Berk Is The Curse Of The Strumming Classes

Bit of an overcooked intro to this one, but I guess it's an interesting area. I know I'm childish, but I do like the image of Sol Le Witt smoking a chalice with The Wailers in the government yard in Trenchtown

MICHAEL BERK/ AMRIT SOND/ ROLAND CHADWICK – The X, 2/11/07

We’re suspicious of quality. Spend too long creating quality music and you might find you’ve forgotten to include anything else; it might be OK for fitted carpets, but makes for the sort of vapid music that is only enjoyed by people who get excited about the mechanics of their heated windscreens. This is art not athletics, and whereas art should probe new regions, quality can only be judged against itself. So, we wouldn’t normally get bogged down with technique – as the conceptual artist Sol Le Witt said, “banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution” – and yet tonight’s guitarists marry astonishing technical agility with the ability to make exciting music.

Roland Chadwick opens his set with some slide blues, that leaves a lot more space than most players would dare. It’s sadly let down by his slurred voice, that spews out a Mississippi glossolalia, from which bubble random phrases like “mistreated” and “Kansas City”, like a hot serving of cliché gumbo. Thankfully, he soon moves on to Spanish guitar that he picks, thumps and generally bullies to make delightful neo-flamenco. A vocal Spaniard in the house, initially wary, ends up giving a one man standing ovation.

Amrit Sond’s first two numbers, by contrast, don’t evoke much of a reaction. They’re intricate and well constructed, but sound like they should be aural wallpaper for a wildlife documentary. Suddenly he plays us “Rigid Geometry”, a piece that takes the phrase “extended technique” and garrottes it with an abused G string. It took three years to write, nearly as long to tune up for, it sounds like Derek Bailey playing Xenakis and it’s frankly incredible. The final track, a plucked nugget of cubist lute music, is also good, and if some of the set got mired, the highlights seared like fireworks.

Michael Berk’s ability could make other guitarists weep. But, although his tracks like “Trenchfoot” are as complex and intense as any Venetian Snares 12”, Michael is truly great because he never loses sight of what makes a song work - he plays every bloody note of “Bohemian Rhapsody” (we mean all the instruments and vocals) with the concentration and deftness of Andres Segovia playing Bach. It’s not ironic or kitsch, however, and makes Rodrigo Y Gabriela look like busking chancers. A version of “No Woman No Cry” dissects the song completely, but somehow keeps Marley’s simple emotion burning. Sol Le Witt would have lit a fat one, wiped away a tear, and nodded approval.