As we all know, Oxford isn’t ever short of a gig or two. That’s never going to be a bad thing, but it can mean occasionally that not everything that’s taking place is as known-about as one might wish. I was very much expecting tonight’s event to be one of those “where is everybody?” kind of nights, and so congratulations to Oxford Contemporary Music for proving me wrong. Huge the Holywell Music Room may not be, but it was packed out this evening, and considering this is far from a mainstream music event, a pat on Oxford’s musical back for showing such breadth of interest.

Harold Budd, now in his eighties, is a legendary-in-his-sphere composer of what might loosely be termed Ambient music. According to the blurb, he was raised in the Mojave desert and became interested in the sounds created by electricity lines that spanned the landscape. This led to a long career, initially peaking in the 1970s but enjoying a resurgence in the early part of this century after collaborations with Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie and releases on the hip US label Darla. So that’s the backstory; what of the performance? In honesty, it’s not as affecting as one might expect, but it’s perfectly pleasant listening: long, circular, delicate piano patterns that reminded of an endless meander around the notes and feelings of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s theme music to Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. Budd’s music is subtly manipulated and post-processed by Werner Dafeldecker, with an array of what look like tape loop units and delay pedals, along with live instrumentation, to create a pleasingly experimental edge to the music. In isolation, Budd’s and Dafeldecker’s efforts lag at times, but brought together they provide enough highlights – a sudden realisation that we were mid-audio-loop; a bending of tone to subvert the traditional piano sound – to create a largely captivating performance.

The Necks are an Australian trio featuring double bass, piano and percussion. That’s percussion rather than drums as, despite being based around a standard drumkit, the rhythms and varied drum-related sounds formed the propulsive core of what turned into a single 35-minute piece. Using Chinese Baoding balls and cymbal edges scraped on drumskins to slowly build a backdrop and tempo, the subtlety of the piece is impressive. A very simple double bass melody is repeated throughout, gradually extending in range but never deviating from its core, and the piano is used to create soundscapes rather than melodies. As a whole, the sound becomes intertwined to the point of unity, and the skill of the trio is sustaining this whilst – ever so slowly and gradually – ratcheting up the tension and density of sound such that, by the end of their set, the band are marshalling a pretty fierce wall of sound. It’s a massively impressive performance, and one that reinforces the playing of ostensibly minimal music as something that is in fact difficult to give power and emotion. The Necks pull this off, and receive lengthy applause upon completion. It’s well deserved.