Quite doodling fashion

Free Radicals

Jonathan Besser (left) and Ross Harris

In 1958 Len Lye created a film called Free Radicals. The name has scientific connections but perhaps more interesting is Lye’s own description of the film, using words like “ziggle-zag-splutter” and “quite doodling fashion”.

A few years ago several Wellington musicians formed a live electronic music group and, in an inspired piece of borrowing, they named themselves after Lye’s film. Free Radicals in those days had four or five members and included live instruments, piano, flügelhorn, flute and guitar, along with synthesisers and other electronic equipment. When they produced an LP in 1983 there were three: flautist Gerry Meister and composers Ross Harris and Jonathan Besser. When Besser became Mozart Fellow in Dunedin in 1984 the group went into recess and their recent late-night performances at Downstage Theatre were their first since that time.

There have been some changes – there are currently just two members, Harris and Besser, and there are no acoustic instruments. The electronic equipment has been extended to a stunning array of synthesisers and other gear on tiered racks. Musically, too, the shift has been towards the world of electronic music, though the jazz/rock improvisation is still there. The opening of their hour-long piece was pulseless, interestingly superimposed on a pre-recorded tape of a hypnotist’s voice, which became more and more unintelligible. The trance image was maintained till the end of the section, when the voice again became clear for awakening instructions.

The sections that followed included some with a strongly rhythmic basis and improvisation from both musicians. Harris, who is Director of Victoria University’s Electronic Music Studios, is an experienced electronic composer and his knowledge of the medium and affinity for it showed throughout in a sure control of his material. It was not the first time that Besser, originally from New York, has revealed his inventive talents as a jazz improviser and I was a little regretful that he had abandoned the piano for the unresisting electronic keyboard. He was the one taking risks in his music, the creator of the dynamic energy.

It didn’t all come off, but Free Radicals is producing highly original music which is never boring, which avoids cliché and which crosses musical boundaries in an exciting way. I think Len Lye, kinetic sculptor and doodler on film, might have given his blessing.

This review was first published in the NZ Listener in its weekly Concert column in 1988.