Smell of tent cities. Large rat gallops under car. Dim light.
Enter a doorway on empty South Main Street, see the rust-stained cement floors, the old brick walls painted white, the two rows of folding chairs -- the Coaxial Arts Foundation feels as if some skinhead in a trenchcoat might get up and demand the repeal of Reality.
Then the music comes. Although it reinforces the threat to norms, we soon know we won't regret the change.
First there's Breath. Nietzschean eyebrows bristling, Steuart Liebig sets up an Orphic cave atmosphere by thumping the body of his 6-string electric bass, allowing the low tones & overtones to fill the space and constantly retexturalize through the agency of his 17 (!) effects boxes and pedals, which he operates with his bare feet. (He says he dropped the footwear to avoid treading on two buttons at once.) Willowy, bespectacled young Sarah Belle Reid also eschews shoes, curling her toes around a barstool's crossbars as she breathes often notelessly through her trumpet, augmenting the airy sound with warm echoes selected via a notebook computer. White-haloed Vinny Golia holds down the stage-right flank with his bass clarinet, alto sax and bass flute; his ever-varying, circular-breathing, postmelodic commentaries piggyback on Reid's microphone, 8 feet away, to produce a sense of adaptive action. Together, this trio relaxes us into a state of optimism where rodents and vagrants, not to mention the mixed audience, become instant allies.
Next comes Cycle. In the middle, monkish Brian Christopherson's ultralight drums mediate. To his left, genial John Fumo's trumpet and flugelhorn show how extreme music can incorporate extreme beauty, human and flowing. At the other limit, white wizard G.E. Stinson tweaks his electric guitar through boxes on a stand; his electronic loops suggest a heartbeat, his strumming with a paintbrush raises a feeling of mammal fur, and his jagged plucking raises occasional blue ghosts of his onetime Chicago home. Despite a more ominous vibe, we can rely on Fumo for reassurance amid the layers of modern confusion. And we know Stinson isn't caught in the sometimes scary circles, he's joyfully riding them.
Finally, mass Cooperation. All six musicians line up and percolate in spontaneous counterpoint, really listening, mixing their very different expressions into a communion that includes us all. That's right, you folks at home, too.
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PHOTOS BY FUZZY BORSCHT.