Artist-In-Residence: Matana Roberts, post-concert talk with Nate Chinen
“Ms. Roberts isn’t just mildly curious to expand her medium: She seems driven to do it.” – NY Times
“Matana is definitely nondescriptive. She’s not a lady, she’s not a man; she’s just a being…” – Jazz Times
“Roberts is a deep traditionalist who looks beyond the rigid distinctions and definitions of musical style” – Chicago Defender
“…alto saxophonist and clarinetist Matana Roberts –add this name to the frustratingly short list of excellent, female reed players…” – All About Jazz
“…Roberts is a fluid, elegant player who rejects the star soloist approach of many a saxophonist….” – BBC Jazz
“The sound of Matana Roberts’ alto sax spans jazz her-story, from its roots in New Orleans, through the swinging ‘30s-40s, to the New Thing.” – All About Jazz
A CAN CAN FOR COIN COIN…
Rooted in her strong belief that sharing honest creativity is a catalyst for instant community, Matana Roberts and ISSUE Project Room will join together for A CAN CAN FOR COIN COIN, a concert and food drive for her last performance as Artist-in-Residence on December 9th. While developing her blood narrative COIN COIN, she has been trying to connect the work to the social activism inherent in sharing art, and the devotion to community activism prevalent throughout in her family tree. In honor of her ancestors, she is creating this community-focused food drive benefiting the Bread and Life Soup Kitchen, a healthy food initiative that brings both physical and mental nourishment to in-need areas around Brooklyn.
Matana Roberts (Reeds)
Amelia Hollander (Viola)
Jessica Pavone (Viola)
Daniel Levin (Cello)
Keith Witty (bass)
Tomas Fujiwara (drums)
Daniel Givens (projections)
The concert will be followed by a talk with Nate Chinen, a regular music contributor to the New York Times, JazzTimes and The Village Voice.
COIN COIN: In Essence, a Musical Monument to the Human Experience
Matana will premiere the last of three new COIN COIN pieces which focus on spacial and environmental interplay while excavating themes relating to her familial heritage and own personal history.
Matana cultivates an environment where every surface, from walls to floors, to furnishings to large instruments, serve as sonic reciprocators. Keeping visual aesthetics in mind just as much as the auditory experience, and having utilized raw space and various architectures before, Matana creates a comprehensive sensory experience for the audience, attempting to create an intimate “womb” feeling.
Her work during the Residency focuses on and attempts to deconstruct recent discoveries in her lineage and family histories. Researching back to the 1700’s, Matana explores themes of hardship and perseverance while trying to find and construct her own identity. Since beginning this project, she has found that her lineage includes Irish, Dutch, Danish, English, Scottish, African and others, imploring a critical look
at the title “African American”.
Since her youth, Matana was surrounded by musicians who showed by distinct example the importance of listening to one’s personal creative voice while at the same time using the profound and many layered traditions of jazz and improvised musics to act only as her creative guide, not as her creative definer. By using their mentorship, she has been able to craft a voice and creative focus that truly speaks to her own artistic individuality. She feels strongly that her music should not only reflect the many colors and moods of universal human emotions, but that it should also testify, critique, document, and respond to the many socio-economic, historical, and cultural inequalities that exist all over the world.
Matana, a 2006 Van Lier fellow, Brecht Forum fellow, and 2008 and 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts nominee, has appeared as a collaborator on recordings and performances in the U.S., Europe, and Canada with her own ensembles as well as with the collaborative jazz trio Sticks and Stones, Black Rock Coalition founder Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar, Reg E Gaines and Savion Glover’s homage project to the late John Coltrane, the Oliver Lake Big Band, and the Julius Hemphill Sextet and Merce Cunningham dance. She recently released a homage project to her hometown entitled The Chicago Project, on Barry Adamson’s Central Control International, produced by pianist extraordinaire Vijay Iyer, featuring friends and supporters of her Chicago development. She has also recorded as a side person on recordings with such iconic bands as Godspeed You Black Emperor, TV on the Radio, Guillermo Scott Herren’s Savath and Savalas, Silver Mt Zion, and sound artist Daniel Given’s Day Clear/Day dark. Matana is a member of the AACM– Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the BRC– Black Rock Coalition.
To learn more about Matana’s vision for her residency, read her interview “In conversation with Matana Roberts, ISSUE’s Current Artist-In-Residence” with David Martinson or visit www.matanaroberts.com
ISSUE’s AIR program made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation.
Artist-In-Residence: Matana Roberts
“Ms. Roberts isn’t just mildly curious to expand her medium: She seems driven to do it.” – NY Times
“Matana is definitely nondescriptive. She’s not a lady, she’s not a man; she’s just a being…” – Jazz Times
“Roberts is a deep traditionalist who looks beyond the rigid distinctions and definitions of musical style” – Chicago Defender
“…alto saxophonist and clarinetist Matana Roberts –add this name to the frustratingly short list of excellent, female reed players…” – All About Jazz
“…Roberts is a fluid, elegant player who rejects the star soloist approach of many a saxophonist….” – BBC Jazz
On November 18, Matana will present COIN COIN Happening II: Fields of Memphis, featuring violinist Mazz Swift
Matana ( mah-tah-nah)Roberts, is a dynamic saxophonist, composer and improviser, who tries to expose in her music the mystical roots and spiritual traditions of American creative expression.
As a Chicago native she was fortunate enough to be surrounded by musicians who showed her by distinct example the importance of listening to one’s personal creative voice while at the same time using the profound and many layered traditions of jazz and improvised musics to act only as her creative guide, not as her creative definer. By using their mentorship, she has been able to craft a voice and creative focus that truly speaks to her own true artistic individuality. She feels strongly that her music should not only reflect the many colors and moods of universal human emotions, but that it should also testify, critique, document, and respond to the many socio-economic, historical, and cultural inequalities that exist not only in this country, but all over the world.
Matana, a 2006 Van Lier fellow, Brecht Forum fellow, and 2008 and 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts nominee, has appeared as a collaborator on recordings and performances in the U.S., Europe, and Canada with her own ensembles as well as with the collaborative jazz trio Sticks and Stones, Black Rock Coalition founder Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar, Reg E Gaines and Savion Glover’s homage project to the late John Coltrane, the Oliver Lake Big Band, and the Julius Hemphill Sextet and Merce Cunningham dance. She recently released a homage project to her hometown entitled The Chicago Project, on Barry Adamson’s Central Control International, produced by pianist extraordinaire Vijay Iyer, featuring friends and supporters of her Chicago development. She has also recorded as a side person on recordings with such iconic bands as Godspeed You Black Emperor, TV on the Radio, Guillermo Scott Herren’s Savath and Savalas, Silver Mt Zion, and sound artist Daniel Given’s Day Clear/Day dark. Matana is a member of the AACM– Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the BRC– Black Rock Coalition.
ABOUT COIN COIN : a blood narrative in blacks, browns, reds , and blues….
