MUSIC REVIEWS : Cyber-Dreaming at LACMA Concert

Encountering a concert titled “Music Controlled by Brain Waves,” one’s expectations run high for, well, heady experimentation and at least some degree of humor. More of the former than the latter arose Monday night at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, at the CalArts-sponsored evening of music by Alvin Lucier and David Rosenboom.

A deliberate duality emerged between Lucier’s physical, acoustic works and CalArts faculty member Rosenboom’s more computer-friendly (computer-fiendish?) investigation. This night, phenomena reigned over traditional musical structure.

Lucier is an American original, a conceptualist intrigued by sonic and temporal systems. The dry-witted cleverness of design in his work usually belies the actual musical/sonic material, often quite cerebral and probing. “Music for Piano With One or More Snare Drums” had soloist Vicki Ray pounding out pseudo-Romantic meanderings, triggering the rhythmic rattle of three closely placed snare drums.

“Fideliotrio” (1988) exists in the cracks of its notes. Sustained tones by cellist Erica Duke-Kirkpatrick and violist Laura Kuenen-Poper wavered, by subtle deviations, creating a phantom-like beating effect. Pianist Ray occasionally tolled an anchoring tone, around which the string players hummed and quavered, to a meditative effect reminiscent of Phill Niblock’s microtonal works.

Rosenboom’s “On Being Invisible II (Hypatia Speaks to Jefferson in a Dream)” was a far more complex beast--intellectually over-burdened at times, but generally a provocative multimedia concoction. Brain-wave-generated computerized drones and phrases--courtesy of Daniel Rothman’s and Sara Roberts’ brains--blended with improvisations by the poetic trumpeter Leo Smith and nimble harpist Susan Allen.

Surreal projections were screened overhead as narrator Nicholas England laid out a socio-historical agenda that threatened to undo the innate sensuality of the experience. In the end, though, the crazed weave of threads in this cyber-dreamy tapestry won out.

All too little experimental activity of this sort takes place in upscale, institutional concert settings, a rarity that enhanced the high points of Monday’s foray into the fringe.