Ben Neill played his mutant-trumpet over a backing DAT tape (I think)
for about an hour. The music segued between ambient, jungle, and
hip hop beats. Then Spooky took the stage and spun some ambient grunge
for a bit, then some really distorted jungle beats. Eventually he
settled down and Ben Neill came back onstage to duet with him for a
while. Ben left again and Spooky got into some really wild abstract
hip-hop collage. Almost everybody was dancing at this point. When
Spooky started playing noise again, I left. But overall it was a
very interesting program of music in a very interesting venue (an art
gallery).
Ben Neill has two albums out that I am aware of, one on Astralwerks
and one on Antilles. The Astralwerks release is exclusively ambient.
I haven't heard the latest one on Antilles but I expect it is more
along the lines of the concert, i.e., more varied in material. Based
on his performance, I will probably buy it.
-- Mark Turner mturner@netcom.com