Songs After the Fact: Yale Art Gallery 11/9/17

Program of continuous music played by six Yale students interspersed with texts that were written in periods of conflict. The installation was styled after Phil Kline's "Zippo Songs" where WWII soldier diary snippets are heard over an Eno-esque backdrop. On this event, photos and video of war torn areas were on display while the ensemble remained unseen within an enclosed booth playing and reading texts. The program felt disjointed, some photos were powerful and the musicians were talented, but the spoken word got lost in the audio translation. I know we now live in a world where one is expected to watch TV, text, check news, weather, and listen to music simultaneously, but let's face it- none of those functions are successfully completed when governed by one fifth of your attention span. This program would have benefited by dropping the spoken word component, but I applaud the students and artists who lent their talents to the show.