August 9, 2007

• Underground Music

  Music from the Cistern Chapel

  This is an interesting town.

  Last night, I went to a “happening.” Or maybe it was a “concert”, since hundreds of people showed up for an outdoor venue, on a blustery weeknight. Keep in mind, only 8,000 people live here….

  Visualize this: A flat circular grassy clearing on a hilltop in the woods, in the middle of a 500-acre state park. The clearing is surrounded by tall trees on three sides; the fourth overlooks the Puget Sound, with the Cascades rising behind islands, across the water; if you pay attention, you can see snow covered Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier in the distance. The sky seems clear near the horizon; gray clouds drift overhead, on a somewhat stiff breeze.

  In the clearing, an assemblage of people in portable chairs, on blankets, on the grass… probably the largest congregation of fleece wear you’ll see in a long time. Some are having picnic dinners on their blankets; some are lying down, seemingly asleep. All ages are here, from toddlers to octogenrians. And a few dogs.

  At each compass point, at the edge of the clearing, a large concert speaker. Six feet below all the people… a facility locally known as “The Cistern Chapel:” A two million gallon concrete tank that once held the water supply for Fort Worden (if– back in the dark ages– you saw the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman,” it was filmed here), now empty, cleaned, and coated with a newer layer of concrete.

  This tank is prized by musicians for its unique acoustics… specifically for the 45-second reverberation of sound it produces, without any bouncing echoes. You play a single note, and it hangs in the air for 3/4 of a minute. In a way, like Canyon de Chelly, only different.

  Inside the cistern, four musicians from very different backgrounds, playing trombone, trumpet, didgeridoo, conch shell, garden hose, and a variety of other “instruments;” the sound fed up to the audience above, as they play their own version of “music from the underworld,” for a little more than an hour. Nobody but the musicians can be inside the tank… every sound (including someone coughing, or shifting their feet) is amplified and would become part of the performance for 45 seconds.

  The music… hypnotic, mesmerizing, otherworldly, primordial and psychotropic. The acoustics of the cistern does something to the sound quality of the instruments… although no electronic gear or enhancements were used, the sound is spacey, unreal– as if it could not possibly have been made by humans. Above, the effect is profound. Almost as one, those gathered fall into a sort of mass trance; some so deep in a meditative state you’d expect them to all of a sudden levitate; others with facial expressions that suggest they are no longer part of this reality.

  Then it is over, and people disperse into the woods.

  ---

  About the “Cistern Chapel”

  Below, a video snippet from last night’s event.

  Also check out Stuart Dempster’s recordings, through the “now listening” link that goes with this post.

   

  • 2:57 pm
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