AMM

There is a murmur of mystery pulsing through everything AMM do. That name, for example, first used when a version of the group was formed in 1965, is an acronym, but what does it stand for? Then there is the music they improvise into being, its plates of shifting, searching sound, generated by the three members: John Tilbury, piano; Keith Rowe, guitar; and Eddie Prevost, percussion. Prevost has described the group as a "medium for discovery" and, although they have played together many times, they maintained the sense that the sonic, textural possibilities they located in their instruments were as surprising for them as for their audience. There was often a feeling of almost childlike delight at the lack of limits, particularly in the case of Keith Rowe, whose guitar was laid flat on a table to be manipulated, not by fingers, but by toys, a spring, a dish scrubber - each thrust against the strings to see what might result. It often seemed the music was being received as much as played, a notion enhanced by Rowe's use of radio. (Ian Fox would be surprised to learn that he featured for several minutes via a Lyric FM broadcast.)

That overall sense of sound arriving by unknown means was wonderfully accentuated by the fact that they played in near darkness, the three strands melding into one unit, but always curving away from resolution.

Earlier in the day, Tilbury gave a solo recital of music by Cornelius Cardew and Morton Feldman. The Cardew pieces ranged from early Darmstadt-influenced abstraction to later folksy reworking of The Croppy Boy and Father Murphy, which were of dubious value both musically and politically.

The Feldman composition was his last for solo piano, Palais de Mari (1986), which was beautifully played in a gentle elucidation, its repetitions and modulations lapping like a tide.

The ever-daring and creative Whispering Gallery music collective deserve praise for their efforts to bring such important musicians to Dublin.