Rite of Summer and Ceviche

  

On any other food blog it would seem completely counterintuitive to start out with a post about a concert, but I’m setting out to make Dinner Music a little different from most food blogs. For people with synesthesia, the borders between our senses are blurred to indistinction, and the way I enjoy music is in some ways identical to the way I enjoy the sushi-inspired blue fin tuna tartar starter at BLT, or the steamed pork buns at Ippudo.

You’d think that having a condition where any given sound might make me taste something would mean that I like to keep my music space privatized- closed up and controlled by a carefully curated playlist of sounds to snack on as I move around a loud city like New York- but I actually enjoy the unpredictability of live music. Listening to a song that I know makes me taste key lime pie is fun, but hearing that song live adds more to the soundscape and flavor of that tune.

On Monday I went to Governors Island to see the last concert in the Rite of Summer series, a relatively new project that brings unique artists from different backgrounds together to perform live pieces. This last concert presented Todd Reynolds and Friends, a group that consisted of Todd (a violinist who used his violin almost like a vocal line, making it speak and sigh along to the music), Jordan Tice (a guitarist whose original music is fast and brutally exciting), Mathias Kunzli (a percussionist whose entire body is an instrument…he drums like he’s dancing), Michael O'Brian on bass (who really only got to show off in one of Jordan's songs and I wish I got to hear more of his playing), and Jonny Rodgers, a brilliant guitarist and vocalist who transforms a table of tuned wine glasses into an ethereal chorus of silvery voices…

I was particularly interested to hear Jonny Rodgers’ tuned glasses live, because on his recordings (which you can hear on his album TheAviary) their high, clear chords come across to me like a mouthful of snow. Their coldness and brightness mixes in perfectly with his singing voice, which is chilly and acidic like ceviche. Caustic in a cleansing way, not a burning way. 

Live, that clear taste of Jonny’s music was cut by different sounds and different tastes. The ringing of bicycle bells came in quick like a crunch of celery, the squeals and blips from the stage setup were raw and salty. The pieces Jordan Tice wrote and performed were full and fast- with so many changes in time signature and quick impressive riffs like spices it was hard to taste the tuned glasses at all. 

And through all this I sat up against a tree that was covered in spiders. I leaned my head against the bark and tasted the music. 

-Alexis