New York, November 2, 2007 – Friday nights at the Whitney Museum can be hectic, but none more so than when Australian-born Brooklyn-based composer/performer J.G. Thirlwell rolled into the Upper East Side with his string quartet and a motley assortment of robotic musical instruments called the Lemurbots.   J.G. Thirlwell is probably best known for his solo work under the name Foetus and its many variants, but Friday night at the Whitney was for the chamber music side of Thirlwell's brain.  The evening's program began with Thirlwell directing his Manorexia ensemble during the performance of songs from the albums Radiolarian Ooze and Volvox Turbo.

The second and final part of the bill was reserved for his string quartet and the Lemurbots, robots designed by LEMUR (League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots), a group founded by musician and engineer Eric Singer.  The standing-room only crowd (the Whitney ain't exactly Madison Square Garden) was duly rewarded when the Lemurbots let peel their frenetic and unmistakably mechanical sound befitting Thirlwell's movie-score-on-fast-forward compositions.  If the Lemurbots impressed the crowd, then the programming, string accompaniment, and especially Thirlwell's conducting edged it to a standing ovation - while the bots remained at idle. - Photos and text by Damien Neva