Since 2005 Saxophonist/composer Matana Roberts has been experimenting on a sound narrative about the intricacies, contradictions and questions that surround the human bloodline experience. How when broken down into the most minute details new meanings arise beyond the surface levels of one dimensional human acceptance; generally attached to shades of difference, and fear of the unknown. Transcending sometimes the unbearable in order to create new possibilities of understanding the human condition.
Using herself and research she has done on her own bloodline history and various ensembles she leads as the “guinea pig” in this sound endeavor, she has been able to cull a myriad of rich and awe inspiring stories that speaks many interesting truths about the flexibility and wonder of individual understanding. Transversing the American South of days past– traveling reflections of African, French, Irish, English, Scottish, Canadian, and Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw Native America history, Matana is weaving together stories and lore that speak to a very distinct, historically experimental, yet common, American experience. For her, a very personal search in sound practice that opens a dialogue for possibilities going beyond the specific; regenerating a focus that she hopes in the end celebrates the inherent potential that resides in the overflowing capability of human love, sadness, kindredness, perseverance, and joy
To learn more about Matana’s vision for her residency, read her interview “In conversation with Matana Roberts, ISSUE’s Current Artist-In-Residence” with David Martinson.
ISSUE’s AIR program made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation.
Share – all night free open audio & video jam – featured guests o.blaat (Keiko Uenishi)/Margarida Garcia
What is share?
SHARE is first and foremost a platform to explore expression, in a variety of artforms. Through its weekly open jam sessions, SHARE.nyc engages its participants and spectators in a continually changing dialog on art and culture. As such, SHARE represents an ongoing exploration of collaborative performance as cultural exchange. It mines the relationship of artistic practice to cultural identity, remapping a multiplicity of cultural discourses. The act of creating artistic content in a multicultural collaborative context is a fascinating and natural extension of the SHARE concept.
Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into our system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. We furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.
open jams and walk-in sets — Bring your equipment/instruments/gear etc. to join the jam!
audio jam: Prepared and spontaneous music from eight plus simultaneous performers. This is the time and place to perform a piece of music you’ve written and hear it on a large sound system, improvise spontaneously with other participants, get feedback on your latest project or try out that new max patch/software setup. Bring your noise maker of choice and an XLR, quarter-inch or RCA cable to join.
video jam: multi-user live video synthesis. Generating an immersive visual environment, in the SHARE tradition, in which multiple participants are able to jointly compose the video output. Try out and learn about new VJ wetware. As with the audio, walk-in sets are encouraged. Bring your clips or camera or laptop/amiga and VGA, S-Video, or RCA cables to join
8pm, free —
Featured guests scheduled tonight:
o.blaat (Keiko Uenishi) & Margarida Garcia
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=620
o.blaat (Keiko Uenishi) is a part of volunteering members at Share.nyc for the past 8+ years.
Tonight, she is quite excited & happy to be joined by Margarida Garcia! They played together in more than several private sessions before, however, never performed as a duet in public.
Tonight is to be their debut!
About o.blaat >>
http://myspace.com/oblaat
http://facebook.com/oblaaat
Margarida Garcia (born 1977, Lisbon) doublebassist.
She has collaborated in live/recording settings with Manuel Mota, Nöel Akchoté, Barry Weisblat, Otomo Yoshihide, David Maranha, Afonso Simões, Ferran Fages, Alfredo C. Monteiro, Ruth Barberán, John Tilbury, Sean Meehan, Eddie Prevost, Rhodri Davies, Matt Valentine, Erica Elder, David Keenan, Alex Neilson and Mattin.
And join Keiko after midnight for her (yet another) b-day toast!!
———–
Share @ Issue Project Room
The (OA) Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215direction/map:
http://issueprojectroom.org/contact
http://is.gd/ljow
SHARE is always 100% FREE!! (no admission!)
Show up early!!! and stay late!!
http://share.dj/share
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=628
http://facebook.com/sharenyc
http://issueprojectroom.org
Share – all night free open audio & video jam – featured guests Tom Hall and Lloop (Rich Panciera)
What is share?
SHARE is first and foremost a platform to explore expression, in a variety of artforms. Through its weekly open jam sessions, SHARE.nyc engages its participants and spectators in a continually changing dialog on art and culture. As such, SHARE represents an ongoing exploration of collaborative performance as cultural exchange. It mines the relationship of artistic practice to cultural identity, remapping a multiplicity of cultural discourses. The act of creating artistic content in a multicultural collaborative context is a fascinating and natural extension of the SHARE concept.
Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into our system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. We furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.
open jams and walk-in sets — Bring your equipment/instruments/gear etc. to join the jam!
audio jam: Prepared and spontaneous music from eight plus simultaneous performers. This is the time and place to perform a piece of music you’ve written and hear it on a large sound system, improvise spontaneously with other participants, get feedback on your latest project or try out that new max patch/software setup. Bring your noise maker of choice and an XLR, quarter-inch or RCA cable to join.
video jam: multi-user live video synthesis. Generating an immersive visual environment, in the SHARE tradition, in which multiple participants are able to jointly compose the video output. Try out and learn about new VJ wetware. As with the audio, walk-in sets are encouraged. Bring your clips or camera or laptop/amiga and VGA, S-Video, or RCA cables to join
8pm, free —
We have 2 separate featured guests scheduled tonight:
Note: Share will start in the Munch Room at 8:00PM with the open jam. The featured sets will take place in the main Issue Project Room space after IPR’s 8:00PM’s performance. Long & fun night ahead of us!
Tom Hall (Brisbane, Australia)
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=615
Hall’s eclectic works flourish by utilising a variety of mediums, each that reflect on his varied background and interests. With a strong focus on elements of the ‘everyday’ Hall’s practice involves considered explorations into place, space and time. Drawing inspiration from countless ‘peripheral’ spaces, Hall focuses on using multiple approaches to engage and recontextualise them to the public.
Hall’s live performances incorporate live visuals (Jitter) and sound (Max/Msp/Ableton) – working with processed fields recordings combined with live sythesis that sits between subtle ambient tones and sub bass.
The performances will contain a large visual component that relates directly to the audio that is produced and composed live, this sound and imagery are a direct reference to micro and macro environments from Hall’s direct living scenarios over the past 2 years and include content from UK/EU/JP, Australia and Tasmania. These field recordings and imagery are remixed live using various organic processes and synthesis to create a cohesive hybrid environment.
http://www.tomhall.com.au
http://www.tomhall.com.au/blog
http://www.myspace.com/digi_destroy
http://www.myspace.com/axxonn1
————
Lloop (Rich Panciera), one of SHARE’s co-founders, member of We™, and Decentertainment.org, now residing in Vienna, Austria, will make a rare visit to NYC, and ready to blow our minds!! Special late-night featured set for this night starting at 11 pm or later. Be prepared to stay up late & have a great fun!!!
