UAG has been a welcome host for many Albany Sonic Arts Collective performances and plays a similarly vital role for many other grass-roots arts organizations and presenters. UAG has also been an important force behind the First Friday events. Support UAG today.

Saturday, April 16, 8 pm
A Night of Amazing Sounds
Bob Gluck/James Keepnews/Ras Moshe/Dean Sharp
Duojoggle (Mitch Elrod/Mike Lopez)
Holland Hopson and Matt Weston
Valentine’s
17 New Scotland Ave

Here’s a great way to spend Saturday night! This will be the first time Matt Weston and I have performed as a duo, and I’m really excited about playing with such an amazing drummer. Every time we’ve rehearsed it comes out a little differently, so it should be a fun surprise to hear what happens at Valentine’s.

Here’s what the Chronogram says about the show:

“A Night of Amazing Sounds”
April 16. In an out-of-the-ordinary move, the normally straight punk-oriented Valentine’s presents “A Night of Amazing Sounds,” a free jazz/experimental electronics program with the quartet of keyboardist Bob Gluck, guitarist James Keepnews, saxophonist Ras Moshe, and drummer Dean Sharp; Duojoggle, featuring saxophonist-guitarist Mitch Elrod and drummer Mike Lopez; and Hopson-Weston, starring Holland Hopson on sax and laptop and Matt Weston on percussion and electronics. Here’s hoping the venue has similar bills in store. (The Charlie Watts Riots and the Last Conspirators plot destruction April 1; the Downtown Fiction hits April 27.) 8pm. Call for ticket prices. Albany. (518) 432-6572; www.valentinesalbany.com.

Tuesday, April 12
8:00 pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation

The Albany Sonic Arts Collective presents improvised and experimental music from Beijing and Chicago.

Yan Jun & the Matt Weston – Dan Godston Duo
Thursday, March 24
8:00 pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation

Yan Jun uses feedback noise in his concerts. He also engages in field recording, site-specific sound art, voice, writing and publishing. He is the founder of Sub Jam/Kwanyin Records, which runs the weekly event Waterland Kwanyin (2005-2010) and annual festival Mini Midi.
http://www.yanjun.org/

Dan Godston teaches, composes music, and plays the trumpet and other instruments in Chicago. He works with the Borderbend Arts Collective to make the annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival happen. Chicago Calling provides opportunities for Chicago based artists to collaborate with artists living in other locations around the world.
http://dangodston.bandcamp.com/

Matt Weston plays percussion and electronics, and has worked with Arthur Brooks, Bill Dixon, Kevin Drumm and, most recently, has collaborated with Century Plants.
http://www.mattweston.com/

The Albany Sonic Arts Collective presents their first concert of 2011 with performances by some of the Capital Region’s most exciting experimental musicians including Century Plants with Matt Weston, Holland Hopson, SoundBarn and Insect Posse.

DEEP FREEZE: Experimental Music for Snowy Times
Saturday, February 19
8:00 pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation

This will be my first Albany show of 2011 and my last performance before heading to the Atlantic Center for the Arts for a residency with David Behrman (more on that later…). I’ll be performing a set of music for soprano sax and computer. My current plan includes a piece using a DIY plate reverb as the primary electronic sound source.

More about the artists after the jump…

About Century Plants:
ASAC members Eric Hardiman and Ray Hare have been collaborating for years as Century Plants, utilizing voice, guitar, and complex electronics setups to create haunting, evocative works.  For this performance, they will be joined by Matt Weston on percussion and electronics, sure to add a new layer of intrigue.
For more information http://www.myspace.com/centuryplants and
http://www.mattweston.com/

About Holland Hopson:
Named by Metroland as the area’s “Best Retro-Futurist,” composer Holland Hopson will present a set of his typically challenging work in a rare solo appearance on soprano saxophone and electronics. Holland is preparing for an upcoming three week residency with composer and live electronics pioneer David Behrman at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna, Florida.
For more information http://hollandhopson.com

About SoundBarn:
soundBarn (Thomas Lail and Patrick Weklar) use heavily processed and prepared guitar to construct ad-hoc compositions that span the space from spare, minimal soundscapes to full-on noise with ever-shifting rhythms, pace and moods.

soundBarn has recently collaborated with Albany Sonic Arts Collective on full-length performances of Rhys Chatham’s famed “Guitar Trio” as well as performances at The soundBarn—a project of artist/musician Lail and artist/gallerist Tara Fracalossi located on what was once Heald Orchards in Valatie, New York.

