LACE SERIES

A bartender stood hawking his product at the second evening of a series devoted to works by local experimental groups and composers, Saturday night at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. “Come on folks,” he quipped, “you can’t listen to this music sober.”

As the evening unfolded, his words rang with truth. The program was devoted to “trance music,” represented by three groups on the Trance Port Tapes label, founded by guitarist A Produce and synthesizer player An Bene.

The pair, joined by Brian Daly (percussion) and Pierre Lambow (synthesizer), launched into a series of interconnected snippets of musical thought, each based on short, endlessly repeating motifs. Pleasant--for about five minutes. They played for 30.

The idea of ostinato-laden tape loops supporting subtly shifting waves of sound is hardly new, but in the right hands the concept can still result in a riveting, hypnotic experience.

On Saturday, the right hands belonged to Rubin Garcia (synthesizer) and Steve Caton (guitar), collectively known as Repetition Repetition. Though their set ran long, the players impressed with solid musicianship and an intensity in performance.

Sandwiched between the two electronic bands was a quartet of acoustic instrumentalists, bearing a name unsuitable for publication in a family newspaper. Josie Roth (violas, vocals), Michael Intriere (cello), Jon Huck (bass) and William Roper (tuba) puffed and sawed through some brief exercises that sounded like rejected ideas from Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat.”