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=624
Lloop aka Rich Panciera has been working in sound studios since he was sixteen. In 1983 he helped build Bass Mind studio in Brooklyn and was considered a top engineer at that time. His record “Bulbb’s” was recorded there in ‘94 and released as a now classic mix cassette. It was finally released on vinyl and as a cd in 2001 by The Agriculture.
In ‘91 his ingenious interactive sampler was the key sound element in the infamous Lalalandia Entertainment Research Corporation omnisensorial sweepout events at El Sensorium, lalalandias most legendary club. Lalalandia made many of the most memorable Brooklyn warehouse after-hours environments of that period.
In 1994, he started up We(TM). We(TM)’s ‘97 release “as is” can be considered a classic. We(TM) opened for the Orb that spring. Their 3rd release, “decentertainment” landed them at Barcelona’s “Sonar ‘99”.
In 2000 he co-founded Share with software designer and fellow music producer GDAM and sound artist New Clueless.
In 2008, he also co-started Share.Wien (Vienna, Austria).
Share @ Issue Project Room @ The (OA) Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215
direction/map:
http://issueprojectroom.org/contact
http://is.gd/ljow
SHARE is always 100% FREE!! (no admission!)
Show up early!!! and stay late!!
http://share.dj/share
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=628
http://facebook.com/sharenyc
http://issueprojectroom.org
Share – all night free open audio & video jam – featured guests Antonio Della Marina/Alessandra Zucchi/Michael Delia & Antonin De Bemels
What is share?
SHARE is first and foremost a platform to explore expression, in a variety of artforms. Through its weekly open jam sessions, SHARE.nyc engages its participants and spectators in a continually changing dialog on art and culture. As such, SHARE represents an ongoing exploration of collaborative performance as cultural exchange. It mines the relationship of artistic practice to cultural identity, remapping a multiplicity of cultural discourses. The act of creating artistic content in a multicultural collaborative context is a fascinating and natural extension of the SHARE concept.
Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into our system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. We furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.
open jams and walk-in sets — Bring your equipment/instruments/gear etc. to join the jam!
audio jam: Prepared and spontaneous music from eight plus simultaneous performers. This is the time and place to perform a piece of music you’ve written and hear it on a large sound system, improvise spontaneously with other participants, get feedback on your latest project or try out that new max patch/software setup. Bring your noise maker of choice and an XLR, quarter-inch or RCA cable to join.
video jam: multi-user live video synthesis. Generating an immersive visual environment, in the SHARE tradition, in which multiple participants are able to jointly compose the video output. Try out and learn about new VJ wetware. As with the audio, walk-in sets are encouraged. Bring your clips or camera or laptop/amiga and VGA, S-Video, or RCA cables to join
8pm, free —
We have 2 featured guests tonight:
- Antonio Della Marina/Alessandra Zucchi/Michael Delia
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=625
GIAMBOTTA REMIXED
Take a free space and put inside it:
3 or more mixed artists
various microphones
projectors and cameras
some computers
a pinch of fragrances, colours and lights
wires and plugs q.b.
a pot
- and in the pot put: oil, garlic, onions, tomatoes, melanzane, peperoni, zucchine, etc…
- and in each computer put: images, sounds, actions, …
mix this whole with the audience and serve with love.
Michael Delia: prepared table, sound objects
Antonio Della Marina: sound
Alessandra Zucchi: video
Italian-american artist trio will cook a giambotta – a simple dish made of vegetables – using a prepared set of tools and a amplified table. All the action will be recorded, manipulated in sound and video and offered to the audience. People can interact by helping the cooking process.
“Giambotta is a mixture of vegetables, naturally, but also of people, arts, media, actions, all of them cooked together” – az & adm
Antonio Della Marina
http://www.antoniodellamarina.com
Alessandra Zucchi
http://www.stazioneditopolo.it/koledar/?layout=artisti&a=149
http://www.dreamspaces.it/
Michael Delia
http://mad.lemurie.cz/
- Antonin De Bemels (BE)
http://www.antonindb.be/
De Bemels is a belgian audiovisual artist. He creates short experimental videos, video backgrounds, soundtracks for contemporary dance pieces and mixed-media installations. He will present an audiovisual performance about Bonhomme Daniel, his fictional alter-ego…
———————–
Share @ Issue Project Room
The (OA) Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215direction/map:
http://issueprojectroom.org/contact
http://is.gd/ljow
SHARE is always 100% FREE!! (no admission!)
Show up early!!! and stay late!!
http://share.dj/share
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=628
http://facebook.com/sharenyc
http://issueprojectroom.org
Share – all night free open audio & video jam – featured guest Gregory Wildes and Jaime Martinez
What is share?
SHARE is first and foremost a platform to explore expression, in a variety of artforms. Through its weekly open jam sessions, SHARE.nyc engages its participants and spectators in a continually changing dialog on art and culture. As such, SHARE represents an ongoing exploration of collaborative performance as cultural exchange. It mines the relationship of artistic practice to cultural identity, remapping a multiplicity of cultural discourses. The act of creating artistic content in a multicultural collaborative context is a fascinating and natural extension of the SHARE concept.
Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into our system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. We furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.
open jams and walk-in sets — Bring your equipment/instruments/gear etc. to join the jam!
audio jam: Prepared and spontaneous music from eight plus simultaneous performers. This is the time and place to perform a piece of music you’ve written and hear it on a large sound system, improvise spontaneously with other participants, get feedback on your latest project or try out that new max patch/software setup. Bring your noise maker of choice and an XLR, quarter-inch or RCA cable to join.
video jam: multi-user live video synthesis. Generating an immersive visual environment, in the SHARE tradition, in which multiple participants are able to jointly compose the video output. Try out and learn about new VJ wetware. As with the audio, walk-in sets are encouraged. Bring your clips or camera or laptop/amiga and VGA, S-Video, or RCA cables to join
8pm, free —
We have 2 featured guest scheduled tonight:
Gregory Wildes:
http://share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=622
Gregory Wildes, founder of DIY electro-acoustic bands the Ski-A-Delics and Gas Tank Orchestra, has been producing sample libraries for Big Fish Audio, and will be doing a set utilizing his latest project, NYC Beatbox, featuring samples from five of the city’s finest beatboxers (Adam Matta, Akim Funk Buddha, Krussia, Masai Electro, and YoYo Beats).
http://www.roving.net/soundworks/skiadelics.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~gjwildes/
—————–
Jaime Martinez:
http://share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=627
Jaime Martínez (Monterrey, 1978)
is a Mexican photographer and visual artist. He studied Spanish Grammar in his hometown and later went to Valencia (Spain) where he studied Professional Photography. He has lived in different cities, including Monterrey (Mexico), Austin (US), Valencia, Madrid (Spain), Trier, Ulm (Germany).
He likes to photograph his friends, concerts, parties, and to make digital collage of landscapes. He also likes women legs, trees, UFOs, galaxies, birds, black seas, deep forests, skinny fingers, cold skin, very long hair, aliens, cats, etc. Lately he has been experimenting with animated gifs and wiggle stereoscopy photography. He is currently living in Mexico City.
