A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FOR SUZANNE FIOL: Jonathan Kane’s February + Audrey Chen

Join us as we celebrate the birthday of our beloved founder, Suzanne Fiol, with some of her favorite musicians.

Before creating February in 2005, drummer Jonathan Kane was a co-founder of the No Wave legends, Swans and instigated their half time, slow rhythmic crawl. He played in LaMonte Young’s Forever Bad Blues Band, and is the only drummer in Rhys Chatham’s 100 electric guitar orchestra. He plays with a galaxy of downtown luminaries including Kropotkins, Transmission, and Elliott Sharp. As teenagers in the 70s, Jonathan and his brother Anthony took their freshly inked fake IDs to Chicago where they ended up opening for the likes of Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and James Cotton.

Come dance, trance, and (most importantly) make some NOISE for the band that WFMU describes as “Avant Roadhouse, the music that makes me proud to be human”.

‘Wedding the brutal severity of Delta country boogie and Seventies German pulse rock – all dead-ahead motion and mounting detail…Epic.” – Rolling Stone

“Somewhere between Sonic Youth and Steve Reich is the drummer Jonathan Kane. Interested in the crossroads of new-music iconoclasm and experimental rock, he has a drummers sense of steady dynamic development and an unapologetic love of noise. Virtuosic.” – New York Times

“Intensely propulsive motorik blues…its muscularity and greased relentlessness is never less than exhilarating.” – Uncut

AUDREY CHEN is a Chinese-American musician who was born into a family of material scientists, doctors and engineers, outside of Chicago in 1976. Parting ways with the family convention, she turned to the cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training in both instruments, with a resulting specialization in early and new music, she parted ways again in 2003 to begin new negotiations with sound in order to discover a more individually honest aesthetic.

Now, using the cello, voice and analog electronics, Chen’s work delves deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of a homemade analog synth, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language.

Recently, her primary focus has been her SOLO project but she is also involved in many various collaborations. Among musicians, she has worked with Phil Minton, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura, Ko Ishikawa, Elliott Sharp, Aki Onda, Phill Niblock, Frederic Blondy, Jerome Noetinger, C. Spencer Yeh, Alessandro Bosetti, Mats Gustafsson, Mazen Kerbaj, Michael Zerang, Tatsuya Nakatani, Le Quan Ninh, Joe Mcphee, Susan Alcorn, Michele Doneda, Paolo Angeli, Gianni Gebbia, plus many more. Some current projects include: duos with Phil Minton, Frederic Blondy, Robert van Heumen, Katt Hernandez, Nate Wooley, and Id M Theft Able. Trio with Nate Wooley and C. Spencer Yeh. Plus three new quartet projects with Jeff Carey/Morten J. Olsen/Raed Yassin, Miya Masaoka/Hans Grusel/Kenta Nagai and also with Frederic Blondy/Michael Johnsen/Jerome Noetinger.

Chen has performed in Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Taiwan, Canada and the USA. She is currently based in Baltimore, MD USA but primarily maintains an active touring schedule throughout Europe.

www.myspace.com/audreychen

Apr 21, 2010 | Categories: events, music | Tags: audrey chen, blues, cello, february, jonathan kane, minimalism, Suzanne Fiol, voice | Comments Off