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As I was riding the elevator last week in my office building, the door opened at the 14th floor while someone got on or off there. In the hall I saw a door with a sign for EMF, Electronic Music Foundation. When I got back to my office, I looked it up on the internet and found this. It looked interesting and I also saw an announcement of a performance for the following Monday (yesterday), so I decided to stop in and see.

Tomoko Sauvage is a maker of electronic music. She uses bowls filled with water as the foundation of her instrument. It’s similar to the Indian instrument jal tarang but she uses them in a different way. While the Indian instrument is played as a percussion instrument, Tomoko does not hit them with sticks. In each bowl she has a hydrophone (an under-water microphone) and has those running to a mixer.

She can move the water with her hands to get sounds, which is what she started the performance with. She incorporated feedback coming from the speakers through which the music came. The pitch of the sound varies with the volume of water in the bowl. Adding more water lowers the pitch and removing water raises the pitch. She had a delay and loop pedal through which she ran the sounds to create loops of the music. At one point she removed all the water from one bowl and added sparkling water, which created a bubbly sound. Finally, she had water dripping from small cups above to create a random, dripping sound. Removing and adding water, she changed the pitch of the drips.

The performance was interesting and the sounds were watery, drippy, and at times, soothing. I enjoyed it a great deal.

I look forward to hearing what else the EMF has to offer.

Joey Baron & Bill Frisell, originally uploaded by Dan Hewins.

Saw the duo at The Stone on September 7. The show was really great. It took them a while to get going but once they did, it was a thing to see. There was a louder part that included John McLaughlin’s “Follow Your Heart” as well as Monk’s “Evidence.” Other parts may have been other tunes I couldn’t recognize but a good bulk of it was improvised.

It was really hot in there too. After a longer break about 3/4 of the way through the set, Bill looked a little worse for wear. I wasn’t sure he wanted to continue. But he did and that part (after a little warm-up or ramping-up) got to be pretty great as well.

All in all it was a great show! Joey Baron is a joy to watch.

…for Hillary’s birthday dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns:

• Farm vegetables with lemon juice and salt
• Tomato water gazpacho
• Tiny tomato burgers
• Zucchini with pancetta
• Wax beans
• Dried/cured eye of round, pork loin
• Veal marrow with sturgeon caviar
• Marissa Cuomo ‘Furore’ Costa D’Amalfi, Italy 2008
• Fluke with green Tomato
• Cantine del Notaio Aglianico Rosato ‘Il Rogito’ Basilicata, Italy 2007
• ‘Black dirt’ slow-roasted (18 hrs) kelsae onion with condiments
• Damien Laureau ‘Les Genets’ Savenniéres Loire Valley, France 2006
• Smoked river trout with corn, mushrooms, mustard seed
• Alban Viognier Central Coast, California 2008
• Scotch egg with cured summer beans, curry
• Bread and butter
• Calera Pinot Noir ‘Mills Vineyard’ Monterey, California 1996
• Lamb brain with carrots
• Malvira ‘Monbeltramo’ Roero Superiore Piedmont, Italy 1999
• Lamb with stuffed eggplant and mountain magic tomato
• Bert Simon Serring Wertzberg Riesling Kabinett Mosel, Germany 1999
• Sheep cheeses
• Elderberry compote with apricot and passion fruit sorbet
• Macari “Block E” Sauvignon Blanc, New York 2005
• Grilled corn ice cream and cake with peach, golden raspberries and olive oil dust

yum.