Mexican born and based photographer Jaime Martinez is pushing boundaries with his experimental art work. From his darkly foreboding women, to his energetic live music montages to his inspiring and witty animated gifs, 31 year old Martinez’s photography betrays a unique new angle. His surreal images invoke a dream like state where absurdity reigns and a romantically haunting atmosphere prevails. The vividness of colour in Martinez’s photography is reminiscent of the traditional sun drenched Mexican backdrop, and his images seem to come to life with all the vigor of Mexican culture, portraying joy in movement and discovery. (dazedigital.com)
http://dazeddigital.com/Photography/article/4047/1/Fuck_You_Draculas
http://www.brightlightbrightlight.com/cv/
http://fuckyoudraculas.tumblr.com/
http://twitter.com/fuckyoudraculas
Share @ Issue Project Room
The (OA) Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215direction/map:
http://issueprojectroom.org/contact
http://is.gd/ljow
SHARE is always 100% FREE!! (no admission!)
Show up early!!! and stay late!!
http://share.dj/share
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=628
http://facebook.com/sharenyc
http://issueprojectroom.org
Darmstadt Essential Repertoire Festival (Connie Beckley, “Blue” Gene Tyranny, Petr Kotik)
DARMSTADT: “Classics of the Avant Garde” presents its second annual ESSENTIAL REPERTOIRE festival
This year’s festival celebrates the 30th anniversary of the seminal New Music New York concerts curated by Rhys Chatham and held at The Kitchen (then on Mercer Street), which put the still-burgeoning Downtown Scene – at the crossroads of minimalism, interdisciplinary performance, and various strains of post-punk – under a mainstream spotlight and redefined the presentation of experimental music.
DARMSTADT’s cross-section of composers involved in the original festival includes “Blue” Gene Tyranny, Connie Beckley, David van Tieghem, Jill Kroesen, Jon Gibson, Ned Sublette, Peter Gordon, Peter Zummo, Petr Kotik, Phill Niblock, and a performance of Meredith Monk’s Dolmen Music by the M6. Invited composers have been asked to present compositions of theirs from the 1970s, if not the actual pieces presented at the original Kitchen concerts. The festival will be held from December 3 through 5 at ISSUE Project Room. All concerts begin at 8pm. Tickets will be $20 at the door/$15 advance (available online at http://www.issueprojectroom.org or for cash purchase at Other Music.)
Thursday, December 3 at 8pm
Connie Beckley – “Sound Split” (1976), “Tiptoe” (1979), “Showdown” (1976); Performed by the composer
“Blue” Gene Tyranny – “Harvey Milk (Portrait from ‘How to Do It’/A circuit to help generate the feeling of meaning)” (1978), “The White Night Riot” (1979); Electronic sound pieces prepared by the composer (in attendance), special guest performers TBA
Petr Kotik – Excerpt from There is Singularly Nothing (1973); Performed by the S.E.M. Ensemble with special guests
For more information on Connie Beckley, visit: http://conniebeckley.com/ConnieBeckleyBIO.htm
For more information on “Blue” Gene Tyranny, visit: http://www.bluegenetyranny.com/bio.html
For more information on Petr Kotik, visit: http://www.semensemble.org/pk.html
Manuel Mota + Margarida Garcia & Marcia Bassett Duo+ Barry Weisblat & Mike Bernstein Duo
Manuel Mota (guitar) solo,
Margarida Garcia (double bass) and Marcia Bassett (guitar) duo
Barry weisblat (electronics) and Mike Bernstein (electronics) duo
Manuel Mota
Manuel Mota is a guitarist born in Lisbon, with public activity since 1989. From that to 1997 he studies and experiments with prepared guitar, mainly acoustic. Since then his interests shifted to the development of a personal language for fingerstyle electric guitar and started working in a regular basis with bassist Margarida Garcia. A lot of acoustic guitar has been played at home in the last years, and it has also been possible to find him playing with bands Osso Exótico, Curia, Dru, and collaborating with David Maranha and Afonso Simões. Worked with Sei Miguel from 1997 to 2005. Founds the record label Headlights in 1998. Draws and shoots.
Margarida Garcia and Marcia Bassett DUO
Garcia and Bassett first collaborated in a group working with sound, text and light projections. Other members of the group included Mattin, Emma Hedditch and Jeffery Perkins. Through these early meetings, Bassett and Garcia recognized a similar sonic aesthetic. Further meetings of the two have lead to handful of local improvised shows and a forth-coming LP to be released on the label Headlights.
Marcia Bassett
Bassett aka Zaimph, predominately uses guitar and vocals to create
sounds that shimmer in a dark metallic buzz of sonic noise and drone,
before a swift shift into blissed out ragas or crippling, brutal, white-hot noise. The organic improvised elements of Bassett’s work leave traces of eerie ghost voices and deep-space echoes that recall the electrified ritual of nomadic Japanese avant-gardists Taj Mahal Travellers — but more immediately sound like a magnification of her contributions to Double Leopards and Hototogisu, generating towers of electricity that move from malevolent arcs of anti-gravity and spumes of throttled single notes into deep wormholes that do violence to
feeble notions of time and space.
Margarida Garcia
Using double bass as her main instrument, she developed a close
collaboration with guitarist Manuel Mota in 1997. The two have worked
as a duo as well as in the group, Curia, which includes Afonso Simões and David Maranha (organeye, osso exótico). Garcia has also worked with Sei Miguel from 1999 to 2002. Other close collabs include Marcia Bassett, Barry Weisblat and Mattin. She has played in live/recording settings with Nöel Akchoté, Otomo Yoshihide, Ferran Fages, Alfredo C. Monteiro, Ruth Barberán, John Tilbury, Eddie Prevost, Rhodri Davies, Matt Valentine, Erica Elder, David Keenan and Alex Neilson (tight meat duo).
Michael Bernstein
Michael Bernstein is a Brooklyn, New York based Musician, Computer Programmer, Tomato Grower, and Homebrewer. He spent most of the first half of the 2000s investigating purely improvised music with Double Leopards and the second half fumbling his way through a new-via-old concept of rock based sound with Religious Knives, which he started with his wife Maya Miller. Only occasionally gathering up the courage to delve into improvised sound in a non “rock” or “noise” show context, he’s very excited to engage with old friend and fellow NYC resident Barry Weisblat in their first duo
performance.
Barry Weisblat
Barry Weisblat was born in Brooklyn in 1975 and remains one of the unsung heroes of deep and investigative Sound Thought. Beyond a long-running commitment to participating in the underground’s underground of improvisation and a dynamic sense of musical conversation, Weisblat has extended his reach and pool of knowledge beyond rubbing the surface of the black box of sound to designing and implementing his own systems. Translating light into sound, sound into action, action into thought, and thought into light, Weisblat’s ceaseless curiosity and simultaneous obsessive desire to participate and join in dialogue has pushed his output farther out than most people can see or conceive of. He’ll be participating in his first duo with fellow South Brooklynite Michael Bernstein.
