When you call an event “Night of the Unexpected” that makes rather a bold claim to have to live up to. I cynically thought to myself that I’d been and seen it all, so the claim of the unexpected sounded like a challenge to me. The event is a Dutch,brought over as part of Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Walking in to Bates Mill is disorientating in itself, even for someone who has been to concerts there before. The lighting was bright at first and there are stages here and there. The first thing we saw on entry was renowned sound artist/turntable experimenter Janek Schaefer with two vintage 7” turntables wired into a complex mixing desk. The unexpected thing is, he’s playing cheesy classics and doing a hospital radio-style dedications over the top. I certainly didn’t expect that. The last time I saw him in Huddersfield, he was conjuring up sonic fields of ambience and texture. Now he’s playing 80s pop hits with distortion pedals!

Then out comes violinist Monica Germino and stands aloft on a podium. She lifts up her electric violin and begins playing the kind of heavy, distorted soundscapes you would associate more with an experimental metal act like Sunn 0))) or Boris. OK, I did not expect that. It was also brilliant.

Next up is Rhodri Davies & Ko Ishikawa. Ko Ishikawa is playing an instrument I’ve never seen. It looks like a tower of pipes and sounds almost like a giant harmonica crossed with the sound of a giant breathing. As he puts his entire lung power and breath through the instrument, Rhodri Davies manipulates electronics using a portable fan. The sound made me feel extremely odd. I have to admit, I did not expect that and I really enjoyed it.

Suddenly, the lights go out, a red laser strikes up and the whole mill is filled with loads of dry ice. A strange, electronic pulse begins to rise. The lasers respond to the sounds, making bizarre patterns in the smoke, above our heads in the darkness. I think this is how alien abduction feels. Time seems to slow to a crawl as we were taken on an extraordinary journey in sound and light. It definitely was something that you could file under “unexpected”.

After that, we were ushered out across the courtyard (helped by Janek playing Jennifer Rush’s “The Power Of Love”) into a large space surrounded by musicians, CD players and displays. Obviously, by now I had dropped all attempts at trying to expect the unexpected and just went with the flow. When we went back into the main mill, there was Tatiana Koleva doing industrial percussion. Then the Staalplaat Soundsystem used toy VW vans with record needles in them driving around records to create a mighty noise. Then Evan Parker and Joel Ryan performed a celestial improvisation.

Topping the bill was minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine. He sits at his piano playing heartbreaking music. His singing sounds like ancient Native American singing and his piano gently tinkles like the end of a life. He was refreshingly irreverent, heckling the audience and the soundman during his set and drinking cognac liberally. There can be no doubt that he is one of the greats up there Phillip Glass and Tony Conrad. From gentle sorrow to furious rage, his set captured both and left me pretty speechless. It was an incredible end to an incredible and unexpected night.

Review by Ned Netherwood