Snaking
through the glowing hum of Northern suburban lights, not quite yet arrived at
the weekend, the anticipation to see Jess Ribeiro perform live pulsed my car
towards Preston, Wurundjeri land still stolen and still unceded. Thursday night, September 26 at the Darebin Arts Centre, and I remained uncertain as to what I might expect to bear witness to.

I’d watched
the music video ‘Everything is Now’ innumerable times, mesmerised by the sonic
tension made apparent in the unique plucking of strings, distorted and at times
ambient brass, all being layered atop the delicacy of Jess’ near Sprechstimme style
lyricism. The package in this video is juxtaposed with Tony Yap’s eloquent
contortionism that seems to act as a thread that ties the whole piece together,
as if music was dance, and perhaps dance was music?

Flash back to 7:30pm
on-stage in deep Darebin, although it needn’t matter where the crowd and I
found ourselves, and Tony is wearing a suit, one that sparkles under the pastel
technicolour glow of the stage. It’s a mesmerising conglomeration of sensorial
expression.

Tony moves in ways that pay homage to the detailed knowledge stored
in the body, somatic rumblings that seem to be overlooked by the
conventionality of modern society. Upright in chairs, confined to office walls etc. But it is here too that spoken word stirs up
the space, presented in a muttering, mumbling frequency that attunes
attentiveness, fixation and intrigue. An ambient musical score overlays this,
with guitars, pre-records and various hardware driving the journey deep into
the fluidity and pause apparent in Yap’s body. It’s a swirling 20 minutes, or
so I think it lasted for such a duration, it’s as if time, at least
quantifiably speaking dissolved into the performance, revealing Kairos time,
the experience of immersion in the moment. I felt as if somehow I was a part of
Tony’s performance, not removed from it as audience vs presenter.

An interlude ensued and I
stumbled through the improper pronunciation of superlative in conversation with
an arts centre staff member. The word was found on the back of a can of
limoncello, an absurdity in of itself, as the attendant giggled and playfully corrected my uncouth. It
seemed a city bound reverie had wrangled a hold of me, luring me down into a
rabbit hole, some sort of vacuum, although this one filled with ‘superlative’ sensory matter.

#

The
spectators and I shuffled back into the auditorium and out rolled Jess Ribeiro
and her band. Adorned in pants under a dress, Jess moved gracefully,
transfixing, beckoning us all into a deeper state of immersion. “Who
actually likes matcha tea anyway?”, she proposed and we seemed to be jarred out
of hypnosis into a playful cacophony of chortle. A collective response
concluded that matcha is best drunk with coconut milk and then as if tea had
finished brewing ‘Maybe If I Wore Sunglasses Inside I Won’t Feel Tired’, the
opening track of Jess’ most recent album ‘Summer Of Love’, commenced. In its
recording form it is evocative, somber yet paradoxically offers up the image of a smile upon looking through a window on a rainy day. Live, it was incredibly moving
and the gentleness of the aforementioned Sprechstimme resembled a conversation
with a dear friend. The lights remained their pastel hue, but the show was
backdropped with curated home-video footage. Rainbows, birds, and all sorts of
everyday happenings structured into squares that leant into this theme of
mesmerisation, back extended and two feet off the ground. Jess made more jokes,
as provocation became apparent, yet the musical aspect to the show
established such a tension that satiation seemed entirely out of reach. This
aspect of tension, when it comes to live performance, is what we as musicians
set out to achieve. To demand the attention of the audience just enough and for
just the right amount of (Kairos) time that satisfaction, inattentiveness nor
absence is evident. However, that isn’t to say that mastering the notion of tension in a live performance renders engagement and entertainment as found wanting. Rather it is quite the contrary and Jess and her band had refined this detail so effectively that the performance acted as a gripping narrative start to finish. Notable songs performed were the dainty ‘Summer Of Love’ and the crescendoing ‘Everything Is Now’, but all the other tracks that wove the concert together featured unique and exceptional displays of musicianship from the band members, as individual, as collective. This was, and shall remain one of the most intricate and engrossing performances I have seen. It was all tied together by slices of pandan cake gifted to curious beings in the foyer, as Marlion Williams was sighted in the crowd and the bustling of chit-chat paid homage to an evening of dancer as musician, of artist as portrait and all the other endless variations.

#

The following day I danced atop a hill to ‘Summer Of Love’, it’s anthemic sound intrinsically resonant in my movement, [in Tony’s (?)], I was left wondering what the other audience members were moving through, how they were moving too…

Jacob McCormack

the allness

Jess Ribeiro and Tony Yap @ Darebin Arts