“I don’t normally get piss on my hands,” says Tom, who passes me in the cramped lavatory facilities of Punctum. I gesture that he can wash his hands before me. He does so. It’s not clear whether he actually did get piss on his hands, or whether he was reassuring me that handwashing wasn’t strictly necessary.
Whatever his pre-gig hand-washing routine, it seems to do the trick: seconds later he is on stage and for the next 45 minutes he delivers a tour de force of lap steel guitar noises, clicks, twangs and burps… while his collaborator Chris uses HIGH GAIN microphones on his drum kit to do much the same, only with the occasional burst of rhythm streaming through the experimentation… just to prove that he can do it should he want to.
There are so many original sounds, textures and moments that bubble up out of the duo’s improvisation. They use vibrators, electrical fans, tambourines, wooden flutes, a clarinet, bits of metal, fingernails, knuckles, palms, ball bearings and violin bows to constantly evolve the sound into a hushed and delicate landscape that never quite stands still.
For the first couple of minutes it sounds like a couple of guys just mucking about, before one’s ear tunes in and something much more considered and beautiful emerges out of the chaos.
Bootleg: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZSq8kuLOPF7qW_u0lQ73bOQUQbFSFR8W/view?usp=sharing