Unsilent Night: Go Jambox Caroling Tonight in the Montrose

Alright, folks — this sounds very neat, even if you just want to watch/listen…

Matt Brownlie (ex-{Bring Back The Guns} frontman) is inviting anybody & everybody who’s interested to come caroling with him & assorted other friends/etc. tonight (Thurs., Dec. 23rd) up in the Montrose.

The odd bit, though, is that there’s no actual singing involved — instead, people are asked to bring boomboxes/jamboxes (if they have ’em), and the roving crowd of jambox-toting “carolers” will each be playing a piece of composer Phil Kline‘s Unsilent Night piece. The piece is a multi-track ambient-music deal where participants play various parts that coalesce somehow to form one overarching sound.

Here’s the description from the invite:

Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night is a free outdoor participatory sound sculpture of many individual parts, recorded on cassettes, CDs and mp3s, and played through a roving swarm of boomboxes carried through city streets every December. People bring their own boomboxes and drift peacefully through a cloud of sound which is different from every listener’s perspective.

If you visit the Unsilent Night site, also definitely check out the videos from past performances; here’s one from 2006 in SF:

If you want to join in, Matt’ll be providing CDRs (and possibly tapes?) of the music for everybody with a boombox, but you can also download & burn your own. The effect of the different parts playing at once should be damn cool to hear; a nicely un-trad way to celebrate the season.

Details time: the insanity starts at 7:30PM tonight in the parking lot of Copy.com (1201 Westheimer) and will meander ’round the Montrose area after that. Come one, come all…