Alfred Hitchcock Retrospective

Seasoned performers, The Quadratic Contingency are known for being innovative. Their show at GoMA cements that as they experiment with music and film. “My band, Quadratic Contingency, is performing live at GoMA to silent films and we were asked because even though we do write dots on pages as such, we are also an improvisational band as well which will really suit this quite well,” composer and percussionist Paul Young explains.

The Quadratic Contingency endeavours to evade being pigeonholed as they draw influences from different genres. “We have been lumped into a post jazz category, I think often people do that because they don’t really know how to classify us, which is a bit of a cliché in itself. I guess our influences are improvisational music, minimalism and classical kinds of music.” It is these influences that will be prominent in their shows partnering the Hitchcock films. They plan to make every show different to suit each film. “Throughout the films, I am actually getting a lot of collaborative musicians in who are people I have worked with in the past, who I can trust to do some really great things that are out of our scope.”

The Quadratic Contingency are embracing the opportunity to experiment. “There is a lot more opportunities to be creatively motivated to be doing innovative stuff so I’ve been really surprised and really humbled by a lot of the great stuff coming out of Brisbane.”

Humbling and exhilarating, yet hard work according to Young, who has worked tirelessly for the Alfred Hitchcock Retrospective. “I am probably going to get to the last Hitchcock film and then sleep for three months. It is quite a task writing up to fourteen hours of music in a few months.”

The Quadratic Contingency play at GoMA for the Alfred Hitchcock Retrospective every Sunday until November 27.