Spire, saturday 20 january
venue: york minster
Rating: 
The breathtaking acoustics of the Cathedral were put to a slightly different use last weekend, as the ambient electronica of Spire filled York Minster. The audience was invited to explore the space in new ways: the performance sandwiched electronic treatments of organ sounds between selections of predominantly twentieth-century organ pieces, lending the vast interior a dream-like quality.
Christian Fennesz’s improvised laptop soundscapes (incorporating the sound of the sea with inspiration drawn from the storm earlier that day) filled the Chapter House; Philip Jeck used two vintage record players and a Casio sampler to loop, scratch and distort organ records, and BJNilsen’s melodic washes of sound inspired one woman to walk sideways in a trance-like state along the front of the nave. The electronic ventures fit perfectly with the organ pieces that were at times as ambient, melodic and discordant as their electronic counterparts.
The final pieces, a fourteenth-century motet first sung, then played on the organ, placed Spire in a tradition of exchange between musical media and its roots in the Middle Ages. In the decorated vastness of the Minster we felt bathed in this history while experiencing its newest creation.
