Avengers assemble!
In Calendar, read the review for the latest superhero team-up, “Avengers: Infinity War,” featuring characters from 18 previous Marvel films. Plus, take a deep dive into Orlando’s diverse experimental music scene, get a look at Tampa’s food halls, check movie and event listings and more.
COMMENTARY
There’s less than 40 of us crowded into tiny Uncle Lou’s Entertainment Hall (face book.com) in the Mills 50 neighborhood of Orlando. Even standing against the back wall, I can tell the sound will absolutely fill this joint.
Sure enough, The X Heads launch into a deafening hardcore, vocalist Darren Crittenden growling, the music wailing in a constant ebb and flow between form and formlessness.
For the next song, or maybe it’s part of the same one, the bandmates trade instruments with the bass sporting a broken string and go at it again.
This is the Pre-International Noise Conference, a Central Florida concert ahead of Miami’s annual festival of noise music. Ranging from instrumental improvisation to homemade electronics, noise is an expressive subset of the larger genre known as experimental.
“It’s sheer adrenaline and inspiration,” says Crittenden, 23, of his music. The Orlando resident pulls influence from the Velvet Underground, John Coltrane and even the Beat poets of the 1950s.
This region is home to a diverse lineup of experimental acts, venues and supporters. It’s not always for the faint of heart or ear, but experimental music is bound to introduce fans to new sonic landscapes.
Existing in a nebulous state that crosses all categorical boundaries, what is experimental is hard to define, but Jeremy Adams gives it a try. “Experimental music and avant-garde music can really be summarized as the research and development branch of music,” said Adams of local duo Exponential Decay. “If you look at the music we’re hearing now on the radio, they’re utilizing techniques experimental composers pioneered 20 and 30 years ago.”
At the downtown Orlando Public Library, Adams leads the Works With Sounds workshops, which teach people how to use electronic and computer music programs. While there is a connection between electronics and experimental, Adams says that the two aren’t tied together. “It’s more about finding creative solutions a songwriter would face.”
“I think it means something different to everyone,” said David McDonald, a professor of music composition at University of Central Florida. “The important thing is that it behaves in unexpected ways, that it’s made out of unexpected materials.”
Kissimmee resident Dan Reaves, who operates under the moniker Trotsky’s Watercooler,