Dan Barry photo

Triple Music: found sounds.

I very rarely use the phrase "art-damaged" to describe music, and when I do, I want you to know that the music I'm witnessing is to be avoided like SARS. I get paid to suffer through it, so I'd just as soon spare you the suffering, you know?

So I'm glad that you probably weren't at the Hartford Art School last Wednesday to see the event they called Triple Music. It sounded amazing on paper, but when I showed up to the Renée Samuels Center on the UH campus, what I found was irreparably art-damaged. Two laptops, operated by Lief Ellis and Matt Sargent, emitted glitchy synth noises and abstract video. Meanwhile, percussionist Bill Solomon tinkered with a table full of objects — some were musical instruments, and some were anything but.

I should note that all three performers in Triple Music are members of the Hartford Sound Alliance, a group interested in making boundary-pushing, media-mashing, genre-blending music. Each boasts an impressive résumé of compositions, performances, and awards — you can see for yourself at hartfordsoundalliance.com. I do not believe for a second that any of the three musicians are hacks.

That said, I hoped to hear a collaborative, organic/electronic soundtrack that interacted with video in innovative ways. I was hoping for a performance that might demonstrate that electronics could be warmer and friendlier, and percussion colder and more mechanical, than how we normally think of each. I wanted to see why and how video could be integrated, could be considered "music" as the event's name suggested. What I got was three artists so overloaded on theory that they were unable to cooperate, choosing instead to masturbate all over their audience.

Solomon futzed with a number of "found objects" that looked more like he had stolen them from the school's cafeteria than, say, thoughtfully re-purposed an everyday item. He quickly fell into a predictable pattern of picking up a given object, hitting it a few times with a stick, and putting it down to start again with the next object. There was no nuance or rhythm, no randomness or emotion. Behind him, the projector spewed out bad Stan Brakhage imitations, while Sargent's laptop barfed up bleeps and bloops. Like Solomon, Sargent offered no compelling layers of noise, no notes obscured by washes of sound — just single synth tones in serial order, scooting up or down a scale, becoming more or less grainy. The purposelessness was deafening. Without a central idea to cohere around, each artist operated in a vacuum.

On Saturday I saw just how much was possible when artists do cooperate. I ventured south and just across the state line to SUNY Purchase, where there was an all-day local and student concert happening at The Stood, their completely student-run Student Center. The bill was incredibly diverse: I saw an ambient, loop-based bass guitarist followed by a metal band followed by a funk/classic rock hybrid.

Metallers the Legacy Hour took the stage without their vocalist, who was still en route to the gig, and managed to slam anyway. They played Lamb of God-style straightforward metal, but every now and then they threw in some positively terrifying chugs that hinted at influences much darker and more obscure. And Charlie Philips led a funk ensemble, sounding himself like a mix of Hendrix and the Black Keys, while behind him his band was more like Galactic or Karl Denson's Tiny Universe. It was a spectacular pairing of influences. I now have serious college envy — I wish my alma's scene was that good.

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