The latest avant-garde bill of national caliber (Aug. 25) was a joint presentation by a local Justice League of creative forces: The Civic Minded 5, Timucua Arts Foundation and the Gallery at Avalon Island. Like the congress that presented it, the lineup was a confluence of bright and progressive minds.
Topping the bill was Brooklyn transplant Ava Mendoza, the highly noted experimental guitarist who is currently making noise in Unnatural Ways. Despite the name of her primary act, the things Mendoza did on guitar at this solo performance – from making a slide sound like whale songs to conjuring aboriginal spirits – were like the very forces of nature.
At times, her noise-baked badlands blues plays like some epic, elemental cross of Sir Richard Bishop and Earth, but with a wild-child streak. Across sonic landscapes that are gorgeous, foreboding and sonically feral, it’s a sound at once forward and ancient.
Proving her notable bona fides in the avant-garde scene, NYC’s Jessica Pavone takes a classical instrument (viola) and, through technique and effects, stretches it into far realms that span harrowing edges, dark atmosphere, eerie loneliness and noise-fried intensity.
This wasn’t just some exercise in ingenuity or, worse, strangeness for its own sake. No, this riveting display was a thing of expressive power and experimental mastery.
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This Little Underground is Orlando Weekly’s music column providing perspective, live reviews and news on the city’s music scene.
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This article appears in Aug 24-30, 2016.
