After taking most of August off to regroup after a bountiful July, things kick off on the 5th of September with an appearance at Guild Row in Chicago as part of the new Sound & Gravity festival organized by Mike Reed & the Constellation team (NOTE that the concert I’m playing is NOT at Constellation itself, but at a venue a few blocks away on the other side of the river; I know I’ve established a pattern w/r/t playing consecutive shows there!)
This will be followed by a series of dates opening for forever homie Joe Westerlund‘s new band Setting (w/ Pelt’s Nathan Bowles & Jaime “Mind Over Mirrors” Fennelly) including a stop in Milwaukee at the Vivarium on September 6th, another in Minneapolis at Cedar Cultural Center on the 8th! Excited for some proper “Get In The Van” -style touring after ages away! NOTE that; in my stead while out touring, Matthew Patterson Curry (aka MPC, Safety Scissors) will be covering the Alpha State Show on The Lot, so make sure to tune in on September 7th from 7PM-9PM for a deep dive into Electroacoustics & Contemporary Electronics!
For thes shows above, I’ll be debuting music in a relatively new vein of the algorithmically-derived concepts I’ve been working with for the past year, hinging on “Generators” while taking in influences from Minimalism, Motorik, IDM, and the like. The idea is to dial in a loose, novel framework each night via the various embedded-computer modules in the Hybrid Digital-Analogue Synthesizer, then let them run their course while only subtly influencing their direction (the “Gather” recording here is fairly indicative of the overall sound, even though it uses only a fraction of the patch; performances will be considerably more fleshed-out) ::
Then, back in NYC on the 12th there will be an incredible day of Quadrophonic performances w/ Olivia Block & Lea Bertucci at Light & Sound Design; NOTE that there is a separate Matinee Performance at 2:30pm, then an Evening Performance at 7:30pm, so purchase tickets accordingly! So happy to return to LSD, one of my favorite spaces in town for listening.
Finally, I’ll head back to the West Coast for an 8-channel performance at Indexical in Santa Cruz on the 26th, preceded & followed by a quick visit to SF (no shows planned, but I’ll be around for a few days; get in touch if you’d like to meet up!)
For these 2x, I’ll use the Live Diffusion setup so expect more of an Electro-Acoustic sound, heavily utilizing the Serge-lineage instruments captured during the residency at NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s Integrated Design & Media program a few weeks back (ditto, “Hunt,” above, is a good indicator).
PS. Make sure check out last month’s Alpha State Session on The Lot featuring the wonderful musician & composer Marcia Bassett, along with the third episode of 4ms Company‘s new Podcast series (hosted by Ross Fish of Moffenzeef fame) wherein we discuss my current headspace w/r/t to synthesis & formative influences in Electronic Music. I also encourage everyone to visit & sit with Josiah McElheny‘s new exhibition “Instrument Object” which opens on the 10th at The Kitchen‘s Westbeth space (163B Bank Street, 4th Floor Loft) & on which I facilitated on a couple of pieces (an electronic realization of the “Lift” section of Pauline Oliveros‘ “Primordial/Lift” plus a restoration of a newly discovered Julis Eastman recording). This after consulting on his “From Red Black to Black, from Blue Black to Black” show at Corbett vs. Dempsey a few years back (which featured a piece involving Serge Paperface system pre-patched to trigger a floor tom recreating Milford Graves‘ heartbeat, also on display in this show…)
PPS. I’ve been loving these finally-hearable, long-in-the-works releases by Paul Amlehn, to which a bunch of us in the Experimental Music & Film scenes have contributed in an asynchronous way over the past decade! This one is quite nice; certainly can’t argue with the lineup:
Paul Amlehn – Compositional system; catalyst texts and vocals for Max, Keith, Robin, Richard, and Ches; vocals; treatments; sampling; guided self-assembly of musical patterns and structures; editing; mixing; production
David Lynch – Field recordings, sound design
Ann Kroeber – Field recordings, sound design
Alan Splet – Field recordings, sound design
Max Eastley – Aeolian harps, electronics
Keith Fullerton Whitman – Electric saz played through a modular synthesizer
Robin Storey – Real-time vocal sculpting, drums, electronics
RK Faulhaber – Synthesis, real-time vocal manipulations
Ches Smith – Moog Rogue, drums
René Magritte – Painting: “The Unexpected Answer”