Linsey Pollak and Tunji Beier

[Matthias Grob <matilists@atarde.com.br>]

I was lucky to meet the Australian duo Dva (Tunji Beier - Linsey 
Pollak) here in Salvador/BR at the best anual festival:
http://www.mercadocultural.org
(send you stuff in, they had a loop act every year...)


We know Tunji from his brilliant presentation with Matthias Loibner in 
Zurich.
But it seems we never mentioned Linsey here?
He appeared twice in the program:
first with the duo:
http://www.tunji.org/dva/instruments.html
then solo in the circus of the avant garde school where the festival 
grew out from. He sais he has about 7 projects going and I could not 
find the link to the right one (he does not seem to have a site of 
his own), but this one gives an idea:
http://www.realtimearts.net/qbfm03/sat/reid_cabaret.html

both shows were totally loop based, Tunji using a Repeater and Linsey 
a Roland RC20. unfortunately they cannot be synced so they used 
either percussion or woodwinds loops. Since Linsay produces very low 
sounds, together they could have built much ritcher grooves.
Anyway, it sounded great the way it was!

Tunji is a great virtuoso with a ritch background, grown up in africa 
and having studied for years in India... really quick and subtle...

but what really blow my instrument creators mind was the work of Linsey!
During the duo he mostly used glass "wood" whind instruments. While 
low flutes and saxophones tend to become very big and need a complex 
mechanic because the fingers cannot be spread enough to close the 
holes that need a distance given by physics, he simply bypassed both 
problems by turning the instrument in a spiral or wave form! It also 
looks really beautifull!

in the solo show he built the instruments while playing! for example 
he loops some notes blown on a simple tube, a groove with one tuning. 
while its playing on he keeps cutting pieces of the tube to achieve 
other notes and loops them on top, so that in the end there is a 
melody and he throws the last bit of tube behind him! So it goes on 
with drilling holes into carrots and whatnot... its fun, sounds good 
and kids understand the physics of instruments without words...

in each instrument he grabs, he sticks either the one piezo mic or 
the small condenser mic, its so simple and understandable...

And, last but not least at all: they are great people to be with.
-- 


          ---> http://Matthias.Grob.org