Littoral Series: Robert Lopez + XXX Macarena (Tony Conrad, Jutta Koether, John Miller)
Robert Lopez
XXX Macarena
ISSUE’s Littoral Series began in 2006 and is a monthly event, curated by Tony Antoniadis, which pairs fresh and compelling writers with innovative contemporary musicians, sound, and video artists to deepen the artist and audience experience of the works.
Robert Lopez
Robert Lopez (born 1971) is an American writer. He is the author of Part of the World, a novel, (Calamari Press, 2007). His new novel, Kamby Bolongo Mean River, was published by Dzanc Books in September, 2009. His fiction has appeared in dozens of journals, including; Bomb, The Threepenny Review, New England Review, New Orleans Review, Indiana Review, Denver Quarterly, etc. He teaches at The New School, Pratt Institute, and Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
For Littoral, Lopez will be reading from Kamby Bolongo Mean River, his hypnotic second novel, which tells the story of a young man who finds himself confined and under observation, the subject of seemingly pointless tests. His only link to the outside world is a telephone that will not dial out. During the occasional calls he receives, usually wrong numbers, the narrator remembers his former life growing up in Injury, Alaska with his Mother, an often unemployed single parent, and his older brother, Charlie, a sometime boxer, sometime actor. Throughout the course of this extraordinary novel, the unwilling captive draws his life-story in stick figures on the walls. From the difficulty of his birth, to his sickly childhood, to adventures with his brother, the narrator depicts his crazy life, which is at once fascinating and heartbreaking. The one memory that haunts him is that of watching a movie about slaves on television and how that one slave, the one for whom Kamby Bolongo Mean River meant freedom, would never relinquish the idea of returning home. Darkly hilarious with a crushing emotional impact, Kamby Bolongo Mean River is a brilliant study of familial bonds and trauma, isolation and captivity, hope and hopelessness.
XXX Macarena
XXX Macarena bring back the alien drones to ISSUE Project Room just in time for Thanksgiving. The group started to form at 4:30 pm on June 3, 2006 when Karin Schneider invited Jutta Koether and John Miller to take part in her performance Sabotage at the Sculpture Center in Long Island City. Schneider had been included in group show called Grey Flags. She set smoke machines and instructed Koether and Miller to start playing when the entire space filled with smoke. Since then the two have performed at art venues such as NBK in Berlin, Forde Galerie in Geneva and Artists’ Space in New York. MFC-Michèle Didier & Les Presses du Réel have recently published the CD Selling Short, a recording their NBK performance. Last February Mike Kelley and Tony Conrad joined Koether and Miller for a performance at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery.
ISSUE’s Littoral Series is supported, in part, by The Casement Fund and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Scott Haggart / Lary Seven / Felix Kubin Trio
The Scott Haggart / Lary Seven / Felix Kubin Trio will further expand the territory of DISKONO 017 – a conceptual 12” vinyl record assembled over the course of seven years.
The original edit is “psychotopologically derived from a 0.7 millisecond recorded extract of a DISKONO performance (2000).” Obsessively and secretly expanded is a 0.7-millisecond sound into a 1:17 second composition that took many years to superimpose and further re-sample the original fragment into a strict bombardment of fractal concrete sound. Within a “tradition of discrete spectrality” and with the satisfactory feeling brought about by orchestrating a 1:17 second work, it become inevitable for Scott to extend the invitation to six others thus creating alternate versions (seven in total) using the original as source material/inspiration. Strict adherence was required by the invited artists Lary Seven, EVOL, Felix Kubin, White Daughter, Charlie McAlister, and Jan Van Den Dobbelsteen to a rule of such versions being 1:17 seconds in duration so as to absurdly explore the potentials of this 0.7-millisecond sound. – DISKONO
“Here the label’s taking a decidedly different direction… this one’s all DISKONO member Scott Haggart doing an art-record consisting of a one-minute [seventeen-seconds] conceptual piece on the a-side (cut mid-record for maximum [sonic] effect), then a series of re-workings of said by Lary Seven, EVOL, Felix Kubin, White Daughter, Charlie McAlister, and Jan Van Den Dobbelsteen on the flip… Where the original is a statically-charged burst of raw electricity, the reworkings take in just about every conceivable sound-alteration method; from Lary Seven’s “magnetic” reworking to EVOL’s woozy sliding pitch-scale, to Felix’s crackling chatter.”
– Keith Fullerton Whitman
Founded in the spring of 1998 and described as a “a Scottish multi media cabal masquerading as a record label,” DISKONO was initially based in Central Scotland but befitting its constitution as a complex carbohydrate, the constituent pieces of its chemical structure are now strewn all over the globe; New York, London, Brussels, etc. The known and affiliated elements of DISKONO were/are Klaus Oldanburg, Ruth Random, Findo Gask, Dr. Barnes Advocaat, Gunter Saxenhammer, Ttocshagg Forfib, Joel Ongthorne, Kosten Koper; although these may be pseudonyms for the same person or persons. Together or alone, they/he/she operate a record label releasing sound art & “avant-garde flicks of the wrist” as well as curated savory and pretentiously artistic projects such as the exhibition Revisionland by Alejandra and Aeron of Lucky Kitchen (which won an Award of Distinction in Digital Music at Prix Ars Electronia 2002) and physical remix series of 7″ records with Aerospace Soundwise, The British Composer of the Year Winner for Sonic Art (2008) Janek Schaefer. DISKONO also released music by figures such as Felix Kubin, Alejandra and Aeron, Pimmon, JaDa, People Like Us, Francisco Lopez, Boards Of Canada, Goodiepal, V/Vm, Hrvatski, Aavikko.”
“Diskono consciously foster the spirit of vigilance and insurrection, through inspired logical chicanery and stolen rhetoric from texts such as Guy Debord’s Society Of The Spectacle and Raoul Vaneigem’s The Revolution Of Everyday Life (in which the French commentator called, among other things, for revolution to rescue artistic creativity from the morally corrupting influence of commerce).” – The Wire
Lary Seven is a multimedia alchemist able to coax profane, inscrutable sounds and images from numerous and mysterious devices. His work has been described as that of a magician or scientist — one who may not always be certain of the outcome, but who is determined to see it through to its (il)logical end. Since the late seventies, Lary has been building, soldering, photographing, recording, mixing, filming, playing, collecting, re-interpreting and creating in order to make something happen. He’s the founder of the Analogue Society and co-founder of Plastikville Records and Directart Productions Ltd. Lary has released work on Touch, Diskono, Ectoplasm, Plastikville and Plastiktray records. He has performed in many countries in Europe as well as in the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Seven lives and works in Manhattan’s East Village and is one of the last remaining vestiges of a once-vibrant community. For this presentation, Lary Seven will have an undefined interaction with:
photo by Soenke Held
Felix Kubin, born in 1969, lives and works against gravitation.
