The Thunderstorm Inside: REONA at Feel It Records, May 20, 2026
Sometimes, I love hearing about a show last-minute, because it becomes this surprise that intervenes into my week, injecting my days with something fresh and exciting. This noise show at Feel It Records provided a welcome disruption to my daily rhythm on a Wednesday, the electricity and energy in the room plunging me into the rest of my week with vivacity. Featuring REONA and Sarah Lutkenhaus, with local support from Ploughshare and Seven Dollar Trio, this bill blended a perfect mix of junk-metal noise, electronic experimentation, and fried free improvisation to offer up a show with tons of variety as well as a cohesive thread amongst the acts. Noise was displayed in the diversity of its forms, a reminder of the vast spectrum of what the genre has to give.
As I was chatting outside, the gig started off with Ploughshare, who drew me inside the shop by the clangs and rattles emanating from within the building. The Cincinnati-based noise artist wasn’t facing the audience when I walked in, and never did, an enigmatic figure banging metal bins laid out across a long table that’s more often found at a church potluck. The sounds seemed to start off more acoustic, like he was shoving around the bins as if searching for something lost. As the set progressed however, the noise became increasingly amplified and electric, losing its identity as derived from metal and becoming new and otherworldly. It churned and clanked like it was failing machinery, and before long, smaller pieces of metal, like nails, nuts, and bolts, entered the mix at a higher sonic frequency than the rest. I embraced the fact that from where I was standing, I couldn’t really see how exactly Ploughshare was making his sounds, especially as he hunched over the instruments and guarded them from view. His approach made the metal feel like it was rattling around in my head.
The next performer was Sarah Lutkenhaus, an experimental sound artist from Chicago who seemed to employ the most electronics out of the artists performing that evening. She began with a light drone as the base, with a quivering, panning tone that drilled directly into my skull. I marveled at the sensation like it was literally in there each time it panned, not in a painful way, but like a mind reader. Lutkenhaus added manipulated spoken vocals to the texture, which jutted and whirred in and out with an uncanniness born of vocalizations that sit in the boundary between sounding like a voice and seeming spectral. Layers built with a vaguely mournful quality while the pulse started to grow more insistent. Somehow Lutkenhaus managed to maintain an incredibly minimal atmosphere, while also introducing so much to listen to in the texture. A repetitive drone entered that tolled like an eerie grandfather clock, and a low thrumming marched in like the bogeyman’s footsteps. The thrumming increased in speed, a heartbeat gone tachycardic, all soon releasing into a consonant halo of sound. This pinnacle wasn’t the end however, as Lutkenhaus brought back the thrumming at a reduced rate, other lines intervening and unsettling the texture. Then all of a sudden, it disappeared with only a few wisps of heartbeats remaining.
Tokyo-based noise artist, REONA, took the stage next, her various metal implements strewn about the stage. She began by bowing a medium-sized piece of wrinkled metal, reminding me instantly of Robert Rutman and the steel cello. Rutman’s steel cellos often created an ethereal, yet cavernous tone, whereas REONA’s quickly became more abrasive and churning. As the set progressed, REONA threw more of her body into it, her movements working in tandem with the sounds she was creating. She stomped on the sheet metal and dug her foot in with a back-and-forth motion. Before long REONA introduced a chain into her instrumentation, which she slammed down on top of the sheet, causing it to reverberate like a shatter. But REONA was able to use the chain in a more gentle manner as well, swirling it along the surface of the metal so that it was like waves in a storm, still cresting and crashing but not a flood. How could one item produce such differing sounds? As REONA began to tap dance on one of the metal sheets on the floor, it produced this thunderous clatter that I became swallowed up in, like the skies were opening up, like the thunder crack that frightened me the night before. Someone’s headlights flashed on in the parking lot outside the shop and as the light flooded in, I was convinced for a moment that the electricity of lightning had appeared with her thunder, sending me further into a frenzy as she descended into chaos. REONA was kicking and sliding the metal sheets around, physically plunging into the noise until the very end.
Seven Dollar Trio concluded the evening, who was comprised of Torn Light’s own Alex York on electric guitar and Jon Lorenz on sax, along with Julian Vanasse on drums. The group began their set in an immediate tumult, Vanasse laying into the drums while the entire ensemble squealed in a free jazz freakout. This high energy start then mellowed into more of a drone, with York establishing a slight groove for awhile, before the group rose back into a second bout of chaos. In the aftermath, York and Lorenz’s tones became blended almost into one, the two nearly indistinguishable from each other as the texture became more minimal. York introduced high motifs with overtones, which manifested this growling voice out of the guitar, all while Lorenz sent some long, plaintive lines over the top. The group gradually became less minimal, the pressure building again to a point where tones were once again uncannily consonant, Lorenz hitter the upper stratosphere of sax overtones. The consonance was made all the sweeter coming from the dissonance, and the manner in which Seven Dollar Trio merged into unity felt like the final chapter of the show, the noise, dissonance, frenzy, and sonic contusions spilling over into this moment of clarity before it all vanished.
– Hannah Blanchette
May 30, 2026 | Blog