Musique actuelle

This rare live appearance of the reclusive Biota collective was recorded in 1990 at Montreal Musiques Actuelles in Quebec, Canada. Although the performance has its moments, overall it serves as a reminder that Biota, at their best, were and are a studio creation that owe much of their magic to the electro-acoustic alchemy of founding members Mark Derbyshire and especially William Sharp. The group makes a valiant attempt to capture the dense, disorienting studio processing in the live context, with Derbyshire and Sharp applying real-time electronic processing to the largely acoustic instrumentation (only a single guitar is electric), but the overall result is much more linear and discursive than Biota's typical studio work. The long first movement of this four-part suite never does take wing, and hardly even manages to stagger to its feet — 18 minutes of mournful foghorn-like moaning are blended with distorted chimes and a lugubrious bass riff until, finally, everything is obliterated with two-plus minutes of squalling static. This blast of noise may have been intended as a bold gesture, but it unfortunately suggests a few other less positive things, such as impatience, boredom, and a desire to escape from a musical dead end. The static ends and the piece wobbles on, as before, for another five minutes or so before mercifully terminating itself. The next several movements are certainly more energetic — and more successful. The use of processed tubular bells and gently strummed acoustic guitars in the second movement creates a beguiling shimmer, and the entrance of an accordion and kit drum introduces a folk dimension, although the accordion and the final flamenco-style guitar passage are more matter of fact than musically disorienting, and they never reach the requisite level of displacement and aural strangeness for which Biota, at their best, are known. Aural strangeness does finally reach critical mass in the third movement, where a shambling march rhythm is accompanied by atonal bursts from the piano and vaguely Eastern wailing and blurting from various reeds and horns. This third section has the appropriate density — it plays to Biota's strength, which is their ability to fashion a kind of ceremonial music from a parallel universe. Unfortunately, the long, meandering fourth movement gives up the hard-earned momentum, although it is texturally superior to the opening movement and manages to sustain a melancholy, slightly ominous ambience throughout, until it finally builds to a moderately intense cacophony. Although this final section doesn't have much of a shape, it gets good marks for atmosphere, with the electronically processed hurdy-gurdy perhaps the high point of the excursion. In all fairness to Biota, this was a multimedia event, with visuals provided by the Mnemonists, who function as the visual arm of the collective. Anyone who has seen the artwork accompanying many of the earlier Biota releases on the Cuneiform and ReR labels will agree that the collective's visual artists are supremely talented, and it is likely that the live performance was much stronger as a synthesis of sound and visual art. However, from a purely musical perspective, this CD is less essential than virtually any studio release in the Biota catalog.