Altmusic at the heart of the improv scene

Bagpipes mix with piano for a different sound. WILLIAM DART reports

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David Watson is enjoying three weeks of Antipodean sun after the rigours of a Boston winter, describing his visit home as "four gigs and a bit of a holiday".

The performances in the country's four main centres, launched on Saturday in the spaces of Starkwhite gallery, promise an hour of the sharpest sounds the cutting edge can deliver.

Although Watson was primarily a guitarist in his Wellington days when he was in the line-up of the Primitive Art Group, he is now best known for his bagpiping. And he says we're in for "a dash of bagpipes, a dash of guitar and dashes of long piano wire, amplified, massaged or possibly frustrated".

The bagpipes have become his signature sound on the American East coast. John Zorn, the Godfather of altmusic, described Watson's 1999 Skirl CD as "the great bagpipe album from the downtown scene".

Watson's latest CD, which features avant-garde vocalist Shelley Hirsch, is "much more vulnerable, with just pipes and voices".

When I ask Watson for a working definition of altmusic, he hesitates. The most important thing is that "the whole concept of experimental is meaning something again and establishing its links with what went on earlier in the 60s. The process or the journey is often more important than the final result."

Alongside Watson on Saturday is the German pianist Thomas Lehn, who will play some of the classic analogue synthesisers he has been exploring over the past few years.

Watson considers Lehn to be one of the four or five most interesting musicians on the European improv scene.

"When I first saw him with his trio Konk Pack, they were wonderfully rough and raucous. I don't usually like people throwing around noise, but he was like a surgeon, really exhilarating.

"Then you see him in other things that are so incredibly quiet, which is more the style in European improv. He has the range to do that. Here is a pianist who used to play with some of George Russell's ensembles and is now playing 60s suitcase synths."

Watson is also keen to engage with local audiences. "Improv is like a conversation, in which the audience is part of the equation."

He remembers a special event last year with drummer Tony Buck and Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo. "We played in front of a Roman ruin on a little island in the Bay of Marseille. The French audience was supportive and receptive. They really wanted you to do well and loved it when you did.

"There is always the temptation to take an easy route to what works and punctuate the performance with gimmicks. I'm happy to seduce audiences with excitement and entertainment, but not with tried and true tricks."

Performance

*What: David Watson and Thomas Lehn

*Where & when: Starkwhite, 510 Karangahape Rd, Saturday, 8pm