If you have found your allotment of strange beauty still lacking despite the fine offerings in the entire before this one, fear not: You have two fine options to tickle the pineal gland and pluck the fine cords of motion in the medulla that create the chords of subconscious harmony in the seat of the psyche. First up, there’s a 3 p.m. matinee performance of Brahms’ String Quartet No. 3 in B flat major, Op. 67 by the excellent, globetrotting Balourdet Quartet at the Lutheran Church of Arcata. This wonderful piece of German Romanticism, a recording of which I am listening to right now, is a perfect introduction into the chaotic beauty of spring. The concert comes with a conversation about the piece by the performers, which I am sure will be much
more enlightening than anything I could write here, so if you are so inclined, pop over and plunk down your $20 ($5 for students) to have a listen.
A bit later at 7:30 p.m. at Moss Oak Commons, there are some experimental living composers whose music you can enjoy straight from the tap. Arrington de Dionyso plays a wide variety of horns and machines over a wide variety of styles, including what I think of as Javanese lava music or living trance tracks from the spiritual realm around the Ring of Fire. He has once again made the trek from his homebase of Olympia to spread the sounds around, and such wonderful sounds they are. Also on the bill is Brooklyn’s Sandy Ewen, who does things on the electric guitar that can perhaps best be described as multi-dimensional. She uses the instrument not only tonally, but sonically. Textural harmonics and aural colors are a good starting point, but descriptions are always lacking in the pavilion of sound — the mind has another language entirely in that space. Rounding out the bill is another performance by the Uncredible Phin Band, a group that starts with the eponymous Thai mini-guitar and stretches oh-so-much further. There’s a suggested $5-$10 at the door for this one, and with two touring acts, any bit helps.
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