Sarjeant Happenings: Campbell Kneale as Powers brings experimental guitar show to Whanganui

Campbell Kneale will bring his “carnivorous psychedelia” to the Sarjeant Gallery.

Internationally acclaimed musician and artist Campbell Kneale will present his singular approach to sound at the Sarjeant Gallery, providing an artist talk and live performance under the name Powers.

Powers is the result of Kneale pushing a single electric guitar into transcendental, excoriating and stroboscopic extremes.

He promises the experience will be “impossibly dense, defiantly raw, and utterly hypnotic,” likening it to an apocalyptic journey into the heart of a freezing black sun.

Kneale describes his performance style as “carnivorous psychedelia,” emphasising the risks and rewards of improvisation.

While this approach to raw sound and experimental composition may be unfamiliar to some audiences, its lineage stretches back to the early 20^th century, when electronic recording and sound-making techniques first emerged.

Silence and ambience became vital ingredients too, allowing sound or music to be environmental or textural rather than strictly musical.

In rock history, this spirit surfaces with Jimi Hendrix using electric guitar feedback and distortion, or the dissonant rawness of punk and grunge, and the exploratory noise of bands like Sonic Youth or the freeform eruptions that punctuated Nirvana’s live sets.

Kneale’s influences span a vast and eclectic terrain, from 1960s New York loft minimalism to 1990s Scandinavian black-metal demos, to 2000s ‘Japanoise’ via 1970s German ‘Kosmische’ synth music and the abrasive 1980s No Wave movement that followed punk.

Across a career that spans three decades, Kneale has performed under numerous monikers, including Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel and Our Love Will Destroy the World.

Although he often works solo, he has also collaborated with some of the world’s most renowned experimental and avant-garde artists, among them Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Merzbow, Stephen O’Malley Sunn O))), Keiji Haino, Borbetomagus, Phill Niblock, and Tony Conrad.

For a brief period, Kneale was based in Castlecliff, where he sometimes hosted touring musicians for intimate lounge performances.

After two years of contract work in Taihape, he has now relocated to Palmerston North and is taking the opportunity to embark on a solo national tour, including a return to Whanganui.

“The shows have started well,” he says.

“They’re very challenging for me. Solo guitar is black belt level stuff… it’s hard.”

Before his 5.30pm performance on April 12, Kneale will give a free 2pm talk about his own compositional processes, and offer a beginner’s guide to listening to his work.

The talk is titled, How to Destroy Space and Time.

The performance tickets are available from undertheradar.co.nz.