jeremy over, matt welton + lemur

The taxi driver asks where St Philip's church is. Which building. What's going on there tonight. Once again have arrived early as it turns out.

Among others, using a slideshow of text and a loop station Matt Welton performs Dr Suss from his new book We needed coffee but we'd got ourselves convinced that the later we left it the better it would taste, and, as the country grew flatter and the roads became quiet and dusk began to colour the sky, you could guess from the way we retuned the radio and unfolded the map or commented on the view that the tang of determination had overtaken our thoughts, and when, fidgety and untalkative but almost home, we drew up outside the all-night restaurant, it felt like we might just stay in the car, listening to the engine and the gentle sound of the wind, available from Carcanet.

Something weird happens. St Philip's Church in Salford doesn't look like any other building nearby. From their website it's Greek style, designed by Sir Robert Smirke in 1825. The view from Chapel Street is straight on to the 'bow-fronted porch with ionic colonnade and balustraded parapet and bell tower above.' Alternately as Tom Jenks points out there's a kind of Silent Running vibe to the Geoffrey Manton building at MMU, only perhaps more deserted even with people in it. We are the last people drifting in this forgotten ship.

But there are more people. More people at a poetry reading than at a gig. At 6.30 pm or thereabouts around 50-60 people go into a lecture theatre to hear two poets read. This is the Geoffrey Manton building. Between 7.30 and 8pm at St Philip's pretty much everyone arrives for the latest in the Salford Concerts Series 09. Including the musicians (4), the church staff and volunteers (4 I think), the organisers (2), people working on the toilets (2), and the audience we only total 20.

Lemur are Lene Granger - cello and Hild Sofie Tafjord - horn, both of Spunk, and Bjornar Habbestad - flute and Michael Francis Duch - double bass. They play acoustically tonight in a wonderful sounding space, solo sets in the first half then after a short break as an ensemble - although the cello often seems to take the lead or at least be more sonically evident.

Jeremy Over doesn't wholly convince me. He reads first. Whether I'm simply not in the mood I don't know but the poems feel relatively conventional with bits of novelty bolted on. It's as though he's straining towards a kind of watered-down linguistically innovative practice but something prevents it being more than a gesture. I'm probably being unjust, others will have another view and may have enjoyed it more.

I decide not to hail a cab on the street although it's already half past seven. Instead I walk to Whitworth Street to catch one there. Lemur don't start playing until around 8pm or later.

Sitting and waiting for the gig to start and during the break I write what must be around three new poems for my MA manchester sequence in one block. Suddenly I'm around halfway through it and it's gone off in a whole new direction.

The solo sections are fascinating, playing with texture, sound, the limits of the instruments. There is a dialogue through the evening for me about music and non-music, intention and accident, sound and non-sound, and how possible it is for an instrument not to be musical. Separately the musicians play at the limits of their instruments, and use unconventional structures. They make sounds that are not conventionally musical, and noises that sound like they come from another source altogether. So at times the horn sounds like electronic noise, the flute - or rather the mouthpiece - is used as a vehicle for breath, mouth sounds and fingering, while notes are mostly held off. Together, even while doing relatively unmusical things the cumulative effect is like music. There is almost melody, almost harmony.

Matt performs from memory - except for Dr Suss which is long and complicated and involves getting the loops right. Even from memory when the poem is on shuffled cards - this is I must say that at first it was difficult work - where he simply glances at each card to see which line it is. There are thirty-six lines. I bought my copy of We needed coffee but we'd got ourselves convinced that the later we left it the better it would taste, and, as the country grew flatter and the roads became quiet and dusk began to colour the sky, you could guess from the way we retuned the radio and unfolded the map or commented on the view that the tang of determination had overtaken our thoughts, and when, fidgety and untalkative but almost home, we drew up outside the all-night restaurant, it felt like we might just stay in the car, listening to the engine and the gentle sound of the wind in Cardiff at the weekend. I could have waited.

This morning I didn't know either of these events were on. The usual channels had broken down as regards the Salford Concerts Lemur gig and the Jeremy Over/Matt Welton reading I'd plain forgotten about until I was texted. More things tomorrow and next week. Made and ate two smallish smoked salmon sandwiches in work because there was no way I'd have time to eat at home before I left.

As the Lemur ensemble piece evolved it became stranger and more about the interplay of textures and blurring of sonic boundaries between the instruments. One extended another until they were sometimes indistinguishable. The horn could be the double bass while the flute and cello were hard to prise apart. Or the cello and horn matched one another. The flute imitated a voice. There were slow steady rhythms. There were staccato bursts of sound. There were almost random rain clusters of notes. Creaking. Drones. Screams. Spaces and silence. Noise and crescendo.

And then I walked home. But wait, there's more. Didn't give much idea of Matt's performance or a bunch of other stuff. Adrian Slatcher gives an alternate but not vastly different reading here. The lecture theatre's a constrained space not suitable for performance. As a reader/performer I'd look at it and think 'how can I disrupt this?'

Adrian, I'll see your three Matts and raise you Matt Wand organiser of the Lemur gig.

Lemur used the acoustics of the church - as Greek inside as out - brilliantly. As well as building to tremendous volume they were able to use the tiniest, quietest gestures. Surprisingly, although essentially serving the same function of enabling didactic exposition of arcane information albeit with added ceremonial as the lecture theatre the church proved a more appropriate venue for performance. I suppose perhaps in part because some of the order intended to be impressed on the audience there would be encoded in the hymns and ceremonies enacted there as well as in the architecture, whereas the lecture theatre has to impose discipline on the unwilling through brute management of space. Like much contemporary public space it subtly bullies you into conducting yourself as the designer would like.

Matt's We needed coffee but we'd got ourselves convinced that the later we left it the better it would taste, and, as the country grew flatter and the roads became quiet and dusk began to colour the sky, you could guess from the way we retuned the radio and unfolded the map or commented on the view that the tang of determination had overtaken our thoughts, and when, fidgety and untalkative but almost home, we drew up outside the all-night restaurant, it felt like we might just stay in the car, listening to the engine and the gentle sound of the wind is a compelling, if perhaps more patchwork book than The Book of Matthew, although it shares characteristic strategies with the first collection. His performance given the constraints of the space was excellent. He was confident as ever and managed to hold your attention even through what might be seen as more difficult poems.

It's around 45 minutes on foot from St Philips to where I live and frankly a bit of a boring walk. But somehow I've managed to break down the route so my mind's always occupied elsewhere and the tedium falls off.

Would have been nice to hang around after the reading at MMU. Still.

Enough.