If you'd told me a few years back that my name would appear in the same program as Chantal Akerman, Robert Ashley, Shirley Clarke, Henry Flynt, Terry Fox, Gordon Matta-Clark, Yvonne Rainer, Jack Smith et.al's I wouldn't have believed you; yet I'm taking part in MoMA PS1's "Greater New York" show in the form of an afternoon-length concert wherein curator Mark Beasley has organized a series of groupings of a bunch of musicians that I both hold in extremely high regard, and largely consider to be good friends; David Grubbs, Eli Keszler, C. Spencer Yeh, Okkyung Lee, and Nate Wooley.
Solos, then Company Week -esque ad hoc pairings, trios, and a six-way closing blast will ensue in PS1's dome starting at 1pm. More info on the ongoing GNY projects here:
A Tour of Boston's Brutalist Highlights
As something of a parting gesture from my home of 24 years, I'll be performing a pair of concerts inside two of the greater Boston area's towering poems to Brutalist form: Boston City Hall inside I.M. Pei's Government Center Plan & Corbusier's Carpenter Center at Harvard. Details on the "Events" Page.
Update: both of these concerts were fantastic; I couldn't have wanted anything more from a sendoff from my home of 24 years. Images, video, and sound above.
October & November Performance Actions.
I'm gearing up for a series of shows this month into next, all abroad. First, there's a talk & a solo performance in Riga, Latvia at the Skanu Mesz festival on the 11th followed closely by a solo concert at Nico Vascellari's Codalunga space/studio in Vittorio Veneto on the 12th. Mark Fell & I will be wood-shedding our duo project for a few days in & around Sheffield before debuting it at the Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival on the 15th. Wish us luck!
I'll be back in the states for a week T'ing C of Mimaroglu B from the 16th to the 23rd, but then Mark & I will both be in Berlin at the Volksbühne taking part in a great CTM-sponsored bill with Suzanne Ciani's new group Neotantrik w/ Andy Votel & the Demdike Stare guys on the 24th. I have a few days off in Berlin to record-shop & relax before the UK debut of the duo w/ Mark at Joshua Brooks in Manchester on the 30th. We're at Cafe OTO on Halloween, after which I'll be heading to Antwerp for a secret Ultra Eczema-related show there, followed by a solo concert at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels, wherein I'll be using the IPEM's Synthi 100 to play a piece. Then its back in Cambridge on the 3rd for a bit of a break.
December is already shaping up, with solo & duo concerts with Mark in in Brazil; stay tuned!
Update: I've just arrived home; very successful, inspiring run of shows, much fun had all around. The four duos with Mark Fell showed some real promise for such a fledgeling collaboration & the handful of solo concerts were among the best I've played in years both musically & direction-wise. I'm in a good place right now. Above you'll find a selection of photos taken during October & early November in Riga, Vittorio de Veneto, Cleethorpes, Rotherham, Lausanne, Berlin, Manchester, London, Antwerp, Brussels, and points in between - mouseover for a bit of commentary on each & to "freeze" the slideshow.
Ontario
Had a lovely time this past weekend performing music in conjunction with several Ontario screenings of the "I Dream Of Wires" Documentary, now finally reaching its theatrical maturity after several revisions (most notably it's now cut with narration by Patti Schmidt, the host of CBC's hugely influential "Brave New Waves" program) ::
The film does a great job in documenting the 90s-onward resurgence of Modular Synthesizers, offering a succinct history & contemporary commentary by a who's-who of Electronic Music producers & manufacturers; I recommend acquiring the 4-hour "Hardcore Edition" cut & spending an hour or so a day over a week with it - there's a tremendous amount of material & insight covered. It's available from soundtrack composer Jason "Solvent" Amm's excellent "Science With Synthesizers" web-shop (along with a treasure trove of material on his excellent Suction label, including the soundtrack itself on vinyl) ::
http://www.science-with-synthesizers.com/
Both leading up to & during the trip itself, I recorded a fair bit of audio which I've put up on Soundcloud; these were some of the better sets of music I'd performed recently, incorporating a newly-reconfigured instrument which allowed me to merge the "Generators" & "Occlusions" patches into something far more coherent than in previous attempts:
… plus here some choice Vines (who knew) & Instagram videos from the Toronto performance - start them all at once for something approximating the concert experience ::
Tokyo
Had an absolutely fantastic time in Japan performing at the Tokyo Festival of Modular 2014. Forever indebted to Dave Skipper, Chris Goudreau, Kotaro Mitsuno, Richard Devine, Cal Lyall, Jim O'Rourke, and everyone at SuperDeluxe for making it all come together so smoothly. Everyone's hospitality & warmth during a particularly rainy week made the whole trip breeze by; record shopping dreams were fully realized (and then some) & my perhaps legendary craving for excellent street-level Ramen was fully sated. I literally can't wait to go back ...
Mexico
It was a dream come true to travel to Mexico City to perform in the el nicho nights of the "Aural" leg of the Festival De Mexico ; after many attempts, this was my first visit to Mexico & the whole trip surpassed my (already high) expectations. I hope to go back very soon ...
Kranky Twenty
I'll be flying in to Chicago for Kranky's Twentieth Anniversary festival (playing at Constellation on the 14th) ; It's been ages since I've been out past the Pioneer / Hudson River Valleys towards the center of the country, so this feels major. Obviously the label has been crucial in getting my work out into the world & I'm endlessly indebted to Bruce & Joel for their faith in me & all of their hard-ass work.
