Playing music on a fault line

From Scratch have put away their PVC pipes and Jandals to explore the sounds of the Earth's thin crust, writes arts editor GILBERT WONG.

The distinctive sound of PVC pipes struck with the meaty slap of a Jandal won't be heard in the latest From Scratch performances.

When the innovative found music group first began to perform in the mid-1970s, the PVC pipes and Jandals seemed core to their founding principles.

The racks of pipes had a determined Kiwi DIY ethic, with the group constructing their novel instruments from the discards of building sites. The sound of the punched air "toom, toom, toom" reverberating through the pipes suggested a contemporary urban take on the tribal rhythms of the Pacific accompanied by an undeniable industrial chic.

The origins might have been in avant garde music theory, but performing was hard, physical work that had an almost hypnotic effect on audiences.

Founder Phil Dadson, intermedia lecturer at Elam at the University of Auckland, has few regrets about the demise of PVC. "I think their time had come. It was time to move on." Though he notes that the instruments have been taken up by other groups, notably by Strike, the Wellington-based percussion ensemble.

Auckland audiences can catch the latest incarnation and style of From Scratch this week as the group performs two sets of concerts, Pacific Plate plus an improvisational evening, Hotwired.

Pacific Plate was first performed at the Taupo Arts Festival last year.

The title, says Dadson, is inspirational rather than descriptive. "We just liked the idea of looking at the phenomena of volcanism and tectonics, particularly in Auckland, which is so vulnerable. We're sitting on a tenuous crust along with a lot of dormant volcanoes. So it's a quirky tribute to those forces of nature."

From Scratch's other two members, Adrian Croucher and Shane Currey, reflect the eclectic musical mix.

Croucher, who has been part of the group since 1996, is a researcher in environmental engineering. His practical musical interests have been in African drumming.

Currey has another musical life as a percussionist and timpanist with the Auckland Philharmonia.

A fine arts graduate, Currey also has a diploma of music and performance from the University of Auckland and has been involved in the composition.

Dadson says the present trio has evolved a finely tuned collaborative process. "We've come to understand a musical shorthand that makes the work very satisfying to make and perform."

No new From Scratch performance would be complete without novel instruments:

Tuned tongue-bells: tuned aluminium u-profile set on aluminium tubing tuned via longitudinal slits and struck like a xylophone.

Nundrum: a metal-pronged adapted bass drum with tuned rods, attached to the membrane. When struck it has a gong-like sound.

Sliding tube drum: based partly on the trombone, it uses a tunable sleeve that when slid alters the pitch of the instrument. It produces sliding glissando tones.

RodBaschet: named after an influential instrument-maker, this features glass threaded rods that resonate on a stainless steel sheet.

Zithera: a 3m-long cross between a banjo and a sitar.

Instrument X: Dadson has yet to name a new instrument which adapts the Ektara, an Indian instrument. It is based on a drum with a single string that resonates through the drumhead.

One undeniable feature of From Scratch is longevity, which is largely down to Dadson who as founder has remained the driving force behind the ensemble. How does he describe the musical history?

"We began as an improvisation group around found clutter. But the clutter has developed into sophisticated instruments, though they remain based on found materials. What we have developed through is a sense of being free and loose with simple rhythms to what is a much more polyphonic and polyrhythmic style of music-making."

A major change, feels Dadson, is that From Scratch has become sophisticated enough to allow its members room to improvise and go solo.

The group's activity has waxed and waned over decades, but Dadson says the musicians who have taken part have always enhanced the project.

" The curve of the group has been troughing and peaking, but I have been fortunate to have fantastic musicians supporting the projects so that it is an energising thing. People who work with me are not just drop-ins, but musicians who give something and become committed."

As with any long-lived group, Dadson has considered hanging up his Jandals.

"There have been times when I've thought it was time to move on, but to be honest I still get a helluva kick out of this. Performance challenges our skills and what's possible. The aspect that intrigues people is the level of invention, for me it's the constant boundary pushing that mixes up the genres."

That boundary pushing continues with the group taking up an invitation to perform as part of the alternative music festivals in Salzburg and Tirol in Austria next month.

* From Scratch perform Pacific Plate at 8 pm on July 11, 12 and 14, at the School of Creative and Performing Arts, Shortland St. Hotwired, the improvisational night, is on July 13 at the same venue.