Adam Matta is, quite possibly, one of the most well kept secrets of Cornell University’s music scene. A professional beatboxer and visual artist from New York City, Matta has been making his presence known on the Cornell campus during the last year.
His performances of “Beat Box Bard” last spring at The Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts combined beatboxing and Shakespearean sonnets.
He returned this fall as one of Risley Hall’s artists-in-residences and is currently the man behind the mic in a series of bi-monthly performances known as “Cat and Mouth” which take place in Risley’s Tammany Hall.
“Cat and Mouth” is essentially an improvised jam session in two parts.
During the first segment of “Cat and Mouth” Matta and a guest artist jam onstage. “Cat and Mouth” most recently featured Prof. Tim Feeney, music and percussion. During their performance on Sept. 21, Feeney played successive feedback loops while Matta beatboxed. Feeney’s feedback loops provided a somewhat harsh and industrial contrast to the beats Matta was laying down. At the same time, Feeney’s contribution complemented Matta’s beatboxing by adding a layer of sound, which gave the performance a new sense of auditory depth and texture.
Feeney describes his music as experimental and compared the experience of jamming onstage to “tasting the air” occasionally to figure out what beats to add and what tone shifts to make at precisely the right moment. He referred to his music as a “vocabulary of sounds” with which he continuously experiments.
During the second half of “Cat and Mouth,” Feeney replaced his feedback loops with a kendang, a Balinese percussion instrument.
A number of student performers also joined Matta and Feeney onstage. Travis Fitch ’09 performed on saxophone and guitar. Angad Bhai ’08 played the tabla, which consists of a pair of small hand drums, and MC’d with Bennett Fox ’08, who also beatboxed throughout the night. Sheyen Ikeda ’09 played the keys. Devin Conathan ’08, another Risley resident, was featured on the djembe, a West African percussion instrument.
When the second half of the performance began, there was an immediate and noticeable shift in the energy throughout the venue.
All of the chairs and tables that the audience sat at and congregated around were quickly moved out of the venue, allowing sufficient room for a dance floor, which was quickly flooded by guests who were ready to dance.
This is not uncharacteristic for a performance of “Cat and Mouth.” The first installment of the performances this semester, which featured Julianne Carney, an experimental violinist who has worked with Sufjan Stevens and Jay-Z, was expected to be “laid-back” by Tammany’s managers, Ethan Samuels and Win Wharton.
However, the pace of the evening quickly changed when it was decided that chairs and tables were “out” and that dancing was “in.” At one point, several break-dancers took to the floor and provided an amazing visual contrast to the musical collaboration occurring onstage.
Overall, “Cat and Mouth” provides an experimental musical experience that simply cannot be imitated or matched. Watching seasoned and developing artists collaborate together is a remarkable experience that has left audiences blown away for the last two weeks.
The passion and enthusiasm shared by the musicians is absolutely amazing, and when it is paired with a receptive and enthusiastic audience, creates a vibrant energy that is hardly contained within Tammany’s walls. This series shows no signs whatsoever of slowing down or losing the momentum which it has accumulated thus far.
If anything, all signs seem to point to the series continuing to grow in intensity throughout the semester.
There are more installments of “Cat and Mouth” scheduled throughout the fall semester.
Upcoming guest performers include Hank Roberts, a world-renowned jazz cellist, on Saturday, Eyal Moaz, an Israeli guitarist from New York, on November 2 and Tim Lefebvre, a bassist who has performed on David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, later in November.