MUSIC FOR SNARE DRUMS AND PORTABLE SPEAKERS
Regan Bowering / Li Song / Conal Blake
Infant Tree, 2023
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Reviews
“I hear something like Music for Snare Drums and Portable Speakers and remember to appreciate this strain of resonance, which, when it’s the center of attention, has a lot to offer sonically. “Resonance” means multiple things in the case of this pair of live sets from the ongoing trio project; the tense, tactile interactions between the speaker playback (and feedback) and the snared surfaces as they’re both held and struck is in focus, but so is a distinct emotional essence that reaches far beyond just experimentation. The more constrained eddies of “Hackney Marshes” especially gets downright gorgeous at times, helped along by the respiring ecosystem beneath them, and the hiss and rush of the agitated wires sounds too organic not to be breath too as it sinks into the swamp. It’s a very exciting tape, even aside from the fact that the credits are a miniature who’s who of fellow radical minimalists, and it’s proof that austerity is not inherent to such a stripped back, formal approach. So no more excuses from anyone else.”
Noise Not Music, June 2023
“Music For Snare Drums And Portable Speakers’ title reveals the tools Conal Blake, Regan Bowering & Li Song work with, but it doesn’t capture their mesmeric effect. Their process is built around a changing exploration of resonance, feedback and motion, a recent live performance seeing the trio swing snare drums and mics from a venue’s ceiling to create a richly textured miasma. What’s most intriguing about this tape is how the effect of their process lands when you take out the visual component. The A-side was recorded live at Hackney Marshes. At the centre a feedback whine takes on a pendular gait, swaying in a way that’s tentatively melodic, almost voice-like. Thicker snare vibrations amass alongside trembling low-frequencies, reaching looming stasis within the outdoor sounds that surround. The second side, recorded indoors at Cafe OTO, dwells in a less serene, more possessed zone where chirrups, rattles and clunks splutter out of a ghostly ether. Taken as audio alone with no idea what the three players were doing, it has a supernatural edge, objects animating seemingly of their own accord through fields of resonance and feedback. Their music toys with cause and effect, action and response, visible and invisible motion with joyously eventful results.”
Daryl Worthington, The Quietus 2023
The Quietus Best of 2023, No. 58
REGAN BOWERING, LI SONG AND CONAL BLAKE
INFANT TREE, 2023