ISSUE @ 110 Livingston: Jozef van Wissem
This October, ISSUE Project Room will present Dutch lutanist Jozef van Wissem in a two-day residency including collaborations with Jim Jarmusch, Susan Alcorn, Richard Bishop, Gregg Kowalsky, Paul Metzger, Loren Connors, and Heresy of the Free Spirit (Che Chen and Robbie Lee).
8:30 – 9:15: Paul Metzger
9:25 – 10:00: Susan Alcorn solo, Susan Alcorn/Paul Metzger duo
10:10 – 10:40: Gregg Kowalsky solo, processed Jozef van Wissem piece
10:50 – 11:30: Heresy of the Free Spirit (Che Chen, Robbie Lee, Jozef van Wissem)
New Music For Early Instruments sees van Wissem collaborating with several American artists, all adding essential elements to an ongoing dialogue between the music of our time and early music, when there were fewer written compositions and no recordings. Van Wissem has written that:
“In order to update the instrument, to make it mature and give it the recognition it deserves one needs to put it in an entirely different and contemporary context. Early instruments can be processed on laptop in many different ways, field recordings can be added, lute tablature can be performed backwards, baroque themes can be repeated without end — the freeing of these constraints seems endless. The idea behind New Music for Early Instruments is to drag the lute out of the museum, out of the safe hands of a small group of specialists and give it back to the people. The lute used to be omnipresent before it disappeared: in all layers of society, at court, in bars, in rich and poor families. It traveled well on horseback, so Italian, French, lowland, and German styles were mixed. So why hide it now?”
ISSUE @ 110 Livingston: Jozef van Wissem
This October, ISSUE Project Room will present Dutch lutanist Jozef van Wissem in a two-day residency including collaborations with Jim Jarmusch, Susan Alcorn, Richard Bishop, Gregg Kowalsky, Paul Metzger, Loren Connors, and Heresy of the Free Spirit (Che Chen and Robbie Lee).
8:30 – 9:00: Loren Connors & Jozef van Wissem
9:15 – 9:40: Jim Jarmusch & Jozef van Wissem
9:50 – 10:30: Richard Bishop
10:30 – 10:45: Richard Bishop & Jozef van Wissem
10:55 – 11:30: Jozef van Wissem
New Music For Early Instruments sees van Wissem collaborating with several American artists, all adding essential elements to an ongoing dialogue between the music of our time and early music, when there were fewer written compositions and no recordings. Van Wissem has written that:
“In order to update the instrument, to make it mature and give it the recognition it deserves one needs to put it in an entirely different and contemporary context. Early instruments can be processed on laptop in many different ways, field recordings can be added, lute tablature can be performed backwards, baroque themes can be repeated without end — the freeing of these constraints seems endless. The idea behind New Music for Early Instruments is to drag the lute out of the museum, out of the safe hands of a small group of specialists and give it back to the people. The lute used to be omnipresent before it disappeared: in all layers of society, at court, in bars, in rich and poor families. It traveled well on horseback, so Italian, French, lowland, and German styles were mixed. So why hide it now?”
Emerging Artists Commission: Doron Sadja
Please join us for a post-concert reception, featuring a Q&A with Sadja led by Mario Diaz de Leon.
For his Emerging Artists Commission, Doron Sadja will premiere Breath, Heart, Skin. — a new work for solo electronics utilizing ISSUE’s unique multichannel sound system. Delicate, slow, and synthetic, Breath, Heart, Skin. combines pristine electronics with lush romantic synthesizers, extreme frequencies, and computer-enhanced cello/clarinet/percussion to create a post-human, hyper-emotive landscape. Doron Sadja is a Brooklyn-based sound and visual artist investigating how sound, light, movement, and the body can react to and augment the architectural, atmospheric, and psychological space of the performance environment.
