Denton, 8.21.2024

For the latest edition of Molten Plains at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, we welcomed back co-curator Ernesto Montiel (from visiting family in his native Venezuela on the eve of the contested election, the ultimate outcome of which still hangs in suspense), while we enjoyed the diminished levels of free floating anxiety in our domestic political scene, buoyed by the energy from the Democratic convention the last couple of nights (I only read the highlights, unlike some friends that have been glued to the screen since Monday, but I'm glad it's happening).

Last month I got to play participant-observer as part of the Improv Lotto, and this month I got to witness a performance by a comrade from days gone by, dancer-choreographer-educator Sarah Gamblin, Professor of Dance at Texas Women's University. Sarah's appeared at a couple of Molten Plains in the past. Back around 2010, I was in an experimental improv outfit, HIO, that accompanied contact improv dance jams with some of her MFA students who made up Big Rig Dance Collective (whose former members are now on the faculties of UTA, UNT, and TCU), and we also performed with Sarah at the 2011 Houston Fringe Festival. But this was my first opportunity to see her dance solo without being encumbered by having to play.

On this occasion, she was accompanied by Andrew Dunlap on upright bass, a frequent Molten Plains performer who's also a member of jazz-funk outfit Captain Moon and the Silver Spoons with Rubber Gloves sound tech extraordinaire Aubrey Seaton. While I've heard Andrew before in a number of contexts, this was my first time hearing him playing without other musicians, and I was able to fully enjoy the deep sound of his instrument and the thoughtful, lyrical counterpoint he provided to Sarah's body movement.

As an improviser, Sarah is intelligent, body positive, and fearless, and she excels at engaging with her accompanists. I asked her what her concept was for this evening's performance and she said while they had no prepared score, they'd talked about being inscrutable, allowing patterns to happen, and maintaining visual contact. Each movement, she said, creates a problem to be solved, and it was fascinating to observe her thought process in motion, in real time. In this instance, I think video can do a much better job of conveying what went down than my meager description. 

Heavy Stars is the performing rubric for Austin-based vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Lacey Lewis, whose vibraphone anchored one of the trios at last month's Improv Lotto. For her set this evening, she used simple elements -- synthesizer, samples from field recordings, loops of skeletal beats or melodic fragments -- to create hypnotic sound beds, over which she added the sound of her voice, echoed, sampled and looped. The result was a kind of spacey folk music -- a worthy soundtrack for metaphysical ruminations. 

Last set was by the first-time duo of guitarist Michael Meadows and sound artist Chad Mossholder. Meadows plays a lefthanded Jazzmaster through a small Fender amp with an array of effects, using a bright, biting tone, laden with reverb, that recalls Syd Barrett's lysergic explorations as well as the MC5 blasting off with Sun Ra's "Starship," and enables him to manipulate feedback at relatively low volume. Mossholder, who's performed worldwide under the rubric Twine and worked as a composer and sound designer for video games, created an acoustical environment that ranged from what sounded like Extreme Close Up insects eating to jarring seismic shifts under Meadows' guitar skree. The collision of their contrasting sound worlds produced some connections, and was a bold and bracing finish to the evening.

Next Molten Plains will be September 18. The October edition will be late (the 30th, rather than mid-month), and the Fest in December is planned for the 14th and possibly the 15th. Tonight I'll be taking my wife to dinner at Nova in Oak Cliff with the proceeds from selling our VHS collection to Rubber Gloves, after which we'll take in Requiem for the Troposphere featuring pianist Thiago Nascimento with visuals by Lightware Labs at the Kessler Theater. I'll be back in Dallas Saturday to hear guitarists Gregg Prickett and Jonathan F. Horne duet at Full City Rooster, then again Sunday to hear Jonathan and Trio Glossia open for Max Kutner's Partial Custody at The Wild Detectives. It's a great life if you don't weaken.