Gutter Echoes by NYFOLT

JoAnn McNeil - voice, electronics / NNN Cook - computer

REVIEW of Afrofuturism Now! performance, Rotterdam, 2015:
Nyfolt’s cosmic tapestries of sound emanate a strong Cyberpunk aesthetic, as well as a Gristle-ish propensity to experiment with spaces. This becomes evident right off the bat when JoAnn McNeil and Nathan Cook meander between audience members with tape recorders, whistles and minimal percussion. The first instinct is to simply close your eyes and allow these sprawling soundscapes to trickle down your psyche.

Nyfolt provides a nice counterbalance to Moor Mother Goddess’s riveting and frantic performance, maintaining a sweltering slow-burning pace throughout. Their blueprint is unlike anything I’ve heard before. McNeil, who’s a great singer, briefly sequesters a wistful, almost sacramental grace at one point, as if is transmitting a universal hymn or anthem into the galaxy.

For the most part, Nyfolt’s show progressed a tenuous sonic tightrope walk: sinister Coil-like industrial backdrops seamlessly bleed into kinetic Dan Deacon-like buoyancy, as well as the inversive spoken word meditations of Laurie Anderson’s post-modern classic Big Science. Don’t let all these reference points fool you though: Nyfolt is a true original, instilling all these different proponents into a uniquely devised vernacular. Amazing!

—Jasper Willems (Louder Than War)

Sound & visual artist. Concerned with proximity, psychodynamics, psychoacoustics, geometry, mysticism, identity, & the primeval.
Runs the Close/Far experimental music label. Select commissions include: Laumeier Sculpture Park, World Chess Hall of Fame, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Radius (Chicago), High Concept Labs (Chicago), Experimental Sound Studios (Chicago), & Alarm Will Sound (NYC).

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