05.08.10 - 8:00pm

Zero Gravity Thinkers + Gamelatron

The Gamelatron is the world’s first fully robotic gamelan orchestra. (http://gamelatron.com)

It is the fruit of a collaboration between The League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR http://lemurbots.org) and the composer Zemi17: A. Taylor Kuffner (http://zemi17.net).

Modeled after traditional Balinese and Javanese gamelan orchestras, the GamelaTron is an amalgamation of traditional instruments with a suite of percussive sound makers. MIDI sequences control 117 robotic striking mechanisms that produce intricately woven and rhythmic sound. Performances follow an arc similar to classic Indonesian gatherings, where stories from great epics, such as the Ramayana, are told and settings given in words that are continued in music.

Zero Gravity Thinkers (ZGT) is music for motionless travel.  Concerts consist of long format improvised suites rich with rhythmic swells of tension and disharmony resolving with ambient subtly and faint melodies. The project features Peter Principle on guitars, Dok Gregory on theremin, processors and shortwaves; and Zemi17 on ewi midi breath devices and sampler.

Principle is the bassist of famed post-punk band Tuxedomoon, while Doktor Gregory was a pivotal member of Amoeba Technology in the 90′s Brooklyn illbient scene and toured extensively with Physic TV on theremin.  Zemi17 was the founder of the Ransom Corp. experimental theater group.  He currently is the art director of the Gamelatron, the resident DJ for the Danger events, and composer and installationist with the fine arts group Emma.

http://www.myspace.com/zgtradioprojekt