His activities comprise futurist pop, electroacoustic and chamber orchestra music, radio plays, performance projects, workshops and cultural activities as a curator. In 1998 he founded his own record label Gagarin Records. For 20 years, he has released a vast number of albums and played more than 70 international festivals for electronic contemporary music, among them Sonar, Mutek, Ars Electronica, ISEA, Donaufestival and Wien Modern. He likes to move between hi and low culture, clubs and concert halls, as his main concern is the shifting of contexts and expectations.
“Refreshingly perverse” (WIRE, UK)
“Felix Kubin is a Devil in Gods clothes. He plays organs like Jussi Tennilä (Siilinjärven Ponnistus) does slalom, fastly but surely, strongly but lovingly. If there’d be one man to send to the aliens as an example of the mankind, that’d be Felix Kubin.“ (Aavikko, Finnland)
“Wearing a fetching green suit, an endearing glint in his eye and surrounded by antique technology (not a laptop in sight), Kubin’s concise, offbeat pop songs each contain more tunes than an entire bierkeller jukebox“ (Tom Mugridge, MZK magazine, UK)
“Noise, rhythm, melody and madness“ (These Records, UK)
“Hamburg’s purveyor of dadatronic experimentalist pop music”
(Radio CBC, Brave New Waves)
“There’s a twinkle in his eye when Retro-Futurist Felix Kubin, born 1969 in Hamburg, invites you to embark on a tour of his unique world of Avantgarde-Electro-Pop. Dada-Humor is the cherry on his cake, NDW and Kraftwerk his rearguard as he rushes to meet the future, a whirlwind on the manual, a futuristic ambassador of light, a hammering fist in the garden of fear. In his luggage there’re the old synthesizers and the new problems that he negotiates in film music, short films, sound installations, multiphonic concerts and audio plays. It’s not for nothing that his own label is named, after the Russian cosmonaut, Gagarin Records.” (Someone)
http://gagarinrecords.com/
http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/2259/
Futurist Film Funeral with Bradley Eros (and Performa)
An evening of kinetic cinema and musique plastique in three parts: 1) Synthetic History, a radical remix of the recent Transformers as a critical revenge on old and new fascist tropes, 2) Plastic Dynamism, a live celluloid cinerarium of burnt images and plasma sonics, and 3) Sirens of Destruction, an outdoor ceremony of the sacrificial incineration of the cinema apparatus. Commissioned by Performa. Co-presented by Performa and ISSUE Project Room.
Fair Use Trio
Fair Use is a New York-based trio founded in 2005 by musicians Zach Layton and Matthew Ostrowski and video artist R. Luke DuBois, based on the use of cinema as raw materials for experimental live performance. A typical Fair Use performance consists of the trio performing one or more culturally significant films live in their entirety in a condensed time frame. Each performance uses the picture and soundtrack of the film as the sole materials for an improvised set, which interrogates our cinematic memories through frenetic audio and visual processing and re-narration of the cinematic object. As their performances unfold, the trio evokes their own memories and impressions of the film as a highly subjective lens, for example by focusing on iconic moments in the films and lingering on them, or massively collapsing long sequences into mere seconds. Fair Use looks at our accelerating culture through the electronic performance and remixing of cinema, presenting classic films through time compression and audio and visual manipulation.
Neg-Fi + Brownout + Necking
Brooklyn-based duo Neg-Fi debuted as a band in 2003 with a series of home-made cassettes released for the annual DIY holiday art event La Superette. Incorporating drastically detuned guitars, bass, walkie-talkies and handmade devices, Neg-Fi creates short, minimalist compositions with maximum impact. Following up the self-released LP Listen-OK in 2006 and a split EP with Atlanta-based noise artist Eiliyas earlier this year, they will soon be releasing their 2nd full length LP mid side.
Both members are also part of the new Glenn Branca Ensemble, and have performed in Branca’s Symphony No.13 in New Jersey, Belgium, London, Rome, and St. Louis.
Brownout
A few years ago, when making a myspace page for my solo endeavors as brownout, I answered the Q “sounds like?” with “A caveman with a tambourine and a sinewave generator”. Having since played a few performances in solo or near-solo circumstances, I have found that this phrase still fits, maybe better than I ever imagined. I don’t really use a tambourine, but rather a homemade shaking stick, and my generator produces waves of less purity that virginal sines. I do have a laptop and employ it, along with my voice and crude horns, to fill things out. But I don’t fill ‘em out fully, as I generally prefer simplicity, space and repetition.
Blinding Headache and Information (who recently regrouped to perform with our “No Wave” contemporaries Teenage Jesus and the Jerks) were my first 2 bands, both contributing to the “legendary” Tape #1 (reissue imminent on Anthology Recordings).
V-Effect was the first group I was in to make a proper album, 1983′s Stop Those Songs, on Fred Frith’s Rift Records. Critic Robert Palmer included our album in his top-ten list for the year in the New York Times.
With Guigou Chenevier of Etron Fou LeLoublan and Charles Hayward of This Heat, I was a member of the drum trio Les Batteries, whose first album Noisy Champs (1986) is about to be released for the first time on CD.
I formed Fish & Roses with Sue Garner and David Sutter in the late 80′s and recorded three albums with them and toured the US and Europe.
Sue and I have continued playing together, first in Run On with Alan Licht (3 records on Matador and a number of miscellaneous EPs and random tracks) and more recently as a duo, sometimes as Two Mule Team and sometimes under our own names (Thrill Jockey released our album Still).
With Mark Howell, who I met during our mutual brief presence in George Cartwright’s Curlew, I formed and recorded with Timber and, later, Inconvenient Music.
Additionally, I have played and/or recorded with Sue Garner (on her solo albums and tours), Stare Kits, Red, Dark Sweet, Elliot Sharp’s Carbon, Chris Stamey, Ferdinand Richard, Manhattan Samba, Yo La Tengo and Susquehanna Industrial Tool and Die Co.
Necking bio:
Necking was formed in 2004 and for years had a freely rotating line-up around a few central members. For the last few years the group has settled into a regular line-up of Nick Lesley (original founder), Dong-Ping Wong, and Rop Vazquez. Necking plays a hyper-active form of improv noise rock influenced by the hardcore punk from San Diego which they grew up with in the 90s. They play two full drum kits, electronics and voices.
Dong has a masters in architecture and founded the firm Family (http://familyarchitects.com/), and formerly played in Oma Yang.
Rop saves dogs at Barc Shelter (http://barcshelter.org/), also plays in X-Ray Eyeballs, and formerly played in Rice, The Peechees, and Semi Automatic.
Nick (http://nicklesley.com/) has an mfa in Performance and Interactive Media Arts, works at Electronic Arts Intermix, also plays in Gunung Sari, Alien Whale, and Prsms, formerly played in Oma Yang, Felicia & Coctopus, and Vholtz.
