Fleshtone Aura

Loft, Guelph ON, July 18

Photo: Tom Beedham

BY Tom BeedhamPublished Jul 19, 2015

8
"Imagine 90 tedious minutes of a man driving across America," a voice instructed. "Imagine a windshield as it collects bug splats for a very long time."
 
Splicing these directives into a drain-circling glitch collage of pop jams, crunchy noises and other found sounds, amongst the floor seated crowd at the Incline/Decline Loft, you could see the uninitiated wondering what they were getting into when Andrew Zukerman got the wheels rolling on his Fleshtone Aura performance.
 
Were we about to embark on 90 minutes of noise? That probably wouldn't have been as effective as the short set Zukerman did give.
 
Jockeying between the hum of the ceiling fan and a tape loop of the instrumental hook from that clichéd '90s club jam, "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" and intentionally sending PA feedback through the mic, his was a 10-minute set that hailed some chuckles and confounded some of the more experienced "sound people" in the audience, but also solicited a protective contingent of listeners that hushed the more enthusiastic responses in search of as pure a listening experience as possible.
 
When it was all over, he cut the power, declared "That's all you get," and the room filled with applause.
 

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