The // Moon is a solo computer DJ project. A young man in a baseball hat sidles up to the card table. His rig is an effects box and MacBook. He produces dreamy beats flecked with sampled vocal snippets. The backdrop was an impressionistic video projection controlled by a young techie. I could watch him slide from icon to icon producing hypnotic visuals on the lo-fi bookstore projection screen, okay it is a white sheet tacked to the window frame. Some vocal samples sounded like library spoken word, but he leaned heavily on what sounded like a voicemail from his grandma stating that she “may have hit her head, so her memory isn’t great, but she would never forget your birthday”. This series usually leans on noise and experimental offerings, The//Moon owed more to DJ Shadow than Xenakis and the music was thoroughly enjoyable.
hissquiet is another solo project from the artist Ash Farrand. They/them are a sound engineer, web developer, and graphic designer who hits the card table with a circuit box and a crockpot. It wasn’t really a crockpot, but a large steel lobster pot. They started their set with an iPad depicting some young Latino kids singing in their native tongue. They dunked the iPad into the pot to give off a weird echoey effect. The circuit box had a tangle of patch cords that were manipulated in conjunction with the pot. Metal objects, a macrame widget were swished around the pot to ethereal effects. Their partner and a small Korgi sat lovingly in front of the card table until a loud apparently unplanned screech forced them out of the store. The music is self-described as dark ambient.
The headlining troupe was Anne Rhodes on voice and computer, Carl Testa on standup bass, Jeff Dragan on computer/ effects, and Marie Carroll on koto. Rhodes is a local avant scenester who I have seen at the Firehouse with NHIC and gargling with local accordionist Adam Matlock at the State House. She takes her place on the elevated stage as a kind of ASMR master of ceremonies. Her treated giggling and whispering made for excellent percussion. Testa is a regional pro who anchored the group on bass. He tapped the bass body in addition to plucking and bowing. Jeff Dragan runs this series at the bookstore and goes by the name FiFacs House. Meant to give Jeff a recurring gig, FH has given spotlight to local outsider musicians who aren’t easily pigeonholed. Carroll has no pigeonhole. Her instrument is an 8’ Japanese koto. The instrument looked like a stringed diving board with a sigmoid spine of bridges to give the strings multiple sounds. The koto was 2.5 times the size of Carroll, with no obvious helper, I am amazed at how she must transport the thing. I quipped to my seat mates “that’s no koto, that’s a Komodo koto”, my joke fell flat. A set of free improv with a truly unique set of instruments made for a compelling listen.
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