When the disaster movie, Earthquake, hit cinemas in 1974 it boasted the then ‘revolutionary’ effect of Sensurround. This, audiences were promised, would mean that you would not only see buildings collapse and the city’s infastructure destroyed, you would also FEEL it.
Personally, I found the constant vibrations quickly lost their novelty value and I left feeling like a James Bond Martini, shaken but not stirred. I also had a splitting headache!
I had similar feelings after a half hour solo set by Stephen O’ Malley at the Teatro Rasi in Ravenna. He was the opening act of ‘Transmissions V’ a four day program of experimental sounds in and around the elegant Italian city that O’Malley has also curated.
O’Malley is best know as founder member of the metal drone juggernaunt Sunn O)) but he has also collaborated on numerous other side projects. He specialises in slowed down power chords played at high volume and I cursed the fact that I had left my ear plugs at home.
At this venue, a common complaint by artists is that they cannot see the audience from the stage. This would not have worried O’Malley as he played in almost total darkness – it is us who couldn’t see him!
Visually an indistinct shape in front of a bank of Marshall speakers was no great spectacle and sonically I found the ponderous riffs tedious and oppressive. In other words, the earth didn’t move for me.
