Intraspect is an annual performance of experimental live electronic music. This year, for its fifth instalment, it featured performances from two groups: the first was No Input Cat, a trio of Creative Music Technology students – Ben Mason, Finn West, and Tautvydas Kuliešius – performing with found objects, live electronics, and digital improvisation. Following this was a ninety minute performance of Bill Thompson’s Gates, an experimental piece played by nine musicians, led by Thompson, on a variety of acoustic and electronic instruments.

                No Input Cat’s set consisted of dense, complex soundscapes, and flirting with both harsh noise and ambient music. The set, which consisted of one uninterrupted performance, traversed a broad range of sonic textures, with harsh, aggressive, distorted screeches, and contemplative ambient passages, almost but not quite bordering on some resemblance of tonality.

                For the eyes of the audience, its certainly less than conventional. Two of the three members sit motionless throughout the set, staring intently at their laptop screens from which the music is being produced. The third member, seated behind a vast array of effects pedals and mixers, meticulously manipulates a bizarre assortment of contraptions; distorted musical instruments and found objects combined in intriguing ways, such as a two-stringed violin, a food contained with elastic bands attached to it, and a small hand pan. These sounds are manipulated by ensemble beyond recognition to form their sonic painting. 

                The performance was undeniably abstract, and would be quite challenging for most listeners. However, given its duration of around twenty minutes, and the comparative accessibility of the soundscapes (compared to more extreme explorations in this vein from other aritsts) made for a quite palatable experience, which can become uniquely enveloping and provocative once one allows themselves to lean into the sonic exploration and listen unprejudiced, and with curiosity.

                Gates is a continuous work, with a graphic score dictating when performers should drop in and out of the texture. This pushes the sound into a wide range of different places, with interaction between acoustic and electric textures in an unnerving, yet magnetising way.

                The opening of the piece saw one performer improvise on a set of pitched gongs, creating beautiful sustained, almost pad like sounds. This was juxtaposed with atonal piano gestures, brief flutters of notes interweaving with the gongs. More performers come in and out: a bass clarinet, playing held low notes, and percussive tonguing and breath sounds; various digital and analogue electronic setups, such as Thompson’s rig of Moog guitar and effects pedals.

                The performance felt strongest when the texture was at its most dense, with multiple instruments playing at any one time to where the individual sound sources were unrecognisable, and one could let themselves go into the captivating, complex sonic fabric. However, the performance felt weaker with only a couple of performers playing together – the tangibility of the sound sources felt like a bit of a jolt back down to earth, and the atonal gestures became uncomfortable and jarring, whether intentional or not.

                I might also go so far as to say the piece, while impressively ambitious in its conception, is somewhat let down by its vast scope, with the ninety-minute runtime making it a very challenging listen, much more so than the No Input Cat set before it, while being roughly equal in its sonic content. While a fascinating conceptualization, and an eye-opening experience to the right ears, it is not something for everyone.

                Performing as part of his 2023 European tour, Australian progressive rock guitar virtuoso Plini played a set of dizzyingly intricate guitar work combined with beautifully melodic composition, along with his band of Chris Allison (drums), Jake Howsam-Lowe (guitar), and Simon Grove (bass).

                The set opened with The Glass Bead Game, from Plini’s 2020 release Impulse Voices, which right out of the gate featured quintuplet syncopations, and complex polyrhythmic passages. The performance is equal parts awe-inspiring, from the technical facility and individual instrumental proficiency of each of the players, combined with emphatically moving composition, evoking wide ranges of emotion.

This trend continues across the set, features cuts from throughout Plini’s original catalogue, with some tracks leaning into jazz fusion territory, such as Flâneur, with a distinctive quintuplet bass groove idiomatic of Plini’s writing, as well as a heavy keys presence, featuring, keyboardist Anomalie (Nicolas Dupuis) for a synth solo, with a clear draw from the jazz fusion world in the choices of vocabulary. Other tracks lean much further into the progressive rock/metal world, with tracks such as Pan and Cascade displaying heavy guitar gestures, with low tuned palm-muted chugs, and dynamic riffing, accompanied by floating atmospheric sections that border on cinematic.

                As part of the encore, Plini invited back onstage guitarists Jakub Zytecki and Jack Gardiner from their respective support acts to join him for Electric Sunrise, a fan favourite. During the bridge section of the song, the band brought it down to a sparse groove between the bass and drums, over which the now four guitarists onstage traded solos, with Howsam-Lowe and Gardiner’s flashy, densely packed flourishes of notes contrasted by Zytecki’s uniquely musical and melodic phrases.

                This stands out as an instantly memorable and special moment in the set, particularly considering that most other tracks were kept very close to the original recordings in terms of arrangement, apart from a few improvised solos, and moments that have worked their way into the performances as the band has slowly evolved tracks to have more impact in the live space.

The decision to keep the performances close to the originals is very common for this genre, and while this may be divisive for concert-goers less accustomed to the style, it does serve a purpose: studio recordings in this style are typically very cleanly produced, with modern production pushing the energy to the maximum with every track, and changing tracks drastically could impact how compelling they are in the live environment. Furthermore, the use of synths, effects, and other production that creates magical moments on the record could easily be lost live, and so performances strive to take the studio to the live audience, as opposed to redefining songs. Personally, I have no issue with this practice, and would rather see each song performed to its fullest, as opposed to a brand new version which cuts corners for the sake of being different.

                When it comes to the world of instrumental rock guitar music, no one is doing it quite like Plini. His voice both on the instrument and as a composer is distinctively unique, has retained a musical sensibility at the core of his work that sets him apart from other virtuosic guitars in this field, both past and present. Having enjoyed his discography for many years, it was exhilarating to finally experience it in person, and I eagerly anticipate what the future holds for this act.

I have been able to work on developing a range of skills through playing with this ensemble. First and foremost, I had not previously spent a great deal of time working in a small group, and learnt a lot about how I fit it within the band, and how I could change the play compared to performing with a larger ensemble. Furthermore, in this scenario there was significantly less usage of charts and sheet music, with much more emphasis being put on being able to learn things by ear, and quickly pick up on and memories key details of the arrangement and structure. However, I still did make a number of charts, mostly for my own use, for songs where I knew we would not be able to spend as much rehearsal time with as we would have liked, due to the vast repertoire we have had to learn in short spaces of time throughout the year.

                Tasks I completed included folding programmes, and then distributing them at the door as the audience entered, as well as being in the green room for the performance itself, helping make sure the players were prepared, and went on and offstage at the right times.