ISSUE Project Room’s Emerging Artists Commission program is made possible, in part, through generous support from: the Greenwall Foundation; the Suzanne Fiol Memorial Fund; Meet the Composer; the Foundation for Contemporary Arts; with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Composer Larry Austin at Eighty: A Fifty-Year Retrospective, Part I
In celebration of his eightieth birthday, the Darmstadt Festival is proud to present a program of works and re-workings by composer Larry Austin. The program will include: Les Flûtes de Pan: Hommage à Debussy (2006), for flute and 8-channel sound; art is self-alteration is Cage is… (1982), for double bass with recorded bass ensemble; ¡Tárogató! (1998), for tárogató and octophonic computer music; BluesAx (1995), for saxophonist and electronics; Tableaux: Convolutions on a Theme (2003), for alto saxophone, octophonic computer music, and video projection; and Williams [re]Mix[ed] (1997-2000), for octophonic computer music system, based on John Cage’s Williams Mix (1951-53), for eight magnetic tapes: The Theme Restored. Performers will include Jacqueline Martelle, Robert Black, Esther Lamneck, Steve Duke, and Kevin Evansen.
Alvin Lucier’s Queen of the South performed by loadbang and Pygmy Jerboa + On Structure
In Alvin Lucier’s Queen of the South, performed here by the ensembles loadbang and Pygmy Jerboa, a metal plate is put into motion by amplified voices, such that sand on the plate forms into beautiful designs. Tom Johnson wrote, “[Lucier’s] own strongest association is with alchemy and that The Queen of the South is an alchemical term…He was attracted to the idea because of an appreciation for basic substances and for the mystery of how they interact with one another.”On Structure is a sound-centric performance duo featuring Jessie Marino and Natacha Diels. The
New York based ensemble uses improvised and composed
Sounds {and the fluctuation of these sounds} to brew
Transferable art pieces which may
Ravage the realms of the performer, audience or space itself.
Uncovering the hidden motions of sound, freeing
Compositions from the fluorescence of the concert expectation.
Topsy-turvy.
Use of lasers, wigs, electronics, cellosandflutes;
Repurposing life experiences for music glitches and muscle twitches.
Eclipse boundaries of the stage.
(more…)
Tom Hamilton/Susan Alcorn/Steve Swell Trio + Gunn-Truscinski Duo
Trombonist Steve Swell brings together a new trio with pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn and electronic improviser Tom Hamilton. Drummer John Truscinski and guitarist Steve Gunn have played together over a span of years in various formations and projects, influenced by the blues, raga, and the New York underground scene.
Alexander Hacke & Danielle de Picciotto Presents New Album Hitman’s Heel
Alexander Hacke & Danielle de Picciotto combine experimental film with music drawn from gypsy rolls, Italo-Western piano tunes, loops and Autoharp picking. They have worked in Berlin since the eighties, and tour the world regularly. This album, Hitman’s Heel, celebrates the restless life of a nomad, with a performance accompanied by de Picciotto’s visuals. Pete Simonelli will kick off the night by reading a few of his poems.
Music Including Daniel Carter
The final night of writer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter’s two-night residency will feature two sets: the first including Carter with Indigo Street, John Bonhannon, Pete Drungle, Gary Heidt, and Justin Veloso, and the second with Atiba N. Weabena, Aquah Tcherbu, Motoki Mihara, Nkosi Nkululeko, and Federico Ughi.
