Polyphony and Co.

Last night I went to go see the Polyphony Choir perform. I have a friend who sings in the group, and she invited me. I loved the songs they did - they did some by Bjork and Tori Amos - not your typical choir arrangements. 

There was an experimental act before before them, and another experimental one after them with whom they performed. When I say experimental, I mean bizarre and almost not music. Literally, the opening act was a 20-minute-straight, ambient cacophony, and then some people hiding under black sheets who were banging pieces of wood and metal. The latter act was also not really a melodious, the choir was doing these kind of background tones to accompany someone who was singing notes, and words that didn't really make sense. There was no discernible chorus or anything like that. They would also bend their notes, so it sounded like they were going off-key, but it was on purpose? It was strange, to say the least. There were also lots of false ends to the "songs", so nobody knew when to actually applaud. 

I looked at my friend, Louise, whose reactions were priceless. We felt like we were in some kind of bizarre social experiment, where we were watching something very strange, but everyone around us was acting like it was a totally normal thing. We were the only ones who reacted with surprise and confusion, which only made me want to laugh more. I had to really control myself because I didn't want to be rude to the musicians or the people in the audience, but the whole thing just made no sense to me.

I'd definitely go see Polyphony again, but hopefully next time they'll have more mainstream accompanying acts.