John Butcher
John Butcher’s work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked saxophone pieces and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics. Originally a physicist, he left academia in 1982, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians principally involved with improvisation – including Derek Bailey, John Stevens, Gerry Hemingway, Polwechsel, Gino Robair, Rhodri Davies, John Edwards, Toshimaru Nakamura, Eddie Prevost, John Russell, Phil Minton and Steve Beresford. His compositions include pieces for Polwechsel, Elision, Rova Saxophone Quartet, and “somethingtobesaid” for the John Butcher Group. Recent projects include “Thermal” with EX guitarist Andy Moor & Thomas Lehn and “The Contest of Pleasures” with Axel Dörner and Xavier Charles. He values playing in occasional encounters – ranging from large groups such as Butch Morris’ London Skyscraper and the EX Orkestra, to duo concerts with Fred Frith and Akio Suzuki.
1st set: John Butcher solo (acoustic saxophones, and amplified/feedback saxophones)
2nd set: with Okkyung Lee (Cello)
Idea Fire Company + Infinity Window + Sons of God
Idea Fire Company
Idea Fire Company was founded by Scott Foust and Karla Borecky in 1988. Although not nearly as prolific as most bands nowadays —
perhaps because of the care that goes into each release — IFCO has released seven full-length albums (all on its Swill Radio imprint),
most notably Anti-Natural (1999), Stranded (2005), and The Island of Taste (2008). In 2006, IFCO did a short European tour with Frans de Waard joining the core duo.
INFINITY WINDOW
Infinity Window is a Brooklyn-based trio, consisting of Taylor Richardson, Jordan Redaelli and Daniel Lopatin. Using samplers, synths, drum machines, guitar and voice, IW strive at the creation of no-mind post-krautrock universes that are equal parts Amon Dull II and Slouvaki-era Slowdive. Infinity Window has released music on Chocolate Monk, Arbor and Sick Head Tapes, with forthcoming releases on Tone Filth and and finnish label Ikuskus. They are currently working on the follow up to last year’s “Artificial Midnight” LP.
SONS OF GOD
Guds söner´s field of activity can be described as an investigation of a mental airspace, undertaken with the aid of unconventional tools. The aural aspect is important, but equal care is devoted to the visual.
Guds söner is often augmented with supplementary performers who then also influence the ideas and their expression.
Guds söner put themselves at the disposal of civil defence and strive to imbue fortitude and courage.
Radon Ensemble 10th anniversary
OOPSA Associação CULTURAL presents
RADON 10th Anniversary tour
In the fall of 2009 the Radon Collective celebrates its 10 year anniversary. This international community of artists with members from the US, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Belgium and Portugal has spemt the past decade laboring on nearly every aspect of the work behind bringing experimental music to the world. They have offered landmark releases as a label, such as Fabrizio Palumbo’s debut disc as (r) , Smegma’s 30th Anniversary cd and Iggy and the Stooges saxman, Steve Mackay’s first solo outing. Radon ’s event organization and tours have brought many of Europe’s finest oddities to the US including Ovo and Jean Lois Costes, mounted the first full scale tour of Z’EV and created stops on Damo Suzuki’s never ending tour. Their studio productions have been documented by labels such as QBICO, Bar La Muerte, Steinklang and Beta-Lactem Ring. During October and November, Radon ambassodors from Portugal’s Soopa and the nomadic tribe Sikhara, set out for a US tour to be joined along the way by co-conspirators from the colective.
SIKHARA
music, video and promotional materials:
www.sikhara.org
www.urckrecords.com
This autumn, Sikhara return to the road in the USA, giving their milestone 500th performance in surrogate hometown, Portland, OR. Their latest tour is to unveil a holy trinity of new releases on CD and DVD. Their newest effort, an ep entitled “IV War Haka” (produced by Jonathan Saldanha) is an epic tale of tribal war, invoking the warrior spirit of the Maori and Benin voodoo magic. Also available will be a live album on Oklahoma’s Anti-Clock, captured during radio broadcasts for America’s finest sister radio stations, KFKC and WFMU. And finally, after over a year in the making, Sikhara unveil their first dvd. A film with music from each of the first three albums and documenting travel across 3 continents. Sikhara have performed their unique take on ritualistic, tribal sound across 26 countries including a variety of bizarre locales. They have carved their place as one of the foremost bands in primitive, post-world music.
HHY & DRUMS OF HABNOM
music and information
www.soopa.org
www.myspace.com/hhyscumclash
www.myspace.com/mostpeoplehavebeentrainedtobebored
www.myspace.com/soopaserver
HHY, Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, and D.o.H, Gustavo Costa, are two of the most diverse and prolific members of the Portuguese exploratory music community. As core of the Porto based Soopa collective, they have spent the past years contributing to the country’s rapidly developing scene both with the music they have created and the events they have organized, opening the doors to a previously overlooked portion of Europe. As a duo, they move in unpredictable incarnations invoking elements of Dub, Doom, Voodoo, Free jazz, noise and beyond. Under their own name or with other formations they’ve been sharing projects and collaborations with musicians such: Damo Suzuki, Mark Stewart, Steve Mackay, Raz Mesinai, Adrian Sherwood, Vincent Patternostro, Dan Kaufman and countless other artists from a wide lexicon of sonic context (Unlooped HipHop, Spectral Dub, Brass Band, Xamanic Improv, Chaos Rock…)
Steve Mackay (Iggy and The Stogges)
Dan Kaufman (Barbez/Tzadik)
Raz Mesinai (Badawi/Tzadik)
Vinnie Paternostro (Total System Failure/Arthur Doyle)
“USS V2 : MACHINE GUN”
cd on Blossoming Noise
Radon and Soopa have teamed together to create “USS” an ongoing collaborative project. The second volume in this series, “Machine Gun” was created out of sessions from Seizure’s Palace, inside of the famed BC Studio in Brooklyn. The disc features 17 musicians from across the US and West Europe and is being released by the Blossoming Noise label.
Ne(x)tworks + Dionne Werewolf + Growler
7:00pm Ne(x)tworks: Spooky Music
Ne(x)tworks celebrates Halloween at Issue Project Room with a performance of music by Christian Wolff, Joan La Barbara, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The 7PM concert opens with Christian Wolff’s Duo for Violins (1950), an early work of austere elegance. Inspired by Webern, the five-minute duo consists entirely of two adjacent semi tones (D – E-flat, and E-flat – E). Following the Wolff is a performance of Joan La Barbara’s Revelations in the Wind (remix) (2004/2009). Scored for chamber ensemble and sonic atmosphere (a collage of layered voices, viola, piano, saxophones and detuned zither), Revelations in the Wind (remix) is a sonic reflection on dark nights and ghostly apparitions. Originally composed as a segment of La Barbara’s opera Woolfsong, the piece has been reworked for this evening’s performance. Ne(x)tworks closes the evening with selections from Karlheinz Stockhausen’s revolutionary collection of text compositions entitled Aus den sieben Tagen (1968). Characterized as “intuitive music,” these compositions employ text to describe musical processes or moods to be created by the musicians. Performers for this evening are Cornelius Dufallo, director and violin; Christopher Otto, violin; Stephen Gosling, piano; and Christopher McIntyre, trombone and synthesizer.