Lail formerly performed with the experimental trio Lukomski/Majer/Lail  whose improvised sound Metroland weekly recommended ”for those who are turned way on by the gloriously weird guitarscapes of Sonic Youth’s late ’90s SYR recordings, or the dreamy, sometimes atonal soundwaves of Hovercraft…”  Both Lail and Weklar were founding members of the long-ago Albany post-punk band The Fauves.
For more information http://www.soundbarn.blogspot.com

About Insect Posse:
Insect Posse are the prolific and inscrutable Mark Lunt and Chris Bassett, purveyors of noisy yet hypnotic hymns to other worlds of nothingness. This will be their first official ASAC appearance.
For more information http://www.myspace.com/insectposse

About the Albany Sonic Arts Collective:
The Albany Sonic Arts Collective (ASAC) is a grassroots organization dedicated to building a thriving community of listeners and performers of music that exists outside of traditional boundaries. The Collective supports a wide variety of music and sonic art forms, with an emphasis on those that stress freedom and exploration of new ideas. Styles include free improvisation, drone, noise, electroacoustic improvisation, electronic music, avant jazz, and many others. ASAC have been presenting regularly since November 2007. In 2008 the Albany Times Union called ASAC a “sonic bright spot” of the Capital District arts scene.

Friday October 8 @ 8pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation

Robert Millis of the Climax Golden Twins will perform solo, and will also present a brand new Sublime Frequencies film, called “This World is Unreal Like A Snake in a Rope.”

Parashi is the solo project of Mike Griffin–microphones, pedals, tapes, synthesizers, guitar, metal bowl, washboard, tin box, tin whistle, noise generator, and more.

Metroland Best of the Captial Region 2010; Cover photo by Alicia Solsman

Metroland’s Best of the Capital Region for 2010 came out last week and I am surprised and pleased to be included as the Best Retro-Futurist. Sure, it’s a made-up category, but it’s a good fit. Here’s what they have to say:

Composer and instrumentalist Holland Hopson has been a contributor to the region’s avant-garde music scene for the better part of 20 year—whether it’s vocal excursions that meld Gregorian chant and Dada, or soprano sax forays that come pretty close to “straight-up” jazz, the breadth and range of this iconoclast’s musical journey has always been intriguing, albeit way outside of the box. Hopson’s recent blending of traditional tunes (performed with vocals and banjo) and subtle electronics has turned him into one of the area’s most mesmerizing and memorable live performers. Catch him if you can, as his local shows tend to be few and far between.

Metroland has identified plenty of other (probably more deserving) best-of recipients including such friends and colleagues as Jason Cosco/Grab Ass Cowboys (Best Noise Wrangler); EMPAC (Best Music Curation) — this ought to read Micah Silver, in my opinion, since he is the Music Curator at EMPAC; The Sanctuary for Independent Media (Best Activist Community Arts Center); and Emily Zimmerman (Best Emerging Curator).

These accolades come on the heels of a conversation with a friend at the latest show presented by the Albany Sonic Arts Collective. We were talking about how important it is for a community of artists to receive some recognition from the local press and the concomitant pitfalls of letting it go to your head. A timely conversation for the former and hopefully we’ll avoid the latter. The ASAC event was a great set of performances, by the way, particularly from Fossils from the Sun (Ray Hare) and Family Battle Snake (Bill Kouligas).

Saturday May 29 @ 8pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation

More about the artists after the break…PINE SMOKE LODGE = Matt McKeever and Hillary Dickerson from Portland, Maine. From Stunned Records: “Together Pine Smoke Lodge summit snowy banks of acoustical drone in ever-ascendant strides of bowed & plucked strings, icicle bells & xylophone, and heat-generating vocal mantra. The trail they follow is never steep, but vista-revealing peaks are reached in good order. Bookended between two stretches of sparkling activity comes a middle passage where one feels the clock has frozen as solidly as the ground underfoot. Such moments of palpable harmonic stasis trickle throughout ‘Haligdaeg’, making the climb worth it every time.”

CRUUDEUCES = Nate Brennan from North Adams, MA. Nate’s played ASAC before, when he dazzled with a clarinet and electronics set. It’s anyone’s guess what surprises Nate will pull out for this set, but we’re sure it’ll be amazing. Recent releases on Tape Drift and Kimberly Dawn Recordings, as well as live sets all over the Northeast. Not to be missed!

GRAB ASS COWBOYS = Jason, Christian, plus assorted others always deliver the noise goods at ASAC. We’ve seen them get impossibly better and better each time they perform, displaying increasing levels of instrumental and vocal prowess. Secret Albany treasures.

