On Monday night, I saw Birth at The Firefly Club. The members of Birth (Joshua Smith, Joe Tomino, and Jeremy Bleich) describe their sound as avant-garde and drum 'n' bass. I am not particularly familiar with either genre, so I figured this would be a good show to write about in my concert paper. In addition to saxophones (Smith), drums (Tomino), and electric bass (Bleich), the band utilizes a wide variety of electrical devices to produce musical sounds. Some of these devices are used roughly as intended, albeit not as traditionally used. For instance, Smith uses effects pedals with the saxophone more often than Bleich does with the bass. The electrification of the saxophone gives Smith far more versatility than would be possible with only basic amplification. He sometimes sounds like two or three musicians playing in perfect harmony. At other times, he sounds like two or three musicians loudly belting out dissonant chords or even sounds that don't have any particular tonality. The band also uses these devices in ways they were never intended to produce sound. "Bismillah", for instance, begins with strange electronic sounds Smith produces on, I believe, a linked series of several effects pedals (feeding off each other rather than any input from the saxophone.) As another example, the song "Heist" begins with a beautiful chord progression on the bass, which is then accompanied by Smith's low-frequency amp feedback and various electronic sounds Tomino produced with a device I was unable to see from where I sat.

Many, if not most, of the band's songs include passages that fall well outside of what most people are comfortable calling "music". Other passages indicate musical knowledge but an apparent lack of technical skill. Their opening piece, for instance ("Seek"), begins with saxophone sounds that are clearly trying to be notes, but don't quite seem to make it. However, there are also many passages that make it readily apparent that all three musicians received classical training. (From the band's website, I learned that Smith studied at the Manhattan School of Music and Bleich and Tomino studied at Cleveland State University.) The contrast between what sounds like noise and what sounds like technical virtuoso heightens the effects of both. That is, knowing how skilled the musicians are, it is obvious that, at times, they really intend to sound like crap. On the other hand, knowing that they seem to enjoy making ugly noise for the sake of ugly noise, it is also obvious that, at other times, they want the audience to notice when everything suddenly comes together in clearly musical patterns.

The band also seems to enjoy contrasts in volume and speed. At least half of their songs start slowly and softly, sometimes almost mysteriously so. But nearly all of their songs (or at least nearly all the songs I have heard so far) eventually build into at least one passage of loud, frenzied dissonance. As with contrasts in "musicality", the contrasts in volume and speed force the audience to pay attention to both qualities throughout each piece.

In conjunction with the Ann Arbor Film Festival, filmmaker Alfonso Alvarez supplied multiple projectors, film loops, and some short films. The movies showing on the white sheets hung behind the band lent an almost Cagean quality to the performance. While both the film and the music were (mostly) predetermined by their creators, the interaction between the two media had not been specifically planned, and so was indeterministic. It is the nature of avant-garde (and jazz in general) to be at least improvisationally indeterministic, so it made sense for the music not to coincide very well with the film. However, there were times when they fit so well together that it was hard to believe they had been created independently.