NIME 2005

“There was no uncertainty in the next piece, Ligature, by Giorgio Magnanensi, an Italian-born composer who now lives in Vancouver. Seated at the FOH console in the middle of the audience, and looking like a cross between Albert Einstein and Napolean Dynamite, Magnanensi frantically manipulated a dozen modified electronic toys of the old “Speak&Spell” variety, creating a ungodly landscape of screaming, ripping “circuit-bent” sounds which were thrown around the hall by a 16-channel digital matrix mixer, made all the more hideous by the sounds’ roots in (badly-sampled) human voices. The one glitch, when a motorized Furby with a tiny speaker in its stomach stopped moving, was adeptly overcome by the performer who ripped a wire-filled twist-tie in his teeth and shoved it into the critter’s back, bringing it back to life. (He told me later a solder joint had failed, and he knew exactly where it was.) It was a masterful performance, and deserved its enthusiastic ovation.” (Paul Lehrman)