Picture: Gordon Woolcock
Klanghaus: InHaus continues at Summerhall – Lower Church Basement until 27 August 2023.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
A dingy soft-lighted room divided into three interlinking unequal-sized sections, so that everyone can see everyone else. Books, pictures, reading lamps and other artefacts spread haphazardly around, a certain smell of… could it be a student flat from the 1960s? In the dim light, the audience finds seats where it can. Video loops, courtesy of designer Sal Pittman, float around the walls, their restless reflected light changing our perceptions of each other. “This is our home” announces Mark Howe, guitarist.
A ripple of electric guitar, a flash, and suddenly we’re enveloped in a pulsing riff: electronica mixed with techno mixed with punk mixed with traces of Captain Beefheart. The videos are now of birds. Karen Reilly (an astonishing vocalist) sings “we are all birds” then leaps on a handy table. It’s a cross between a rock concert, house party and art installation.
Welcome to the immersive world of Klanghaus, the brainchild of Norwich band, The Neutrinos: Reilly, Howe, Jon Baker (bass) and Jeron Gundersen (drums).
The theme, as far as I can gauge, has a spiritual flavour: whole earth philosophy, environmental concerns, the oneness of all but it is not didactic, hammered: it is induced. The lyrics are suggestive, impressionistic, incantations: meditations if you will. Reilly and Howe weave around the audience with joy and surprise.
It’s a performance, a party, and ultimately a bringing-together of all present. At a certain point, we are huddled together in a small adjoining room where we are recorded humming. “This will be our next single” smiles Howe. It is in fact used later on in the show.
It’s a unique experience. Klanghaus’ work is usually site-specific, so I assume this is too: they work with what they are given. We leave, all subtly changed, and happy.
James Bryce
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