Reviewed by: Fringefeed
Review by Bruce Mutard | 31 January 2023

The talent that are Jessie Gordon and Mark Turner possess, would take an essay and still not encompass it. They are widely known for their jazz and folk shows, but this one takes a different tack, akin to a sound bath, only far more enveloping and stimulating.

In the middle of Moana Hall, surrounded by the audience (there were empty seats, which this review aims to rectify), sitting on a Persian rug surrounded by candles, lights, vines and their instruments, Mark and Jessie wove a magical 60 minute stream of lilting instrumentals and song. What was wonderful is how it was loosely structured, and thus improvised based on how each felt the music needed to go.

I knew Mark was a fine singer, guitarist and saxophonist, but here, he adds keyboards and of all things, a piano accordion to his repertoire. If next I saw him playing a steam calliope I wouldn't be surprised. Jessie and Mark then used looping technology to create a heartbeat of rhythm under their melodious voices and layers of instrumentation. The songs were largely their own, but some familiar tunes come into it, reworked and woven in to the stream.

I know the show is called Calm and it aims to be an hour where ones mind stops thinking and allows the erotics of sound to take over, by which I mean one feels it deeply. But I was utterly enervated and excited by it, forgetting the hot evening weather and almost, my Kangaroo Island mulberry sloe G&T. You should go and see this, for there is magic being in the presence of such talent in such an intimate space.