Swiss avant-garde musician and composer Franziska Baumann is visiting Dunedin on Wednesday as part of her Sound Out solo world tour.
A pioneer in extended solo vocal technique, human and electronically assisted kinesthetic improvisation and inter-disciplinary artistic performance, Baumann offers a lot to unpack as a musician and creator.
Expanding the traditionally held boundaries and conceptions of the human voice, Baumann's vocabulary comprises vaguely baroque powerful siren singing, glottal stops and clicks and cold glacial moans, groans and pops, all devastatingly impressive and surprising.
These unique sounds are then broadened further with her SensorGlove live electronics (her own development while studying at STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) in Amsterdam.
The glove, which at a glance seems to work something like the theremin MIDI glove Dunedin DJ SoNic Smith was rocking back in 2009, allows Baumann to control live and pre-recorded musical data, triggering sounds and manipulating and responding to her gestures and movement in real time.
The effect is akin to Baumann becoming a conductor, with her orchestra composed solely of her own voice, or as she puts it "hearing the body, seeing the voice''.
It's a sight to behold, and stirringly outside the scope of your typical rock band.
Dunedin experimental improv folk sound outfit The Ladder Is Part Of The Pit, will support Baumann.
GARAGE ROCK
High-volume lo-fidelity popster Dan Melchoir is also in town this week, on his first visit to the country, and performing at Chick's Hotel on Thursday.
The eclectic garage rocker and (of late) occasional meditative acoustic bluesman has been releasing a stream of rock-steady records since the late '90s, sharing takes on "Rip It To Pieces'' rock and Syd Barrett psych and his mutating and maturing songwriting talent for a who's who of indie labels from In The Red and Siltbreeze, to more recently Thee Oh Sees leader John Dwyer's Castleface, a fellow prolific garage-rocker and a kindred spirit of Melchoir's.
Melchoir's backing band will feature the incomparable Aucklander Stefan Neville of Pumice, while outsider muso Kraus will perform in support.
RARE SHOW
New Zealand writer and performer Bill Direen and his band the Builders (aka the Bilders) will play a rare show in the city next week, working through four decades worth of material.
The revered underground musician and novelist will play songs from a fabulous and deep career, ranging from the Flying Nun-released Beatin Hearts, "mixing in New York Songs, Latin episodes'' and "ending with pure rock''.
The gigs
• Franziska Baumann (Switzerland) with support from The Ladder Is Part Of the Pit, Wednesday, February 10, Anteroom, Port Chalmers (29 Wickliffe Tce). Gold coin, entry from 7pm.
• Dan Melchior (UK) with support from Kraus, Thursday, Febuary 11, at Chick's Hotel, Port Chalmers. Doors 8.30pm, presales available from undertheradar.co.nzThe Chick's Hotel Magic Bus leaves Countdown Central at 8.30pm, University of Otago library at 8.35pm, returning to town after the show.
• Bill Direen & the Builders with support from Opposite Sex, Darryl Baser and poet David Eggleton, Saturday, February 13, Crown Hotel, $10 on the door from 9.30pm.
