Albany Sonic Arts Presents Pine Smoke Lodge, Cruudeuces, Grab Ass Cowboys, Jefferson Pitcher
Saturday May 29 @ 8pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation
More about the artists after the break… Continue reading
River of Drone II: Seven Hours of Sound at the SoundBarn
Photo: MisterV
I’m looking forward to floating in the River of Drone II: Seven Hours of Sound.
Sunday May 16th
12 noon to 7pm
at the SoundBarn in Valatie, NY.
The Albany Times Union wrote a preview here. Find more information on the Albany Sonic Arts Collective site or below.
Albany Sonic Arts Collective (ASAC) and The soundBarn are proud to present River of Drone II: Seven Hours of Sound. A very special, long-form event, River of Drone II is a free, seven-hour, improvised sound performance from 12 noon – 7 pm on Sunday May 16 at The soundBarn, Valatie, NY.
River of Drone II: Seven Hours of Sound is a collective sonic improvisation that will unfold and develop unlike any ordinary concert. From quiet, peaceful soundscapes to full-on noise, the ever-shifting rhythm, pace and mood will evolve as the ebb and flow of performers, energy and instrumentation progresses through the seven hour performance.
Set in a former orchard cooler with views of the Catskill Mountains, The soundBarn is a uniquely suited location for visitors to lounge, listen and linger for an hour, a few minutes or the entire performance. The audience is encouraged to make themselves comfortable and to bring pillows, chairs, food and drink. Unlike a traditional concert setting, performers will be located throughout the venue and listeners are encouraged to move around, watch the accompanying video projections, wander in and out and discover new relationships to sound through immersion, reflection, deep listening, meditation, and concentration.
We hope you will join us to listen, meditate, self-hypnotize, bliss out– or to simply enjoy a swim in the RIVER OF DRONE!
River of Drone II is a collaborative presentation of Albany Sonic Arts Collective and The soundBarn and will be presented at The soundBarn.
Featured musicians include: Jason Cosco, Matt Ernst, Tara Fracalossi, Eric Hardiman (Rambutan, Century Plants, Burnt Hills,) Ray Hare (Century Plants, Fossils From the Sun, Burnt Hills,) Holland Hopson, Thomas Lail (soundBarn,) Patrick Weklar (soundBarn) Matt Weston (Barn Owls), Mike Bullock, Linda Aubry Bullock, Mark Lunt, Chris Bassett, Jeremy Kelly, and many more special guests.
Videos by: Tara Fracalossi, Kyra Garrigue and more.
The soundBarn is a project of artist/musician Thomas Lail and artist Tara Fracalossi and is located on what was once Heald Orchards in Valatie, New York. The soundBarn is sited in a modern addition to the orchard’s 100 year old Dutch style barn. The cavernous, heavily insulated space served as the orchard’s cooler where apples and pears were over-wintered and chilled by the massive, still visible refrigeration system.
Remember the first River of Drone? Listen to some of the first River of Drone.
ASAC Presents Ben Miller/Doug Van Nort Duo, Barn Owl and Shape Shifting Shepherds
Ben Miller
Doug Van Nort
Albany Sonic Arts Presents Ben Miller/Doug Van Nort Duo, Barn Owl and Shape Shifting Shepherds
Saturday May 1 @ 8pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation
More about the artists after the break.
Arduino On Board
Photo by Nicholas Zambetti
I recently ordered an Arduino board to try another approach for getting sensor data into my computer. More and more of my students are using them, too, and I wanted some first-hand experience. Most of my previous work has been with the Basic Stamp family of boards. The Arduino arrived this week and I promptly sat down and gave it a try.
The first thing I noticed (aside from the price: the entire Arduino setup costs significantly less than similar boards!) was how much easier it was to get the Arduino going than the Stamp. This isn’t exactly a fair comparison, since my initial experience with Stamps was way back in 1999 or 2000, and it was also my first time fooling with microcontrollers. I’ve learned plenty since then, and the products (along with their attendant software) have come a long way. I have to give the nod to the Arduino for its cross-platform, open-source software. (When I first started with the Stamp I kept a junker 386 PC around, just to run the Stamp compiler. No fun.)
I’m also impressed by the Arduino software. I’ve admittedly done little more than fire up the example “sketches” and tweak a few lines of code. However, the Processing/Java-style language seems a better fit for my (weak) coding style. The community around the Arduino seems very active. There are already a number of projects that simplify moving data from the board to common software such as MaxMSP and Processing.
Then there’s also the luxury of the USB cable that serves for both communication and power supply. This may seem trivial, but I look forward to the day when I don’t need to change the battery in my sensor box before every performance, or carry a spare 9-volt wherever I go. I may also jettison my USB MIDI interface along with a MIDI cable required by my Stamp setup. Suddenly, though, my USB ports are getting a little crowded…
The one niggling worry I have is the serial communication with Max. Using MIDI is certainly slower, but seems foolproof to me: no handshaking necessary, a dead simple initialization process, etc. I hope my fears are simply due to a lack of experience; that once everything is setup and tested I’ll feel just as confident with the serial connection as I do with my aging MIDI cables.
ASAC Presents Defragmented: Marko Timlin and thenumber46
Albany Sonic Arts Collective presents Defragmented: A concert of emergent systems featuring Marko Timlin and thenumber46 (Suzanne Thorpe + Philip White).
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.
Human Mirror with The Jazz Robot and Holland Hopson
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.
ATU Preview of Lucre/Chen
The Albany Times Union has a preview of Sunday’s Albany Sonic Arts Collective concert featuring Lucre and Jonathan Chen.
Hemi Power
I wrote earlier about problems with the amps on my hemispherical speaker cutting out. After a little diagnostic work I realized the solution was simple–the amps weren’t getting enough juice. So I sprang for a heftier power supply (12 volt dc putting out 6 amps) and now everything runs hunky-dory. Can’t wait to take this puppy out to my next show! I’ve also been working out the kinks on some spatialization routines. More on that later…
Map Spring Rides on Google
Google Maps announced today that it has added support for generating bicycle directions. See the video above for an intro. This is listed as a beta feature and is apparently only available in 150 or cities. Albany happens to be one, so I gave it a go by typing in a few common destinations.
The routes appear mostly workable though far from ideal. They thankfully avoid busy, highly trafficked roads and give some preference to flatter routes. What few biking infrastructure amenities Albany possesses don’t seem to be part of the Google database. My usual route from Albany to Troy utilizes the Hudson River hike and bike trail for most of the distance, while the Google generated route substituted a long stretch on a two-lane road with an average speed limit of 45 miles per hour–not my first choice.
It will be interesting to watch this service develop. I certainly plan on using it but will likely do so in conjunction with other route-finding services (where they exist).
ASAC Presents Lucre and Jonathan Chen
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…