Unknown pleasures

If you look closely enough, past the giant billboards for interchangeable Russells (a phenomenon first identified by Stewart Lee), there's no shortage of events during the Fringe to satisfy more left-field tastes. But a collaboration between the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) and Jim O'Rourke stands out even amongst the most avant-garde happenings in Edinburgh.

GIO were recently described as "one of the best large improvising ensembles in the world" by BBC Radio 3. O'Rourke is a man whose alternative rock pedigree—forged through work with Sonic Youth, Wilco and a number of exceptional solo albums for Drag City in the 90s—is only a small part of his wider work as a renowned improviser and experimental musician. Given the personnel involved, this multimedia piece in Summerhall's unique Dissection Room should pique the interest of anyone with an eye and ear for the improvised form.

Some I Know, Some I Don't came about after GIO's Artistic Director, Raymond MacDonald, spent a day working with O'Rourke on an album in the latter's adopted home of Tokyo. It's clear from speaking to MacDonald that he relished the opportunity, and when the time came to think about new work for GIO's tenth anniversary festival, he got back in touch.

"Jim doesn't travel out of Japan, so that presented both a challenge and an opportunity to see how we could collaborate from afar to write a piece for an orchestra from there," he tells me. "Of course I'd met him and worked with him, but he hasn't met the other musicians." 

Using only recordings of GIO's work and an outline of the band's lineup, O'Rourke devised a set of Japanese playing cards consisting of instructions for the musicians. "That perhaps is where the title of the piece, Some I Know, Some I Don't, comes from, because he had a little bit of information about the group but not a huge amount."

The format, says MacDonald, gave O'Rourke the opportunity to explore the dynamics of the band in a way that would open up new possibilities. "He was looking to compose a piece from his own ideas for a group of musicians that he wasn't going to meet, and give us the freedom to develop improvisatory elements within the piece."

Once the source material had been dispatched, O'Rourke seemed happy to let the piece go where it would. "As well as being a visionary musician, he's also been generous of spirit and generous with his ideas in sharing this with us, so there wasn't a sense of him being very specific about how we interpreted those cards. The collaboration process seemed to work very well." 

The show at Summerhall will have developed somewhat from the version performed at the tenth anniversary festival, with an added visual component courtesy of video artists Too Many VJs. The 102 cards made by O'Rourke include not only musical directions, but also a number of "wildcards" with personal instructions. One example sees the musicians swapping shoes with their neighbour, for instance.

MacDonald is keen to emphasise the centrality of the improvisation, seeing the theatrical aspects as complementary to the primary purpose of spontaneous musical creation. "There's a definite element of humour and a theatrical aspect to it, but the challenge for the group was to also retain the gravitas of the sequences of improvisation while allowing these bizarre elements to come to the surface." Each card leaves the musicians free to have a "personal negotiation" with the instructions, which MacDonald stresses are influenced heavily by the particular context of the performance, and allow the immediate surroundings to impact on the finished piece.

The excitement, he says, comes from the possibilities to be found in "the mix of real improvisatory elements plus more structural conventionally composed elements." Summerhall should also come into its own, with the Dissection Room providing a suitably distinctive setting for a performance that is by its very definition, unrepeatable.

It seems then that this is one of the few shows at the Fringe where the performers will know little more than the audience about the outcome. The freedom given by O'Rourke to GIO as a collective, and the ability of the musicians to interpret the instructions as they wish, creates the environment for an incredibly loose and unpredictable show, where anything can happen.

It's this kind of spontaneity, risk, enquiry and respect for the process, not just the finished product of creativity, that makes Some I Know, Some I Don't such an exciting prospect, embodying the spirit of the Fringe as a place for experimentation and pure expression far more so than any number of more polished musical acts elsewhere in the programme.