A toasty St. Mary's, her radiators steaming, played host to soundscape
experimentalist Richard Pinhas and his return Gathering performance in
Philadelphia Saturday night.

Pinhas's 1999 concert was a rather bizarre affair based on his current
release of that time, "Schizotrope." I recall arriving late for this show
and, upon my belated barge through the door at the back of the church that
evening, also rememember having the blast of sound that greeted me nearly
blow me clear back to my hard-to-find parking spot. This concert event would
turn out to be a tougher than usual pill to swallow, especially for a
relative Pinhas newcomer (and I'm guessing I wasn't the only Gatherer that
evening who experiencing Pinhas live for the first time), but one certainly
did have to respect the music's originality and the artist's willingness to
experiment and alter a listener's perspective of sound and vision.

You might say I approached Saturday night's performance better prepared. The
evening would kick off with the Chuck van Zyl's introduction of Jerome
Schmidt, who would accompany Pinhas throughout the performance, on laptop
computer, and of French poet Chloe. After a little engine revving by
Schmidt, he laid out a Pinhas-like sound base to a recital by Chloe. Pinhas
would then replace Chloe on-stage.

Soft notes strummed on Pinhas's guitar introduced the two sets and an encore;
each representing the outset of a slowly constructive evolution of sound.
Richard Pinhas seemed such at ease last night. He smiled throughout the
performance, often laughing spontaneously. Having set fibers of sound in
motion, he would sit back and observe the lighting effects of the church;
allowing the surroundings to captivate him, as they were us all. In
comparison to his 1999 performance, there was much more subtlety in Pinhas's
expressions. As a result, I found myself able to enjoy Pinhas's signature
moments of unbelievable intensity much more so this time, literally
transporting myself to temporary hypnotic states.
"Event and Repetitions," a fine new release by Richard Pinhas, plotted the
course for Saturday night's musical journey.

The quality and diversification of music offered by the Gathering concert
series is a precious gift to those of us who love the soundworlds of the
uninhibited. The hard work and extreme dedication provided by the promoters
of these events should never, ever, be forgotten. Watching what these guys
go through in making this incredible series work is humbling.


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