austraLYSIS and VRi - new music at Leeds

The first few concerts in the new season of events at University of Leeds School of Music have been incredibly varied.

The first concert I saw was from folk band VRi. The string trio performed a mixture of traditional Welsh songs and original compositions. Describing themselves as 'chamber folk', their songs varied from simple voice and accompaniment to foot-tapping energetic numbers (sadly no room for dancing in the Clothworkers' Concert Hall...) exploring Welsh folk but with an art music angle, as well as other folk traditions, with a lot of the music on their new album referencing the Welsh chapel tradition. Absolutely worth a further listen and their music is available on Bandcamp.

Fast forward a week to something altogether different. austraLYSIS: Torbjörn Hultmark & Roger Dean with soprano trombone, piano and live electronics. Riveting to watch their live electronics! I really enjoyed the piece about Metamorphosis for Time and Space - dots, lines, ?, volume - sound of science and it really felt like we were listening to the warp of space or the bending of time. A few mellower pieces including a Chaconne. However one piece featuring video was very odd. I couldn't reconcile the video with the concurrent live music.

Torbjörn had a circle of pedals to use with Ableton Live and other software, many of the pedals customised or custom made as he uses both hands for the trombone. Some are on/off some change by degrees; and no shoes! The soprano trombone already sounds very non 'trombone -like' and with some of the effects, the sound world generated was very far from the petite instrument we could see.

There are some sound and video links on Torbjörn's website as well as on the austraLYSIS page.

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