Wednesday 11/30/11 @ 8pm
51 3rd St.
Troy, NY (former Troy Bike Rescue)

KEIR NEURINGER
composes & improvises acoustic & electronic music, writes socio-political performance texts & essays, & creates interdisciplinary artworks. Keir will play farfisa organ & drums (at the same time!), sing, and play saxophone & electronic…s. intense post-punk songwriter, playing songs off the new Afghanistan album Conquistadors.

HOLLAND HOPSON
is a local avant-gardist and member of the Albany Sonic Arts Collective. Well-versed in a wide variety of musical styles, from the most traditional to the most experimental, Holland will sew together these different musical worlds with pieces for solo banjo and electronics (off his 2011 release Post & Beam), as well as pieces for solo saxophone and electronics.

RAMBUTAN
is local noise/drone wizard Eric Hardiman, member of the Albany Sonic Arts Collective, local psych-rock collective Burnt Hills, and proprietor of TAPE DRIFT records, Albany’s most experimental music label. Eric will be performing a mind-bending set of improvised solo electronics…

intermission videos by LIVING THINGS

Download the score as a pdf file: my-own-true-love.pdf
Download the score as a Lilypond .ly file: my-own-true-love.ly

Notes on My Own True Love

• I found this melody in John and Alan Lomax’s Our Singing Country. I worked out the two-finger, thumb lead banjo part to highlight the double drones of the first and fifth string. The vocal style is haunted by the ghost of Roscoe Holcomb.
• The electronics part uses an FFT freeze frame technique to create an evolving texture by extending a single frame of audio from the banjo (and sometimes voice). Applying pressure to force sensitive resistors mounted on the head and neck of the banjo changes the amplitude contour of the FFT synthesis, making the resulting sound smoother or spikier.

Download the score as a pdf file: east-virginia.pdf
Download the score as a Lilypond .ly file: east-virginia.ly

Notes on East Virginia

• The banjo break at the beginning comes almost directly from Pete Seeger’s How to Play the 5-String Banjo. I worked out the banjo part in the verse by ear, following the melody and drawing inspiration from Buell Kazee’s recording on the Anthology of American Folk Music.
• The electronics part uses multiple looping delays to create a rhythmic texture from the banjo. The timing for each delay line is based on the time between consecutive instances of a given note played by the banjo. One delay line changes every time the computer hears the note g , another changes when the computer hears f, another for b-flat, etc.
• The tablature above more accurately represents how I’d play the tune on a fretted banjo. When I play the fretless banjo, as on the recording, I throw in more slides on the 3rd and 4th strings.

Many thanks to Travis Weller–composer, designer, letterpress operator, more–for all he’s done for this project. (Especially in light of the Austin New Music Co-op’s upcoming concerts of Cardew’s “The Great Learning”. Wish I could be there!)

Today marks the ten-year anniversary of One 4 One, the live recording of a set I performed at the Arts Center in Troy NY as part of the Impulse/Response series. The album had previously been available via Amie Street (RIP).

One 4 One includes 5 pieces for extended soprano saxophone and computer, and one piece for sipsi and computer. All of the pieces involve some degree of interactivity–the computer responds to the live instrument, and the performer responds to the computer’s output–made possible by custom software written with Cycling 74‘s Max. The name of the album is a pun on the date, of course, and it also refers to mapping inputs to outputs.

I’m disappointed they didn’t make the cut partly because I wanted Post and Beam to represent a typical set of my current work for banjo and electronics. At the same time, I can’t deny that the album (Yes, I’m actually thinking of it like that; and yes, I do feel old sometimes.) works better without them.

The good news is that they’re not going away forever. I can easily imagine them as the foundation for my next CD, or as online bonus material. And the other good news is that with the sequencing done I can move along with mastering and sleeve design and … and …

The first set consisted of duo improvisations by Holland Hopson, fretless banjo and  electronics with Mike Majkowski, double bass.

Holland Hopson & Mike Majkowski; Photo: Terumi Narushima

Hopson Majkowski Improvisation 1.mp3

Hopson Majkowski Improvisation 2.mp3

Hopson Majkowski Improvisation 3.mp3

Hopson Majkowski Improvisation 4.mp3

Next was a wonderful set by Kraig Grady, just tuned vibraphone and Terumi Narushima, just tuned pump organ.

Grady Narushima.mp3

Holland Hopson & Mike Majkowski; photo: Terumi Narushima

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.

I’m excited about this show on Tuesday, April 6 at Bread and Jam in Cohoes, NY featuring Human Mirror and The Jazz Robot. I’ll be opening the show with banjo and electronics. Come early; The music starts at 7pm.

Albany Sonic Arts Presents Lucre and Jonathan Chen

Sunday March 14 @ 8pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation

• Lucre is the improvising trio of Chris Cogburn , Bryan Eubanks, and Vic Rawlings who perform with exposed circuits, extended ampli?ed cello, low-? modular synthesis, and stripped down percussion.
• Jonathan Chen will perform a solo set of music for electronics, viola and violin.

Chris is a good friend from my Austin days and does great work with the No Idea Festival. I’m very excited he’ll be playing in Albany. And I’m equally excited that local artist Jonathan Chen is finally getting a chance to present his work.

More information about the artists after the break…

About Lucre

Working with exposed circuits, extended ampli?ed cello, low-? modular synthesis, and
stripped down percussion, Lucre, the trio of Chris Cogburn (Austin, TX), Bryan Eubanks
(Brooklyn, NY), and Vic Rawlings (Boston, MA), come together for the ?rst time to de-
velop their music for ten days in the Northeast. Long standing duo work exist between
all three and the idea for a trio came about during a gathering of musicians in Seattle
during August of 2009.

Vic Rawlings and Bryan Eubanks are familiar to Albany audiences through two previous
Albany Sonic Arts appearances. Chris Cogburn is making his Capital District debut.
Cogburn is based in Austin, TX where he presents the No Idea Festival, an annual
gathering dedicated to improvised music.

About Jonathan Chen

Jonathan Chen will perform a solo set of music for electronics, viola and violin. The
electronic work is created by producing feedback through a trumpet: a small micro-
phone is positioned in place of the mouthpiece and a small speaker is set next to
the bell. The feedback is altered by pressing or releasing the valves on the trumpet and
by ?ltering the frequencies via equalization and volume control on both an ampli?er and
a mixer. The work for viola, entitled “de-clime” involves the use of a metal mute placed
lightly on the bridge, coupled with bowing while changing pressure and speed. The re-
sulting sounds include difference tones and beating as the pitches gradually move
higher throughout the duration of the 15 minute work. The works for violin focus on tim-
bre and pitch while employing extended techniques such as preparations, sub-tones,
and micro-spiccatto. A wide variety of sounds are produced at dynamic extremes.

Born in 1974, Jonathan Chen is an improvisor, composer, and installation artist. His solo
work has  been presented in cities such as Atlanta, Beijing, Berlin, Chicago, London,
Luzern, New York and more. As a collaborator, Chen has worked with Tatsu Aoki, An-
thony Braxton, Gene Coleman, Nic Collins, Bill Dixon, Ensemble Noamnesia, Flux
String Quartet, David Grubbs, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn (brie?y) and many others, per-
forming both in the U.S. and internationally. Chen received his MM in Violin Perform-
ance from Northwestern University, his MA in Music Composition from Wesleyan Uni-
versity, and is currently working on his PhD in Electronic Arts at RPI in Troy, NY.