Andrea Parkins with Ches Smith and Peter Evans
Andrea Parkins (objects, electronics, electric accordion)Ches Smith (percussion, electronics)Peter Evans (trumpet)
Andrea Parkins is a sound artist, composer and electro multi-instrumentalist who also makes/arranges objects, images and (sometimes) words. Known for her dynamic timberal explorations on the electric accordion and inventive use of generative sound processing, Andrea has appeared on more than 40 recordings on labels including Hatology, Atavistic, Knitting Factory, and Creative Sources. She has performed worldwide as a soloist, and with artists such as Nels Cline, Thomas Lehn, Fred Frith, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, and Otomo Yoshihide. She has also presented her work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Kitchen and Experimental Intermedia, among other NYC venues. Currently, Andrea continues to develop and perform a series of Max/MSP-based audio/visual works inspired by Rube Goldberg’s circuitous contraptions, a project realized during artist’s residencies sponsored by the Hamburg Cultural Board in Germany; at Harvestworks in New York City and CESTA in the Czech Republic. For more information:
Cornelius Dufallo
“…Mr. Dufallo demonstrated the rich sound he produces on an unmodified fiddle. But his playing is no less alluring on the electric violin…he showed how much amplification can expand the instrument’s palette. Far from robbing the violin of its beauty, electronics add textural elements and gradations of timbre that the acoustic instrument cannot approximate.” – Allan Kozinn, NY Times
Heralded by The New York Times as one of the “new faces of new music” in 1999, Cornelius Dufallo has since established himself as a constant innovator at the forefront of the American contemporary music scene. Currently he is director of the creative music ensemble Ne(x)tworks, and a member of the world-renowned amplified string quartet known as ETHEL. His ongoing commitment to cutting edge musical ingenuity has produced fascinating collaborations with many of today’s most compelling performers and composers.
This season Dufallo has crafted a new trajectory with the release of Dream Streets, a solo CD of his own music for electric violin on the Innova label. Time Out New York hails Dream Streets as “a beautiful, evocative disc of electroacoustic soundscapes…all [of which] serve as apt reminders of this vital artist’s considerable gifts.” Upcoming projects featuring music from Dream Streets include: solo appearances in New York, Buffalo, and San Francisco; a collaboration with choreographer Stacy Spence at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts; and Journaling, a new series of concerts in which Dufallo documents his own work with extraordinary living composers while tracking various paths in twenty-first century music. Journaling (part one), taking place at The Stone in New York, also presents world premieres by Anna Clyne and Corey Dargel, as well as recent works by Alexandra Gardner, Annie Gosfield, and Huang Ruo. Dufallo’s upcoming recordings include discs of new music by John King and Neil Rolnick.
For this concert, Dufallo will be performing music from Dream Streets.
Carlos Giffoni & Okkyung Lee + Oneohtrix Point Never + Religious Knives
Carlos Giffoni
Carlos Giffoni – Bio
Carlos Giffoni is a prolific Venezuelan electronic musician who resides in the New York City area since the year 2000. Currently using modular synthesizers, hand made custom instruments, and various types of analog and digital synthesis in the composition of electronic music pieces, as well as improvising live with local and international musicians. His recent solo work has focused in live analog synthesizer pieces that put his style in a line with early Brian Eno, Cluster and Conrad Schnitzler while maintaining the harsher edge of his previous noise works. Carlos remains a major figure in the US and international experimental music scene, performing live in New York and in a number of tours and festivals in the US, South America, Europe and Japan. He is the curator of the No Fun Fest, a yearly event in Brooklyn bringing together a wide variety of international experimental musicians as well as running the No Fun Productions label. His work has been featured in many publications including The New York Times, The Wire, Pitchfork, Art Forum, Tokion, Signal to Noise and many others. He also holds an MFA in design and technology from Parsons School of Design, where he occasionally teaches classes and workshops.
Recent live and recording collaborations include:
-In the US: Jim O’Rourke, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Nels Cline, Chris Corsano, Peter Rehberg, Chuck Bettis, Nautical Almanac, Smegma, Yasunao Tone, Emeralds.
-In Europe: Gert-Jan Prins, John Duncan, Rudolf E.ber, Lasse Marhaug, Z. Karkowski,
-In Japan: Merzbow, Astro, Solmania.
Selected Discography:
-Carlos Giffoni “Adult Life” (2008)-Full Length CD on No Fun Productions.
-Carlos Giffoni “Arrogance” (2007)-Full Length CD on No Fun Productions.
-Carlos Giffoni “Welcome Home” (2005)- Full Length CD on Important records.
