Experimental Musicians Choose Their Own Adventure

In the sweltering heat and dim lighting of the side room of Never Ending Books, at 810 State St., three acts redefined their music through their own distinct experimental sounds. Lit by the strings of fairy lights in the window, and cooled by electric fans, Human Flourishing, reCAPTCHA, and Excavator turned music on its head, gutted it for parts, and then took it for a joyride.

The first performer was Conor Perreault of Human Flourishing (the other half of the duo, Greg Paul, couldn’t attend). His music felt cinematic and immense, transforming the small room into a pulsating organ. The walls seemed to tremble to the sound of his guitar. The piece Perreault played had an almost eerie texture to it, as though it could be the soundtrack to a UFO sighting or an alien invasion. The soundwaves bounced throughout the room and reverberated through the audience, hypnotic and consuming. Perreault invited viewers to wander a strange and exciting soundscape, conjuring up scenes and characters without a word.

reCAPTCHA, composed of artists Syd and Sim, performed next. They set up a projector to show a video that served as an immersive art piece, inviting the audience to choose their own adventure through a series of selections. Opening text flashed across the screen: ​“Hi, welcome! Thank you for joining the debut of our new testament to humanity. As an audience you will reorient yourselves to one side of the room to select a response to upcoming choices. Now let’s calibrate.”

Trippy visual and sound effects played as the audience lined up on the right side of the room. Each decision they made led them to a new section of the video, as they navigated the landscape of the story to make their way to the concert at its conclusion. There were plenty of fun tangents along the way. ​“Do a kickflip!!!” flashed across the screen and an avatar skateboarded through a hazy mirage of colors and sounds. Distorted, almost geometric images flickered over the projector — roads, pipes, figures — somewhere between an acid trip and a Dr. Seuss book.

“You’ve made it to the show,” read the screen. ​“You ask the door guy who’s played so far, and find out the first act is still setting up. It will probably be a minute. You make small talk.” The audience was given two choices: line up on the left for ​“Keep it lighthearted and talk about the weather,” or on the right to ​“Talk shit about everyone’s projects!!!”

“You know we’re talking shit,” said Perreault, who joined the audience for the act. In a unanimous vote, everyone moved to the left.

The next question proved a little more divisive, as the crowd chose the music playing at the concert from the options of ska, harsh noise, or lowercase. One person opted for ska, but lowercase carried the day.

The video ended on a self-referential note. ​“That first act sounded pretty chill I guess. Sounds like reCAPTCHA is about to start,” read the screen. The performance had come full circle.

Excavator, also known as Rex Morris, ended the night. In lieu of a traditional instrument, he played on a handmade contraption that produced a purring, revving sound, both mechanical and animalistic. Different motors of different voltages rested in a metal tool box that functioned as a resonance chamber. The box amplified the hum so that guitar pickups could capture it and project it through the speakers. Morris adjusted the speeds of the motors manually to create a shifting rumble. The sound ebbed and flowed, building to manic intensities and then dropping to a lull.

The experimental music at Never Ending Books created a full-body experience. Whether through interactive experiences like reCAPTCHA, or bone-deep vibrations like Human Flourishing and Excavator, this sound consumed the brain and captivated the imagination. These musicians used nontraditional methods to reconfigure what an audience might have thought of as music. As an experiment, safe to say it worked.