Reviewed by Jeffrey B. Remz
The concert featuring Michael Bierylo, aka eMBee, and Bill Sebastian was not exactly straightforward. As part of the Boston Immersive Music Festival, this was a night of the intersection of electronic music and virtual reality art in what would prove to be a peaceful, soothing hour.
eMBee, a member of the experimental Boston-based band Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, sat behind his modular synthesizer which he created, combining forces with Sebastian, who oversaw the VR portion of the night through his OVC-3D device.
During the concert - all of it improvised - the audience of about 20 seated people all had headsets (many of them were Oculus headsets) allowing them to experience the VR world. As the visuals continued, eMBee imparted his synthesizer sounds, which often tended to be beeps and more elongated mood-setting sounds. If you were looking for a song-based show, you were in the wrong venue.
Sebastian through hand and foot controls created his own set of visuals as seen in the headsets. It felt like it might have had the same effect as taking drugs.
At the outset of the VR part, one imagined entering a cave through a big black hole and then floating through space with repeating pillar-type objects on either side with black the dominant background color. As one looked back, up or down, those images shifted and changed. So did the colors of the various objects during the course of the concert.
The perfect merging of the synthesized music and VR continued before ending at a black hole, cave-like opening.
This may not work for all music fans, but for those willing to consider something different, have at it. With eMBee and Sebastian at the controls, this was an experiential night of music and art that hit the senses hard.
The Immersive Music Festival continues Thursdays through Saturday through Oct. 25 with shows at 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. at Boston Cyberarts, 141 Green St., Jamaica Plain.