MUSIC | Feature
WIRED TO THE MOON
Counterfl ows festival offers intelligent dance music, weirdo improv, smooth avant-pop and more - shoehorned into one high-quality weekend. Stewart Smith caught up with one of the festival’s highlights while she was on tour in Portland recently, The Space Lady - a busking, UFO-loving, positive vibe-oozing legend in her own lifetime
G allivanting through the musical cosmos, Counterl ows returns with a stellar line-up of free jazz, avant-pop and unclassii able sonic adventurism. For the i rst time, the festival has a ‘featured artist’ − legendary saxophonist and trumpeter Joe McPhee, who will be performing with a range of collaborators, including Swedish sax maniac Mats Gustafsson and the incomparable rhythm section of Steve Noble and John Edwards. At 74, McPhee remains a vital force. As he says, ‘I will go where t the wild goose goes!’
Other highlights include an underground car park set from e electronic musician Aki Onda and sound artist Akio Suzuki, the k kosmische explorations of Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Harmonia) a and Stefan Schneider (To Rococo Rot), and Ghedalia Tazartes’s s strangulated chanson and musique concrète. Israeli pianist Maya D Dunietz will be playing the music of Ethiopian composer Emahoy T Tsegue Mariam, while Berlin-based house producer Heatsick takes ov over The Art School with an immersive multimedia set. Glasgow- ba based DIY pop alchemist Ela Orleans unveils her collaboration with i l i lmmaker Maja Borg on a bill that also features Tokyo avant-pop sin singer Ai Aso and resurgent cult street musician the Space Lady. T The Space Lady, aka Susan Schneider, sings celestial lullabies over the the spectral tones of a modii ed Casio keyboard, while dressed in a wi winged helmet and futuristic robes. A i xture of San Francisco life in the the 1970s and 80s, Schneider took to busking to support her family, per performing otherworldly covers of rock and pop classics alongside her ow own material. She is currently on her i rst tour, following the release of Spa Space Lady’s Greatest Hits on Night Moves Records. S Schneider is clearly delighted to be making music again: ‘How many syn synonyms for “ecstatic” are there?!’ she says. She developed the Space Lad Lady sound with her late ex-husband Joel Dunsany, who suggested she run run her Casiotone keyboard through guitar effects. ‘I chose songs with posi positive messages, outer-space or supernatural themes, and lots of songs that that I just liked. I was doing my best to recreate the songs as I heard them them by the original artists, and it was just a happy accident they came out t out the way they did through the Space Lady i lter’. He Her space concept is no gimmick. Schneider claims to have had a num number of extraterrestrial experiences which continue to inspire her. ‘I ha ‘I have a fascination with UFOlogy and a sense of wonder about what exists exists in the universe. And it’s no less awe-inspiring what exists here on earth earth’, she adds. ‘I’ve actually just written a song for the US West Coast tour, tour, a love song to Mother Earth, and a call to action to her inhabitants. It’s c It’s called “The Next Right Thing” and the American audiences have loved loved it so far. ‘Pea ‘Peace, love, and compassion are the most important things . . . I also want want to encourage people to follow their bliss, as Joseph Campbell famou famously said. I had given up my music to become a nurse several years ago, an ago, and was miserable trying to i t myself into that square hole. Thanks to my loy my loyal fans – old and new – I’m back, following my bliss.’
The Space Lady plays Garnet Hill Multi-Cultural Centre, Fri 4 Apr The S & Que & Queen’s Park Arena, Sun 6 Apr, as part of Counterl ows festival, variou various venues, Glasgow, Fri 4–Sun 6 Apr. She also plays the Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh, Wed 9 Apr. See list.co.uk for a longer version of this interview.
72 THE LIST 20 Mar–17 Apr 2014