As we're all looking backwards as present, I felt it was only right & natural to complete revamping my ca. 2005 Max-MSP patches to work on a contemporary machine, the same that were used to perform "Recorded in Lisbon" … expect something along those lines (i.e. LOUD sine-square-wave Fibonacci-sequence delay-line time accumulations & granular freezing) ...
Other than a brief blip a few years back at a small gallery here in Boston, I haven't used a computer onstage to make music since about 2007, feels like to right time to dip back into some of those ideas again, which still sound great & resonant.
Bernard Parmegiani R.I.P. (1927-2013)
I was 16 when I was turned on to the music of Parmegiani (along with so many other things, in the record shops of my youth) ; this at a time when anything that wasn't on Shrapnel or Leviathan (consisting of anything other than a bedroom-bound guitarist shredding through several multi-effects over "canned" sequencer-rock) was largely off my radar … but still, something about the chopped-up, rolling rhythms & keening electronics of "Capture éphemérè" seemed genuinely otherworldly, unhampered by earthly concerns or abilities (really, my gateway to the world of musical freedom(s) & a-temporality) ::
It wasn't again until the mid-90's, upon transferring to the (ultimately, too-good-to-be-true) Tower Records outpost in Harvard Square (from the Nanuet, then Boston locations) that I was confronted with Parmegiani again, this time via a stack of "cut-out" INA-GRM CD productions (a gift inherited from my predecessor, bought on a non-returnable basis from a distributor, marked down to the point where I could afford a stack … even on my $5.5 hourly wage) - this time I bonded with his proto-granular "La Création du Monde" - even after I'd decided to delve into electronic music production, still very much a mystery ::
In 2011, on a joint commission from Kontraste, Sonic Acts, and the GRM, I was invited to work in Paris at the Maison Radio France for a week on what would become "Rythmes Naturels" - I remember meeting the GRM's François Bonnet on the second day & asking about their collection of experimental instruments, specifically, "whatever the hell it was that Parmegiani used to make 'La Création du Monde'" - lo and behold the Publison ::
… this week was a major turning point for me, wherein I was given front-door access to the hallowed halls where Parmegiani, Bayle, Ferrari, etc. had all convened & executed such an amazing body of work. Parmegiani's ghost, pre-departure, loomed large in the hallways at night, & it was him I thought of the most during those sleepless nights, giddy as a schoolboy in FAO Schwarz on Christmas eve, barely containing my excitement & bewilderment on being allowed back in the next morning. It was an excitement fostered by the music itself, which, to be frank, remains the high-water mark of what can be done with the tape-studio as an instrument … its finesse & clarity unparalleled even 45 years after those initial pieces were issued.
The recent vinyl issues of "L'oeil Ecoute," "Dedans Dehors," & the "De Natura Sonorum" suite have been crucial in turning on a new audience to his work, but I recommend clearing out a few days & contending with the "L'Oeuvre Musicale en 12" set straight-on (esp. the third disc) in a room free of distraction (this is not a music you can fully grasp with your attention divided) through a great stereo setup ; it's as significant & rewarding a listening experience as you're likely to have.
Euro Return
Unsound, Werkleitz, and Urban Spree concerts were all fantastic. It was an honor to work with Roly Porter, Lucy Benson, Marcel Weber, and the Sinfonietta Cracovia & Prokein Streichquartett players in Halle & Krakow on "Dream Cargoes". Thanks to all plus Matt, Gosia, Ewelina, Sandra, Bill, & Manu for making this trip happen. I loved almost everything I caught - clipping. & Mykki Blanco's back-to-back volume-assault at the Hotel Forum was impeccable, plus arriving just in time to catch Laurel Halo's jammy, extremely hands-on set the following night was perfect. Finally seeing UR in concert was a dream come true, incredible. Nate Young & Chris Douglas were both in fine form in Berlin ; pulling off a complete evening of entirely a-synchronous electronic music in the ancient European ancestral city-home of dance music, to an entirely sympathetic sold-out crowd no less, felt like a victory.
It's back to the daily grind here in Cambridge, where the fall has finally fallen. I'm gearing up to wheel my orange suitcase down the street to play the "Boston Hassle Fest 5" on November 8th at the Elk's Lodge with Ed Schrader's Music Beat, Japanther, and Lightning Bolt, amongst others (the fun continues the following night with Nate Young, Prince Rama, and Black Dice - but alas I'll be out @ EMPAC at the premier of Mark Fell's new piece that night before hightailing it to NYC for the premier of Florian Hecker's new piece at the Guggenheim the following afternoon.)
Werkleitz, Unsound
I'll be leaving in a few days for my first trip overseas since playing in Paris at Présences Électroniques in April. I don't get over to Europe as much as I'd like these days (things at home are good; there's less of a burn to travel these days) so this is something of a major event for me.
I'll be landing in Berlin on the 10th, making my way to Halle (Saale) where I'll be setting up & rehearsing with the "Dream Cargoes" quartet before premiering the piece there on the 12th. Then it's back to Berlin, where I'll be performing at Urban Spree (on the "lowlands" of Revalerstr.) on the 13th with Nate Young & Dalglish, before relaxing for a few days (tips on Classical Record Shops, Coffee, can't-miss Art, etc. are welcome) before heading to Krakow for Unsound on the 16th, finally premiering "Dream Cargoes" there on the 18th at the mammoth Kijow Centrum on a bill with Robert Henke.