With the Corn Exchange reopening at the Brighton Dome, there was a murmur going around that the Attenborough Centre might face stiff competition in the punter appeal stakes but the ACCA team have a trump card, their meticulously curated music programme. William Basinski, Alessandro Cortini, Gazelle Twin plus Colin Stetson are some of the leftfield luminaries who’ve rocked up under vaulted rotunda over the last year or so and this Autumn’s offering looks set to re-confirm the Centre’s magical pull. There will be upcoming shows from Erland Cooper, Scanner, Moonchild Sanelly and Xiu Xiu but tonight, to open the series, we have a special concert by the renowned electro-acoustic composer Colleen.
Born in France and now resident in Barcelona, Cécile Schott a.k.a Colleen has been nurturing her artistry for over two decades, releasing nine albums through the Leaf label and now the esteemed Thrill Jockey. Respected for her shifting, organic approach and exquisite melodic depth, Colleen is an artist known for her humility and warmth, so the evening ahead promises to be a perfect foil for these darker days.
Support for tonight, Brighton based sound-dream creator Johanna Bramli sets the necessary atmospheric waves in motion. Onetime collaborator with Fujiya & Miyagi’s Steve Lewis in Fröst, Bramli has been steadily stepping up solo showcases for her ethereal electronic music this year. She was last seen at ACCA in March opening in lieu of a thumping Clark techno extravaganza, but tonight her set feels more sonically aligned with what is to follow, a tuning in for the audience rather than some calm before the storm.
It’s a beautifully realised, carefully paced thirty minutes, a flowing soundscape that begins by moulding fidgety notes and noises into a wafting drone. From here a curling prog-like organ loop eases in, picking up the pace with a mumbling bassline while keeping things illusive. This delicate layering is central to Bramli’s music, nothing is forced but plenty is suggested leaving room for the listener’s imagination.
Her cyrstalline, shoegaze-ish vocals also leave an impression, a gliding aerial component to each piece, sometimes swooping close and at other moments soaring into the distance. During one song the multi-tracked voices trill in harmony with a Frahm-like piano motif while on her penultimate number they sensitively melt into the depths of a molten slow-motion sequence. As with her last ACCA visit Bramli complements the performance with Beth Walker’s agile visual choreography. Transitioning seamlessly from subtle merging spheres to bulbous microbes of colour, the projections don’t distract, they gently open another portal for this celestial set of songs.
With the ground prepared Colleen slips quietly out to stage centre, carefully checking over the distinctly analogue spread in front of her. There’s no laptop in sight here and spot-lit in the middle of the rig sits her Moog Grandmother, wires arching above the keyboard. Before beginning she chats with the audience, cosily familiar, open and refreshingly free of the anonymous ‘mystique’ that electronic musicians sometimes hide behind. Gently announcing that tonight she will be playing through her 2023 album ‘Le jour et la nuit du réel’, for a final time this year and maybe even longer, the event suddenly feels more poignant. There’s a ripple of expectation, a couple of whoops, Colleen sets herself and the twirling synth sequence of ‘Subterranean-Movement I’ spirals out across the room.
It’s a wholesome piece of classic synth expression, energised by repetition and twisting timbre shifts, echoing Terry Riley tunefulness and free of any doomy monotone. Excitedly Colleen follows this with a re-imagined ‘Subterranean -Movement II’ which she tells us had grown from a recent audience workshop in Barcelona. From a foundational pulsing pattern, the tune whirls and spins with a giddy momentum, kaleidoscopic in scale. Colleen works diligently at the controls, shaping this thrilling electronic improv with loving care and inventive thought . Such moments laced with unpredictability make Colleen’s performance reassuringly fallible and uniquely engaging.
Talking between Le Jour’s five movements she opens up about mistakes made and risks taken, insights which we warm to, but it’s her intriguing music which draws you even closer. Her set tonight has many highlights: the playful, psychedelic dub-echoing and Oneohtrix skitters of ‘Be without being seen’; the quivering shimmers of the translucent ‘The long wait’; and the way ‘Les Parenthèses Enchantées’ evolves from gamelan lullaby to a tip-toeing patter of distant chimes while Colleen is framed in an other-worldly deep red backlight.
Too soon this live, guided exploration of ‘Le jour et la nuit du réel’ comes to a close with the essential calm of ‘Night looping’. Again Colleen shares some exclusives, a revised version of the piece’s first part where her moog sound swells like a grand cathedral organ and a further re-work of the tune re-imagined in sixties, psych-pop harpsichord style. Understated, engagingly honest and genuinely moving, this feels like a performance where someone has played their intricate, intimate music just for us.
The Attenborough Centre For Creative Arts, Saturday 2nd November 2024
Words by John Parry
Photos by Victor Frankowski
