ii

This is not a guitar, says ii. While Alex Nosek and Jon Tjhia are on-stage with axes slung over their shoulders, the gradually built environment of different textures – soft, muddy, sharp, cicada, etc – created by their string control is nothing like ordinary riffage. Instead, the pair seek to open up the horizons of what is already a pretty puzzling instrument when you think about it: electromagnetic pickups converting vibrating steel into signals, fed to an amplifier through a cable, often modulated by various other devices and valves. By plugging their six-strings into an array of pedals, loops and samplers, they act like a conductor's baton for an ambient orchestration, unbroken across their set.

ii harness a slowly drawn in energy, sifting through various scrapes and musical lines, burbling away for a good 10 minutes until winding back a little, remembering the sound of a 'normal instrument' ever so briefly to bring in the strums of 'Tropes'. Then they re-enter the loop, samples and bits of bark, sometimes quiet, snaking bass, ever so subtle, other moments shifting to pitching zings. It's a finely tuned and attentive process, and the most astounding thing is that Nosek and Tjhia simply do not communicate, save for on some invisible, clairvoyant level they've obviously reached by now. Acting truly as ‘ii' (two humans apart), they weave this glistening, unmarked tapestry into the air by pure intuition.

This is a fascinating thing to watch – even if you're never really sure who's creating what, where that particular sound is emerging from. But of course, it's the very fact that ii manage to craft a sweet, welcome sound from what would otherwise be a quite academic process of formal experimentation is what makes them more than a curiosity, in fact a pleasure.

by Lawson Fletcher