Artist-in-Residence: Prince Rama UTOPIA=NO PERSON
This performance takes place from 4 pm until midnight, with group exorcise routines conducted every hour on the hour. Comfortable workout clothes and running shoes are highly recommended.
Spawned from the vernal heat of the Florida swamps amidst swirling patterns of pine orchards and pre-Columbian artifacts, Prince Rama was whispered into the ears of Taraka Larson, Nimai Larson, and Michael Collins in the summer of 2007 by the clanging of prayer bells and goat-skin drums. They left the Hare Krishna farm where they were staying and formed a creative nucleus in Boston, MA where they gained a cult following in the underground art and psychedelic folk and noise circles who were mesmerized by their captivating blend of campfire surrealism and transcendental anthems of every cosmic order.
Their engaging and often unpredictable live shows reflect their eclectic pool of mysticism; amidst collective chants, werewolf summonings, and Sanskrit invocations, they have been known to distribute hand drums, conch shells, bells, gongs, and other various percussion to members of the audience to create the ultimate communal ritual experience.
Loren Connors + Bill Baird
Bill Baird
Bill Baird is a multi talented musician from Austin, Texas. Known to most for his prolific songwriting and pop productions under the names Sunset and Sound Team, Baird is at heart a musical experimenter without boundaries. The dynamic nature of his approach to songwriting leads to an always-evolving sound, constantly reaching for its true shape yet never settling in on form. With his album Silence! (an August 2010 release on the Austin label Autobus) he has created a rich, analog ambient recording akin to the Folkways records of Craig Kupka and the meditations of early Kranky releases. Silence! is awash with the heavy sonic textures of pianos sent through 24 stereo delays, french horn, and a variety of acoustic instrumentation. For this special ISSUE Project Room performance, Bill Baird will perform live arrangements of the pieces from the album in ensemble with Tucker Dulin, Erica Dicker, Dave Ruder, Nathan Stein, Alexander Waterman, Kenny Wang, Karen Waltuch, and Katherine Young.
Loren Connors
Loren Connors was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1949. Best known as a composer and improviser, Connors has issued over 50 guitar records on his own imprints (Daggett, St. Joan, Black Label) since the late 1970s and over two dozen on other labels across the globe. He has 
recorded under the names Guitar Roberts, Loren Mattei, Loren MazzaCane Connors and other variations. Connors’ singular adpation of the blues is a distinct personal vision combining the Delta bottleneck sound and the ancestral blues voice (appearing as distortion, baying hounds or multi-tracked guitar), with hauntingly unexpected sounds. Outside of Connors’ three decades of solo work, he has collaborated with Suzanne Langille, Jim O’Rourke, Darin Gray, Alan Licht, Christina Carter, Keiji Haino, San Agustin, Jandek and many others, as well as leading the group Haunted House. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
This evening is curated by Unseen Worlds Records. With releases by Lubomyr Melnyk, Carl Stone, “Blue” Gene Tyranny, and Elodie Lauten, Unseen Worlds pens itself as a record label “releasing quality editions of unheralded and revolutionary, yet accessible, avant garde music.”
Video of “Surfing” by Bill Baird, shot on 8mm in Times Square:
BILL BAIRD – SURFING from autobus on Vimeo.
Bram Stadhouders+ Audrey Chen, Nate Wooley, Gill Arno trio + Kenta Nagai
BRAM STADHOUDERS (NL)
Bram Stadhouders (b. 1987) is a freak/free ambient jazz guitarist and composer from Tilburg, The Netherlands, currently living and working in Berlin, Germany. Playing the guitar from age 6, he won several classical guitar competitions during his childhood years and got the chance to play with his rock and jazz groups on major Dutch festivals. His own talent, both in playing the guitar as in improvising music was recognised in 2008 when he was elected the most promising improvisation talent of The Netherlands, a very prestigious price for up and coming musicians. His music is very atmospheric, meandering in between free jazz, ambient and classical composed music. (http://www.myspace.com/bramstadhouders)
Audrey Chen/ Nate Wooley/ Gill Arno Trio
Audrey Chen
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
SOLO sound on myspace and: http://download.yousendit.com/FC35C831016A0A28
Gill Arno
Gill Arno was born in Italy and lives in Brooklyn, NY. His work explores areas where sound and image overlap, and is often constructed with found objects and found sound. In the project /mpld/ he utilizes two old modified slide projectors to create performances where static images become pulsating and fade continuously into one another. The projector’s mechanical sounds are tapped and manipulated to reveal their musical potential. Other activities include performances with the New York Phonographers and in various other collaborative and improvised settings. He publishes books, recordings and other multiples via his own imprint, Unframed Recordings, and runs Fotofono, a small studio in Brooklyn where sometimes public events are held.
www.m-i-c-r-o.net/mpld
www.unframedrecordings.net
www.fotofono.net
Nate Wooley
Nate Wooley (b. 1974) grew up in a Finnish-American fishing village in Oregon. He has spent the rest of his life trying musically to find a way back to the peace and quiet of that time by whole-heartedly embracing the space between complete absorption in sound and relative absence of the same. He began playing trumpet professionally at age 13 with his father, and after studying he moved to Colorado where he studied more with Ron Miles, Art Lande, Fred Hess, and improvisation master Jack Wright. His tenure with Jack began to break Nate out of self-imposed molds and into the sound world that he has embraced as his own.
Nate currently resides in Jersey City, NJ and performs solo trumpet improvisations as well as collaborating with such diverse artists as Anthony Braxton, Paul Lytton, John Zorn, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Marilyn Crispell, Joe Morris, Steve Beresford, Akron/Family, David Grubbs, C. Spencer Yeh, Daniel Levin, Stephen Gauci, Harris Eisenstadt, Taylor Ho Bynum and Peter Evans.
Kenta Nagai
Kenta Nagai crafts sound and vision from his base in NYC and Princeton, NJ. His fretless guitar playing is featured on Eugene Chadbourne’s “Guitar Festival Summer 1999”. On shamisen, a traditional Japanese string instrument, Nagai has performed widely including the Sculpture Center in Long Island City and Carnegie Hall. From 1999 until 2002 he was a composer in residence at The Cave Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
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,...