JEFFERSON PITCHER – Final ASAC performance (as a local, we hope he’ll be back to visit). He’s off to live in Canada, so come give a hearty farewell to this AMAZING guitarist. He has performed and recorded with many artists including Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith, Ikue Mori, Okkyung Lee, Scott Amendola, Christian Kiefer, J. Matthew Gerken, Denison Witmer, Sarah Weaver, Mark Dresser, Mike Bullock, Tim Keiper, David Gibson, Kristina Forester, Ron Guensche & many more. He has twice found himself on NPR’s All Things Considered and has been well reviewed by the likes of Pitchfork and Harp Magazine. While much of his work explores free improvisation he also draws heavily from his love for melody, the simplicity of minimalist composers, a long love of flamenco, and a history of performing and recording in the west coast indie-rock scene as a singer-songwriter, where he fronted the band Above the Orange Trees.

Saturday April 10th
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany, NY

8PM
Suggested Donation $5 (all proceeds go to touring performers)

This concert features Finnish- based composer/sound artist Marko Timlin alongside thenumber46, the collaborative effort of electro-acoustic flutist Suzanne Thorpe and electronic musician Philip White. Both Timlin and thenumber46 employ improvisation and non-linear analog systems to create music in which a delicate balance exists between the human and machine. A music at once intuitive and mechanical. Explosive and subdued. Violent and meditative.

More about the artists after the jump.

Marko Timlin is a Helsinki-based sound artist, composer, musician and inventor of virtual and analogue instruments. He has developed an intuitive interaction with electronic media, creating his own unconventional sound adventures in an improvisational context challenging to both the ear and the mind. Maintaining a delicate balance between order and chaos, his music happens in real-time, often surprising the artist as well as audience. His performances are effectively a dialog between man and machine.

Timlin founded the Berlin-based group tritop with Antye and Jotka of Laub, with whom he released 2 CDs and a Vinyl-maxi on INFRACOM records. His collaborations include Merja Nieminen, Kristina Frei (Zeit_Raum), Klaus Janek, Pink Twins and Petri Kuljuntausta (Helsinki Invasion), NewImproMasters, Laub, Tarwater, Rope, Foo Fanick and the 17 Hippies. He has toured extensively throughout Europe with his “Sensor-Sound-Machine” instrument.

thenumber46 push and coax feedback systems, physically and psychologically, into ultimate audible terrains, extracting sonic extremes from their instruments and themselves. Consisting of Suzanne Thorpe on flute and electronics and Philip White on electronic feedback, the duo improvise on the precipice of unpredictable sounds, exploiting the volatile and explosive in their music. They have toured throughout the U.S., performing at galleries and venues including the Fractal Mind Gaze Hut, Oakland, CA; OK Mountain, Austin, TX; Redux Contemporary Art Studios, Charleston, SC; Monkeytown, Brooklyn, NY; The Stone, NYC; and the Pyramid Atlantic, MD. Their recording, “bleach and ammonia”, was recorded at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College, Oakland, CA, and recently released in limited-edition cassette format on Tape Drift Records.

Suzanne Thorpe is a composer, improviser, educator and curator. She has performed with Chris Brown, David Dove, Annette Krebs, Maggie Nicols, BhobRainey, Pauline Oliveros, Gino Robair, Zeena Parkins, Ulrich Krieger and more at places such as Issue Project Room (NYC), The Stone (NYC), Diapason (NYC), the Activating the Medium Festival (SF), the No Idea Festival (Austin), etc. In another life, she is a founding member of Mercury Rev, with whom she worked from 1989 – 2001, a member of The Wounded Knees and can be heard from time-to-time mucking it up with J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., all three of whom she played with at 2009′s All Tomorrow’s Parties: The Nightmare Before Christmas in England.

Philip White’s performances center on a non-linear feedback system, which consists of a mixer and several homemade circuits. In addition to his work with analog and digital electronics, White has written extensively for chamber ensembles and created a large body of inter-media pieces that explore meaning in information transmission. His works have been exhibited in galleries across the US and Germany. In addition his solo performances he currently works with Suzanne Thorpe (thenumber46), Chuck Johnson (with chuck johnson with philip white) and Ryan Talman. Recent and upcoming performances/exhibitions include Bent Festival 2010, New York City Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, Diapason (NYC), The Stone (NYC), Sonic Circuits (DC), Redux New Media Festival (Charleston, SC) and Galerie Neurotitan (Berlin). Philip was recently awarded a Meet the Composer Creative Connections grant.

The Albany Times Union has a preview of Sunday’s Albany Sonic Arts Collective concert featuring Lucre and Jonathan Chen.