In principle, watching a guy play drums for 45 minutes doesn’t sound like it would make for the most interesting concert. But in this case, the guy is Greg Fox, a drummer you could calibrate your metronome to. We’ve been repeatedly spellbound by Fox’s contributions to Liturgy, Guardian Alien, and Ex Eye, but how would his work hold up as a solo performer?
The premise of his most recent release, September’s Gradual Progression, is that Fox used Sensory Percussion — his kit feeding into modular synths via a MIDI — to create a fully-fledged ambient work. Woven with samples of saxophone and guitar, most of the sounds he’s working with are high pitched and mechanical, but the tenor of the set lacks much of the aggression of the other projects he’s involved with.
It’s difficult to tell if or how the sensors play into his live set; to the casual eye, he could just as easily be playing along to a backing track on the laptop set up next to him. But without other band members to distract or be physically set up in his path, this was the best opportunity to appreciate his skill. Fox seems to enter a trance when he plays — his eyes are rarely open — and it’s difficult not to feel meditative in his presence. If you couldn’t see the sweat flying from his face, it would all look completely effortless.
The intimacy of the evening isn’t underscored until the encore, when Fox returns to the stage to provide more insight into his latest work. Listening to him speak without a mic closes the space in and brings a human side back to the autopilot of his playing. He introduces an “experiment” — possibly to be found on his next album — which triggers a series of bird songs among the drumming. It’s whimsical and weirdly charming and guarantees that we’ll track down whatever he works on next.