9:00pm DIONNE WEREWOLF
Spooky ensemble arrangements of classic Burt Bacharach tunes featuring Katie Eastburn, Dana Lyn, Ian Riggs, Emily Manzo, Zach Layton, Aaron Thurston and many more.
11:00pm GROWLER
“Hatched from an egg and warmed by a lava flow, GROWLER is an extra heavy rock band based in Brooklyn New York, with Ken Weaver on vocals, Mike Nesi on guitar, David Porter on bass, and Jeremy Benjamin Kolker on drums. Their live performances are equal parts madness and mayhem, a sonic collision of melodic cacophany with a generous nod to the Dark Arts. Their Halloween show at the Issue Progect Room will will be an extra special event, for GROWLER will be providing what could only be described as a Satanic Three Ring Circus atmoshere to the evening, with special guests Suzzane Rogaleski on demonic trapeze, artist Jean Nate performing exorcisms and ritual dance, Jesse Holt as flesh lusting Minotaur, and finally Alexis Karl and Sheba Squires, of the performance troupe of Anima Animas Animal, providing the blood curtling Invocation for the evening’s Black Mass. A concert from Hell has never been more entertaining!”
Mike Tamburo + Ben Reynolds
Mike Tamburo
Mike Tamburo is a 21st century Renaissance man who has forged his way into the consciousness of the American underground music community.
For the past 13 years, Tamburo has been relentlessly releasing records (31 releases and counting) under different monikers and projects including Meisha, Arco Flute Foundation & various imprints under his own name. He has performed over 500 shows all over the United States, traveling to every nook and cranny, searching for some kind of an understanding of what America truly is. Though always considering himself a multi-instrumentalist, he gained fame and notoriety with his fingerstyle guitar playing and his idiosyncratic use of effects; only to swear himself off of the acoustic guitar, eventually setting it on fire and hurling it off of Pittsburgh’s 40th Street Bridge. His effects soon followed.
Tamburo is a man who continues to reinvent himself, recently finding his new musical passion in the hammered dulcimer; building upon his own unique compositional stylings, he has developed a voice for the instrument that is very much his own. He is greatly inspired by American folk and minimalist music traditions as well as Indian classical music, but often expands outward to include influences from avant-garde to noise to modern compositional music. A Tamburo performance is always a very transportive experience. Tamburo is also an artist, film maker, writer, instrument builder, curator of the Fantastic Voyagers Festivals, Kundalini Yoga and Pranayama devotee, and inner state researcher; exploring alpha and theta states, floatation tanks, ethnobotany, orgone energy, and ecstatic states of being. He also runs the New American Folk Hero label, which continues to release an eclectic roster of creative and experimental musics.
BEN REYNOLDS is an English solo steel string guitarist, songwriter and improviser.
In his solo instrumental works and songs he draws upon the vast well of musical inspiration native to the British Isles as well as that found across the Atlantic and beyond.
Ben’s 2008 solo guitar recording ‘Two Wings’ was released on Portland, Oregon label Strange Attractors Audio House and focuses upon sprawling, meditative improvisations and concludes with the track ‘Here Toucheth Blues’ which appeared on Tompkins Square‘s Imaginational Anthem compilation.
2009 sees the release of Ben’s second solo guitar full length ‘How Day Earnt Its Night’ on New York label Tompkins Square (release date 9th June). This new recording consolidates his interest in British and American folk guitar traditions in concise and intensely melodic pieces as well as longer, expressionist improvisations. The intricacies of British guitar luminaries such as Bert Jansch and Davy Graham are found alongside the stark grandeur of John Fahey’s ‘American primitive guitar’ stylings.
Ben has toured extensively as both a solo performer and collaborator, including a stint playing with Cleveland performer Baby Dee’s touring band. Ben has previously been an active participant in Phil Todd’s long running Ashtray Navigations project as well as one half of Motor Ghost with Alex Neilson. He is currently a member of Glasgow based songsters Trembling Bells whose debut album ‘Carbeth’ is to be released in April 2009 on London label Honest Jon’s.
The Brothers Peeesseye + Riuichi Daijo
doors at 8:00, showtime at 8:30
The Brothers Peeesseye
The three-headed monster of Peeesseye multiplies, divides and subtracts to form the strange two-part BROTHERS PEEESSEYE starring Jaime Fennelly on harmonium & electronics and Chris Forsyth on guitar for the first Peeesseye related US tour in recent memory
Riuichi Daijo
Guitarist. Born in Yokohama, Japan in 1978. A product of the generation where everyone grew up with guitars surrounding them. became interested in music at large. Guitar is a ubiquitous instrument found in a large part of music, and this universality attracts him. Completely self-taught, started playing the guitar and soon came to concentrate on improvisation. Since 2004 he continues regular solo concerts as an approach to delve into the workability of solo playing.
IN MEMORIAM WITH LOVE
Suzanne Fiol, May 9, 1960 – October 5, 2009
Dear friends,
It is with great heartbreak and sorrow that ISSUE Project Room announces the passing of our founder, artistic director, and driving force, Suzanne Fiol. Born on May 9, 1960, Suzanne died at 1:05 pm on Monday, October 5, 2009, after fighting a courageous and inspiring battle against cancer. Suzanne passed peacefully surrounded by loved ones at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Our hearts go out to her daughter Sarah, her sister Nancy, and her parents Lawrence and Arlene Perlstein and her partner Anthony Coleman.
Anyone who has met Suzanne knows that she devoted her life to creating and sustaining a space where artists — acclaimed and emerging, local and international — could develop and perform new, challenging, and exciting works. Regardless of the different venues we’ve inhabited since our inception in 2003, ISSUE has always been Suzanne’s labor of love, a space that housed and reflected her restless intellect, fiery spirit, and great heart. She would often jokingly refer to herself as “Mama Issue,” a fitting moniker considering the unconditional love she unabashedly showed her friends, family, artists and the steadily growing audiences that have been coming to ISSUE over the years.
We are grief-stricken by Suzanne’s passing, yet inspired by her vision and strength, and will devote ourselves to fulfilling her vision with the strength we draw from our memories of her. Programming will continue this week in honor of Suzanne, and we welcome you all to come to ISSUE and share your memories.
A memorial is currently being planned.
Please stay tuned for information on its time, date and location.
(photos by Joe Holmes)
On January 25, ISSUE Project Room will inaugurate its new space at 110 Livingston with Gaudeamus Muziekweek, a four-day festival celebrating groundbreaking and challenging new music by emerging composers from around the world. Working in partnership ...
ISSUE is starting off the New Year with a change of scenery. That's right, Issue Project Room is moving out of our space at the Old American Can Factory and into 110 Livingston in Downtown Brooklyn. We've had a great run at the Can Factory,...