Star rating: ****
Living Room is actually an oasis - of lovely and genuinely creative music. The Austrians aren't the first to bring the hang drum to Edinburgh, but they're streets ahead of previous exponents of this Swiss invention. Resembling a model of the Cadbury's Smash aliens' spaceship, this instrument combines the sounds of steel drum, gong and tabla, or at least it does in Manu Delago's hands, fingers and fists.
Delago joins bass clarinettist Christophe Pepe Auer in making music that, at first, is largely riff-based but gradually opens out, exploring the hang's harmonic and melodic possibilities as well as its rhythmic propulsion. Auer is a fine, understated but expressive player and don't be deterred by the chamber music descriptions as there's subtle musical showmanship involved, too, as well as an unlikely but brilliantly realised version of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit.
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