-Merzbow/Carlos Giffoni “Synth Destruction” (2007) CD on Important Records
-Smegma,Carlos Giffoni,Metalux- LP collaboration on LAFMS/No Fun Productions
-Carlos Giffoni/Lee Ranaldo/Jim O’Roruke “North Six. -3” CD on Antiopic Records
-Carlos Giffoni, Nels Cline, Chris Corsano “Graduation” LP- Benefit for free 103.9
Website: http://www.carlosgiffoni.com
Oneohtrix Point Never
Daniel Lopatin is the American-born son (b. 1982 in Boston, Massachusetts USA) of Leonid Lopatin (former member of The Flying Dutchmen) and Susanna Lopatin (musicologist and piano teacher). He attended Hampshire College where he studied aesthetic philosophy and electronic music, later releasing his senior thesis recording on Naivsuper under the alias Dania Shapes. Utilizing freeware audio editing programs in conjunction with synthesizers, the Dania Shapes sound was a neo-romantic derivation of glitch music that opted for an ornate, hands-on melodic approach rather than systematized processes of degradation.
At the same time, Lopatin began recording as Oneohtrix Point Never, abandoning the glitchwork of DS for a more open-ended approach to recording and live performance. Using a variety of synthesizers, sequencers and loopers, Lopatin employs a technique he refers to as “grid layerage” which abstracts the organizing elements of automated synthesizer arpeggiation via “blurring, decay and melancholic repetition.” He often frames his method around aesthetic motifs associated with the Berlin School of Cosmic Music, 80s new age, darkwave, b-film scores, fusion, minimalism and contemporary noise, but rather than focus purely on sentiment or style alone, the promise of OPN is found in his ability to rethink and retool ubiquitous sonorities into something engaging and personal. Lopatin’s longstanding fascination with the old teutonic masters of the sequencer and their ensuing private press diaspora, his ability to underscore with tact and subtlety the lines of sympathetic resonance between the Berlin school and Giorgio Moroder, John Carpenter, and the tearstained pillows of the polysynth epoch remain entirely his own.
Lopatin is also member of Infinity Window with Taylor Richardson of Prehistoric Blackout and Black Egg. He is currently living in Brooklyn, New York.
Maya Miller and Michael Bernstein met in New York a decade ago, and began making music together as half of sturm und drone quartet Double Leopards a few years after that. Religious Knives came later still, away from the road and the rehearsal space, borne and nurtured in cramped apartments throughout Kings County. Beginning in 2005, the pair released a string of CD-Rs and cassettes, both on their own Heavy Tapes imprint and through the labels of kindred spirits. Steadily moving away from the psychedelic tone baths and modern industrial scrape for which the Leopards had become known, Religious Knives coursed through minimal synth oscillations and spare Kraut repetition.
Mouthus’ Nate Nelson joined the pair in 2006, lending a powerful presence behind the drums that shaped Religious Knives’ rudimentary jams into rough-hewn, long-form paeans to tar-blackened bummer psych. Soon after that, old friend Todd Cavallo completed the quartet on bass, adding a sturdy low end and dubwise groove that lifted Religious Knives from cellar murk to black cloud puffs of bone deep alarm.
An active four-piece for a little more than a year now, Religious Knives have presided over a pair of twelve-inches, a couple of collections of out of print singles and long gone burns, and one full-length. All throughout, these four have traced a path away from the clamour they once knew, bathing slight guitars, interlocking vocals, and solemn basslines in reedy organs and recalcitrant modular synths. The seemingly tin eared would call it noise, but in these eight hands such a set plays as anything but, instead a (cough) syrupy stroll in search of the ghosts of rock’s classicist past.
With The Door, Religious Knives have not only found those bygone days, but broken them apart. There are bookmarks to be found here, pages creased in well-worn chapters. But make no mistake – theirs is a sound tied to the here and now, a summer record for those dread days when the heat holds low and skin sticks to cheap car seats and old patio furniture. These six songs are brighter, sharper than anything that has come before, locking in tight on jugular rhythms. It’s the score for disappearing neighborhoods and crumbling buildings, a hope of holding onto the past as those around us move fast to forget it. It is scent as sound, the stench of smog and sickly smoke spiraling towards the sky. It is Brooklyn, July of 2008. The sun has left us in the East, disappearing somewhere behind Jersey, leaving our borough to find the pulse of another night deep with the city’s streets.
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,...