Launching into a full, superlative-laden, free associative ramble on the subject of Makoto Kawabata & J. Francois Pauvros’s duo set at Café Oto earlier this month would seem surplus to requirements really, so instead let’s just say, it was a hugely enjoyable performance that, whilst it offered nothing particularly surprising or unexpected, nonetheless served to forcibly remind me of how much I love sounds make using electric guitars, and of how exhilarating and just plain fun live improvised music can be under the right circumstances.

Helpfully, Satori took some videos on her magic telephone, which you can see here and here.

If that’s not good enough for you though, randomly numbered ruminations follow.

1. Kawabata-san and M. Pauvros make a great duo, just visually speaking. Very much a “hey, you are your country's version of me” sort of pairing. Whereas Kawabata is quite a stocky gent, Pauvros reaches gangling, Joey Ramone-like proportions, with a permanently drooping head that one imagines developed early in life after the first few dozen damaged door frames. Beyond that though, they’ve both got the same mass of distressed black / grey curls piling over their faces, the same all-in-black combo of loose silk shirt, tight jeans (Kawabata favours flares, Pauvros drainpipe) and pointy black shoes that seems to comprise the internationally recognised uniform of the damaged guitar-god. Kawabata seemed to have raided Café Oto’s cellars for a nice bottle of sake (presumably a rare treat for a touring Japanese musician), and pre-set could be seen strolling around the vicinity of the venue, bottle and glass in hand, in search of a quiet spot in which to enjoy a few sips. I didn’t notice Pauvros drinking anything. Internet research suggests the two of them have been playing and recording together since at least 2000, if yr interested.

2. It’s a guitar thing. I can’t stress that strongly enough. Though much of this set leaned heavily on noise and drone, it is the physical presence of the instrument that keeps it real for me. Much of the time, electronic noise generated from computers or keys or non-input mixers or whatever leaves me cold, unable to connect. But somehow, when I aware that this or that mass of sound is the result of direct human manipulation of this electrified thing made of wood and wire, channelling physical movement and energy-release into what we hear, drawing arcs through that magical space between the pick-up and the amp speaker, it makes me incredibly excited. Even on a noise record, where the sound is likely processed to such an extent that its origin is entirely obscure, it is the knowledge that there’s a guitar (or, I suppose, other stringed instrument) in the mix that gets me hopping. You’d be hard-pressed to identify yr average Skullflower or Sunroof! Record as “guitar playing”, I suppose, but I’d still take Matthew Bower over Merzbow any day, just because, you know – guitar.

And when you can see that guitar, and follow the player’s journey physically as well as sonically, well… all the better! The more noise-inclined segments of M. Pauvros and Kawabata-san’s set proved a great demonstration of this, and their performance proved far more of a *performance* than is often the case when two people sit on chairs to manipulate a bunch of noise-making equipment. For those close enough to the action, watching the pair scramble and wrestle with their gear and props whilst hearing the results of their exertions shrieking all around was a pleasure that went far beyond mere “oh, he turned that pedal off and that one on” type guitar nerdery. It was closer in fact to the kind of enjoyment you might get from watching a real out-to-lunch free jazz ensemble… you know, physical. Dancing on the spot with buttons and wires and strings. Just with a hell of a lot more wah and fuzz and feedback and loop-ery and all that other good stuff that the jazzers don’t really care for, but that keeps pulling us meatheads back to the eternal mysteries of those little sweatshop-built 9V boxes and brand name amplifiers.

3. I get the feeling that those coming to this set from a more serious avant background may have been far more dismissive than I, via a vis issues of predictability and use of gimmicks. And indeed, the duo’s sets was very much factored around demonstrations of the players’ favourite tricks, split into pre-ordained segments of a certain length in a manner liable to bum out the improv heads. “Ok, first we’ll do the thing where I have that bronze disc underneath the strings for about ten minutes, then we’ll do a big storm of noise thing, then I’ll do the drone thing with the screwdriver for a while. Then we can both get our bows out and do some bowed guitar until that gets boring, then we’ll build up slowly to some more noise, then hit some wild shredding for a bit and we’re done. What do you think?”

I appreciate how such pre-fab technique demonstrations may seem inherently corny to some listeners, but from my own point of view, it was the fact the players were approaching things from a more bawdy, rockist perspective than is usual in this music that helped make it so much fun. I always appreciate musicians who level with their audiences and keep their machinations transparent, and the unspoken “hey, you thought that last bit was good, check this out” dialogue of Pauvros and Kawabata’s set chimed with me perfectly.

4. I’d never heard of Pauvros before. Sadly, the linguistic chasm that renders much French culture inaccessible to us monolingual dolts seems to have kept his work pretty obscure, but he proves to be a really great player. He has big hands, his guitar has thick strings, but he plays very soft, winding nets of slow, gentle, clean-toned twangs through this set’s absolutely stellar opening section, before, cued in by a sudden rise in the level of racket Kawabata is kicking up, he grabs the twang bar and hits hard, setting off an apocalyptic blast of Spaghetti Western fuzz-twang that knocked my block off. Intermittent problems with his appropriately battered looking array of pedals added interest and randomness to the set, and his elegant reaction to such setbacks – relaxed, slightly miffed, gently kicking jack plugs back into place with his cowboy boots – was a joy to behold. (English speakers can attempt to find out a bit more about Pauvros here.)

5. Tension was maintained throughout the set by the players’ refusal to really ‘bust loose’ on what we know (or assume) is their mighty shred ability. ‘Wanted Dead or Alive: SPEED GURU’ proclaims Kawabata-san’s merch table t-shirts (sadly they didn’t have one left in my size), but sound over technique is the order of the day here, concentrating largely on tone and noise, with Kawabata often falling back on his screwdriver drones as Pauvros occasionally breaks out shaky, clean-toned note scrambles here and there, whilst the closest to conventional interplay the pair get is trading dreamy, post-rock-ish riffs in one of the drifty down-times between noise outbursts. Until that is, at the height of the set’s third or fourth apocalyptic noise meltdown, they heed some unseen signal and GO FOR IT, diving into an absolutely breath-taking thirty seconds of high velocity macho free-shred so staggering it almost has me literally staggering, backward into the side of Café Oto’s long-suffering piano. Whoa.

6. LAST WORD: This was a seventy minute set of improvised music performed by two seated men who didn’t look up or engage with the audience at any point, but to me it felt like twenty minutes max. They had me captivated throughout, never even thinking of looking at my watch or wondering whether I fancied another drink, and they left me feeling energised, flipped out, happy. I don’t know whether this is something you regularly experience with such music, dear reader, but for me it’s been a while. It’s good to be back.

Labels: J. Francois Pauvros, Kawabata Makoto, live reviews