental” techniques, Keating’s music does not advance the polyrhythmic and polymetric complexities of a composer like Steve Reich. In other words, Keating’s layers complement rather than obfuscate one another. Her melodies are congruent with, or complementary to, her original rhythmic pattern. These formal structures sound “classical” in the sense that they are replete with regular meters and scrupulously shaped periodic phrasing. By mixing these structures with electronics, though, Keating’s music also sounds like electronica or trance.

Neuburg, in turn, presented songs from her new CD, The Secret Language of Subways. As the name of the album suggests, she credits riding on New York City’s subway for inspiring these songs, which she describes as “avant-cabaret.” In them, she performs solo vocals, and also plays an electronic drum kit. As for the accompanying three cellos, rhythmically, at least, they frequently play in unison. Yet with the live-looping, as well as Neuburg’s vocals, the musical textures of these songs are anything but monotonous.

My only frustration was that, at least where I was sitting — on a far side of the packed hall facing the cellos — the balance was bad, meaning cello-heavy. This emphasized the trio’s ensemble problems, such as misaligned attacks and imprecise, muddy passagework. Moreover, the trio covered Neuburg. Thus I caught only bits and pieces of her lyrics.

Songs With Breadth

Nonetheless, by combining Neuberg’s description of the songs, the lyrics that I could distinguish, and the musical styles, which ranged from humorous polkas to tender elegies, the general subject matter of these songs became comprehensible in spite of the overpowering trio. The songs ruminate on joys and sorrows. They also blur existential or personal experiences with collective or worldwide issues. Even their solemn themes, however, are often conveyed lightly or comically. In short, the meanings of these songs are charmingly ambiguous, and not merely because I could not hear all their lyrics. They seem deliberately constructed so that they can be absorbed on different levels, from flippant and entertaining to serious and poignant.

The program concluded with two encore pieces. First, Neuburg and her ChiXtet covered “Back in N.Y.C.,” an old Genesis tune. The finale was a group piece in which, despite the fact that Neuburg does not actually know how to play cello, both Keating and Neuburg joined the ChiXtet. These encores emphasized that neither of the two artists occupies a fixed position on the spectrum between “serious” and “popular” music. Both are obviously classically trained. Neuburg, for example, stunned the audience with ephemeral phrases during which she sounded like a full-blown operatic diva. Yet both combine their classical training with experimental or electronic compositional techniques. Finally, both also embrace, rather than shun, the appeal of popular genres.

Ultimately, the pliant breadth of each musician’s creativity intrigues and allures. That both Keating and Neuburg are endearing live performers only heightens this attraction. I would gladly go hear either of these women perform again. And I would make it a point not to miss another concert featuring both of them together.