08/21 @ 8:00pm

David First’s Gestural Improv Group + Kurt Wolf’s Lapis Lazuli

David First’s Gestural Improv Group – an evening of searching for perfect frozen moments through hyper-sensual tuning systems and black holed rhythms. Featuring Jane Rigler/flute, Chris McIntyre/trombone, Reuben Radding/bass, Michael Evans/drums & percussion and D.F. on guitar & laptop.

David First’s musical life is filled with opposites and extremes. At the age of twenty he played guitar with Cecil Taylor in a legendary Carnegie Hall concert. Two years after that he was creating electronic music in the studios of Princeton University and leading a Mummer’s String Band in Philadelphia parades. He has played in raucous drunken bar bands and in pin-drop quiet concert halls with classical ensembles. As a composer First has created everything from finely crafted pop songs to long, severely minimalist drone-works. His performances often find him sitting trance-like without seeming to move a muscle, unless he is playing with his recently re-formed psychedelic punk band, Notekillers, at which time he is a whirling blur of hyperactive energy. First has been called “a fascinating artist with a singular technique” in The New York Times, and “a bizarre cross between Hendrix and La Monte Young” in The Village Voice. A single released in 1980, The Zipper, by Notekillers, was cited by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore as one of the songs he played for the rest of the band when they were starting out. Moore called it a “mind-blowing instrumental single” in the British rock magazine Mojo and “a big influence” in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Notekillers have released an archival CD on Ecstatic Peace and recently participated in the All Tomorrow’s Parties’ Nightmare Before Christmas Festival in Great Britain. First received Honorable Mention from Leonardo/ISAST for his article “The Music of the Sphere: An Investigation into Asymptotic Harmonics, Brainwave Entrainment, and the Earth as a Giant Bell”. He has received grants from the Foundation of Contemporary Performance Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Copland Foundation, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and the Meet the Composer Commissioning USA program. Upcoming releases include a 3-CD compilation of First’s drone-works, Privacy Issues (1996-2009) on Phill Niblock’s XI label and a new lp by the Notekillers.

http://www.myspace.com/davidfirst

http://www.myspace.com/notekillers

http://www.facebook.com/dvd.1st

Flutist, composer and educator Jane Rigler is known for her innovations in flute performance, techniques and musical vocabulary. She performs widely as a soloist in contemporary music festivals, as well as with ensembles.  Rigler’s compositions explore language, social games, painting, poetry and dance and has received numerous awards supporting her work. Together with artist-programmer Zachary Seldess, Jane is developing the Music Cre8tor (patent pending), an interactive, sensor-driven music composition program for young people with disabilities. She is a Japan-US Friendship Commission Fellowship winner for 2009, where she will be working with electronic musicians, dancers and traveling to Buddhist temples during her 6-month residency in Japan. http://www.janerigler.com

Christopher McIntyre leads a multi-faceted career as performer, composer, and curator/producer. The diversity of his activities led Time Out New York to note that “…with every passing week, trombonist-composer Chris McIntyre becomes more central to the new-music experience in New York.” (2/08) He interprets and improvises on trombone and synthesizer in projects including TILT Brass Band and SIXtet, Ne(x)tworks, and 7X7 Trombone Band. He has contributed compositions to Lotet, TILT, Ne(x)tworks, 7X7 (for choreographer Yoshiko Chuma), Flexible Orchestra, and B3+ brass trio. McIntyre is also active as a curator and concert producer. He is currently Artistic Director of the MATA Festival, with independent projects at venues including The Kitchen, Issue Project Room, and The Stone (June 2007). Visit cmcintyre.com for more info.

Reuben Radding is a bassist/improviser/engineer and writer who has performed all over the world for 20 years. His latest CD is Crackleknob w/ Mary Halvorson and Nate Wooley on the Hat Art label. His website is at www.reubenradding.com

Michael Evans is an improvising drummer / percussionist / multi-instrumentalist / composer whose work investigates and embraces the collision of sound and theatrics, combining ordered systems with intuitive choices of sound making using found objects, homemade instruments, and various digital and homemade analog electronics. He has worked with a wide variety of artists nationally and internationally.http://www.michaelevanssounds.com

Lapis Lazuli is a solo instrumental project written, produced, and performed by Kurt Wolf on laptop, guitar, and analog synth.  Kurt Wolf is known for his contributions to downtown noise rock acts, Pussy Galore, Boss Hog, Loudspeaker, Emma Peel, Foetus Inc.  Kurt Wolf was given the name by his good friends Antony and the Johnsons, hence the brand.

Lapis Lazuli music exists in kind of a parallel universe were soundtrack composers dominate the later part of the 20th century musical landscape.  A warped vision of what music from the era may have sounded like minus the utopian hippy hegemony of the late sixties and early seventies.

http://web.mac.com/kwolf13/iWeb/wolfmusic/Welcome.html

http://www.lapislazulimusic.com

http://www.myspace.com/kurtwolflapislazuli

http://www.myspace.com/thelemming66

http://www.youtube.com/user/laz