ASAC Presents Suzanne Thorpe & Phillip Greenlief, Fossils from the Sun, Holland Hopson

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The Albany Sonic Arts Collective presents Suzanne Thorpe and Phillip Greenlief, Fossils from the Sun, and Holland Hopson.

Saturday, April 7
8:00 pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation

West Coast saxophonist Phillip Greenlief visits New York, and mixes it up with East Coast electroacoustic flutist Suzanne Thorpe. Together they explore what it sounds like when warm winds of the west meet cool breezes of the northeast, and the spaces in between, with electronics, singalongs, and improvisations.
Fossils from the Sun is Ray Hare’s way of moving our eardrums with guitar and/or voice and/or electronics.
ASAC will be unveiling new chairs for “enhanced listening comfort” (TM). To celebrate, I’ll perform 4 short pieces for amplified and processed folding chair.

Location Ensemble: Release, Review, Perform, Repeat…

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I failed to mark the release of the Location Ensemble’s debut disc on Tape Drift (td49). Luckily it didn’t escape the attention of Andrew White at The Upstate Soundscape who posted a review of the release. He rightfully singles out drummer Matt Weston as “the unsung hero in this guitar ensemble”. Andrew describes my Six Chords Every Rock Guitarist Should Know as “…a dizzying sound that spirals up with sheets of sound whipping around, building up and then falling apart.” Sounds good to me.

Listen to Eric Hardiman’s Diversion #3 from the release here.

Location Ensemble will perform at Valentine’s on April 18, opening for Disappears (Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Brian Case of The Ponys) and Lotus Plaza (Lockett Pundt of Deerhunter). I’m unable to play with the group that night–but what’s one less electric guitar in a group of eight or nine?

Austin’s New Music Co-op Turns 10

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The Austin New Music Co-op celebrates their tenth anniversary with concerts tonight and tomorrow. Details here; Preview articles in the Austinist and Austin 360. I joined the co-op shortly after it began and enjoyed participating in many memorable events while in Austin.

In honor of 10 years of great co-op concerts, here’s a recording from the September 8, 2006 event featuring Fred Lonberg-Holm. This was the premiere of We Would Like to Take This Opportunity, a work for cello soloist with any three string instruments. The performers here are Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello solo; James Alexander, viola; Steve Bernal, cello; Travis Weller, violin.

[audio:we_would_like_to_take_this_opportunity.mp3]
We Would Like to Take This Opportunity.mp3

Here’s the score of the cello part. It includes the other instruments’ parts for most movements.

Today’s Fun: Diddley Bows

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Inspired by Mike Orr’s Handmade Music Factory book I grabbed some scrap wood and empty soup cans and hacked together three diddley bows. They sound a bit like a berimbau crossed with a one-string Resophonic guitar. I’ll post some sounds once I find my way around the instruments. I’ll likely add guitar pickups or contact mics, too.

51 3rd Recordings – Everyone Looks to a Sumatran, Virginian Curlew

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Here are live recordings of my set from November’s show at 51 3rd Street that also included performances by Keir Neuringer and Rambutan (Eric Hardiman). It’s an eclectic set beginning with a slightly dysfunctional performance of

[audio:111129_01_everyone_looks_to_the_sky.mp3]
Everyone Looks to the Sky
No one but me would know that the computer is responding to my playing differently than anticipated. Such is the fun of interactive computer music: you just have to work with it, ride with it, fight it, respond to the moment, change your plans. In this case, the conception of the piece is already so circumscribed that the content of the work is hardly changed, though the form is clearly different–and maybe more dramatic as a result.

[audio:111129_02_batak_batak.mp3]
Batak Batak
A recent binge of Indonesian music led me to dust off this piece. I never felt I had worked out the sax part enough when the piece was new, which might account for why I shelved it. Revisiting the piece, I discovered very few indications of what I had intended for the sax part–little more than a scribbled microtonal scale. There’s clearly still work to do here, but I’m less bothered than I might have been in the past by the elliptical playing.

[audio:111129_03_east_virginia.mp3]
East Virginia
This has become one of my go-to banjo pieces; a surefire way to find my place on the instrument.

[audio:111129_04_curlew.mp3]
Curlew
A brand-new piece getting its first public airing. I learn so much by performing new material and can’t wait to revise this tune as a result. Yet another song with bird imagery (YASWBI).

Favorite Music from 2011

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My residency with David Behrman at the Atlantic Center for the Arts was an important part of 2011 and its effects trickled into the rest of (and best of) the year. I heard some great recordings as a result of the residency, namely:

Various Artists: Music for Merce (box set)
A massive collection that celebrates the musical legacy of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Great work by Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros, Takehisa Kosugi, Maryanne Amacher, John King, David Behrman and especially David Tudor. It’s astounding (and initially a little frustrating) that even with 10 CDs, many of the pieces are presented as excerpts. But hearing applause at the end of the live recordings reminds me that the pieces often lasted until the dance was over, and then they were over, too.

Ensemble vocal de Girokastër: Albanie – Polyphonies Vocales du Pays Lab
Mesmerizing choral music from Albania.

Otherwise, 2011 was the year of some exceptional music by many of my musician friends. Their work easily stands up against many of the releases from more established labels. In some cases, the work appears on established labels. In any case, the distinction between DIY and “signed artist” seems increasingly irrelevant. So I’m not hesitant to trumpet this work at all. I’m more concerned about leaving out some deserving recordings simply because there’s so much new material to consider. If we’re friends (I hope we are) and I don’t mention your work below, it’s probably because I haven’t listened to it yet. We’re still friends–I can’t wait to finally catch up on what you did in 2011 and hear what’s to come in 2012.

The Black Drumset: The Black Drumset
The crunchiest breakfast cereal.

Brent Fariss: Four Environments…Collapsing
Spooky action at a distance.

Matt Weston: The Last of the Six-Cylinders
A richly textured and surprisingly elegant electrified junkyard.

Jefferson Pitcher: Now the Deer
The quiet surface of a deep deep pool.

Bob Gluck / Joe Giardullo / Christopher Dean Sullivan: Something Quiet
My favorite kind of heterophony.

Here are a few other recordings that left their mark on my ears this year.

  • Various Artists: Music of Indonesia (multiple volumes) Daedalus Books has these on sale. I bought them all.
  • Michael Nyman: Decay Music
  • King Creosote and John Hopkins: Diamond Mine
  • Various Artists: The Friends of Old Time Music (box set)
  • Little Richard: The Georgia Peach
  • Kepler Quartet: Ben Johnston: String Quartets Nos. 2, 3, 4 & 9
  • Laura Viers: July Flame
  • Dave Douglas: Keystone

Science Fair Video

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Cycling ’74 has posted a new video from the Science Fair they hosted as part of the recent Expo ’74 event in Brooklyn. I show off my extended banjo instrument (along with my unashamedly geeky enthusiasm). My segment runs from 2:16-3:13, but watch the whole thing and marvel at the wonderful, strange things people do with Max (and their own geeky enthusiasms). Other videos in the series can be found here.

And a big shout out to Eric Prust who built the fine fretless banjo (minus the electronics) in the video.

Location Ensemble Catch-Up

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Here’s the latest on all things Location Ensemble: