Pantha Du Prince: Conference of Trees + Leifur James
Barbican, London

NEVER shying from staging fiercely conceptual modern compositions, this latest audio-visual project gracing the Barbican’s main hall is a marriage of techno and drumming on wood to create an imagined colloquy between trees.

Taking to the stage in tribal-style furry masks — a representation of an imagined tree folk perhaps or the personification of the trees — Pantha Du Prince (aka Hendrik Weber) is joined by four percussionists who play an array of fascinating instruments, from handcrafted wooden-log drums and stones to the more familiar vibraphone, glockenspiel and cello.

Behind this cacophony of analogue instrumentation stands electronics wizard Weber, who overcasts the ritualistic drumming with pounding digital beats, all beneath a tent-like canopy where images of trees and forests are projected.