Brooklyn de-constructs Chicago

This past June I played host (along with Metal Shaker) to two of New York's more experimental artists, Post Abortion Stress and Zilmrah /O\.

Post Abortion Stress is a duo consisting of Robert L. Pepper and Amber Brien. Their soundscapes were simply stunning. I have never heard anyone "use" sound they way they did. It was one of the most engrossing performances I have seen/heard.

From Post Abortion Stress -

"The whole point of being an artist can be summed up into one two-letter word, “DO.” It doesn’t matter how successful you are, how many people know, it is based on life experience of creating in some form or another".

http://www.myspace.com/postabortionstress

Zilmrah /O\ is the solo project of visual artist/musician Lawry Romani. Sonically inhabiting a world all is own, Lawry produces some of the most unique and adventurous "electronic" music.

From Zilmrah /O\ -

"A giant Totenkopf wrecking ball swinging the gauntlet of human emotions through the delicate baron wasteland of all things not I. "

http://www.myspace.com/zilmrah

For video of the show -

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&friendID=80524374&n=80524374

I really want to thank both PAS and Zilmrah /O\ for coming to Chicago. It was a night I won't soon forget....

'Metalman Speaks' on BBC 6 Music

Tom Robinson of Music 6 on the BBC is playing 'Metalman Speaks', from 'Cosmic Sorcery' . His radio progam 'Introducing - Fresh On The Net', can be heard Sunday and Monday mornings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/tom_robinsons_introducing/

http://www.myspace.com/bbc6music

Metalman Speaks - the video

From our new EP, 'Cosmic Sorcery', Metalman Speaks - the video. Conceived, assembled and created by Black Saturn.

http://www.archive.org/details/CosmicSorcery

Art Shock

The NOISE SHOCK Festival wasn't just about music, it was about ART as well!

Shock Tactics

As part of the recent NOISE SHOCK Festival (July 10th & 11th) was an adapted performance of John Zorn's 'Cobra'. The premise of Cobra and other game-pieces like Shock Tactics is to use hand-gestures, cards, dice etc. to determine the direction of the piece. Game-pieces are in essence "directed improvisation" or "spontaneous composition".

Heat (X+X) and I will again be directing a performance of Shock Tactics at The ARTery in Rock Island on Aug. 14th.

More info to follow.

For more pics of Shock Tactics and the NOISE SHOCK Festival -

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=363649368&albumId=1186454

For more on Game Pieces -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_piece

'Cosmic Sorcery' reviewed by Daddy Tank

Black Saturn vs subduxtion – Cosmic Sorcery EP

subduxtion writes futuristic electro / hip-hop and Black Saturn writes spacey meta-rap. They have worked together on other projects previously, including a full length album 'Ancient Kingdom' (Alrealon Music) and an EP on 'Future Noise' (BRAINSODOMY). This release is quite different in tone from the 'Future Noise' EP (which was darker and more sci-fi) having an almost pop feel with tinges of 8-bit lo-fi sensibility. It is also a concept EP, telling the story of “Metalman - the first afro-alchemist”, but don't hold your breath on that front though because I'm damned if I can discern any kind of story from whats going on. The beats are sparse but motive, giving plenty of room for the occasional synth stab and melodic flourish, but minimal seems to be the order of the day. This, in combination with the slightly retro feel of the production, has given the music a very original but slightly odd feel which is enhanced by restrained approach to vocals taken by Black Saturn, a talented rapper who is obviously influenced by the likes of Beans, Kool Keith et al. He has a nasal, high pitched delivery which is distinctive and unexpectedly appealing and also has a fondness for polysyllabic vocabulary which is frowned on in conventional rap but is one of the best features of so called “genius rap”. However, it feels like his vocals have taken second place to the music for this EP, and in my opinion there is almost too little going on at times.I enjoyed this EP but it seems to lack a little weight in some way. I really like “Metalman Speaks” and “Recluse” but the other tracks didn't leave too much of an impression . There is nothing I can point to specifically but the tracks fail to impress themselves on me as immediately as, say, tracks like 'My New Spacesuit' on the 'Future Noise' EP.

On the positive side, this duo are creating a strong and unique identity for themselves with neither artist resorting to tried and tested cliché. This kind of experimentation will give rise to unpredictable results, but it will also be a lot more likely to get them noticed in the morass of music on the internet.

To make your own decision go to - http://www.archive.org/details/CosmicSorcery to download the EP for free.

Finally, I am happy to report that 'Metalman Speaks' will be played on BBC Radio 6 in the near future so it looks like they might already have won the first battle, if not the war.

http://sittingnow.co.uk/

Essential Reading

'There's A Riot Going On: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars and the Rise and Fall of the 60's' - Peter Doggett

http://www.amazon.com/Theres-Riot-Going-Revolutionaries-Stars/dp/1847671934/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248620980&sr=8-1

'Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright and the Future of the Future' - Cory Doctorow

http://www.amazon.com/Content-Selected-Technology-Creativity-Copyright/dp/1892391813/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1248620846&sr=8-6

'The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip Hop and The Gods of New York' - Michael Muhammad Knight

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Percenters-Islam-Hip-Hop-Gods/dp/1851686150/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1248620725&sr=8-2

FluiD @ Metal Shaker in Chicago, IL., 07.24.09

Friday July 24th @ Metal Shaker, 9:00 pm. Also performing is X+X, who is promoting his new CD - '=', Swim Ignorant Fire and Word and Number...

FluiD @ Metal Shaker in Chicago, IL., 07.18.09

This Saturday, July 18th, I will be playing at Metal Shaker (3394 N. Milwaukee Ave.) in Chicago, IL.; along with ONO, The Devil Bell Witch and Lechuguillas.

ONO -

http://www.myspace.com/onopmichaelono

The Devil Bell Witch -

http://www.myspace.com/thedevilbellwitch

Lechuguillas -

http://www.lechuguillas.com/index.html

'Feedback Not Part of FluiD's Performance

For the NOISE SHOCK II Festival, Joe Grove and I did seperate telephone interviews with the QC Times. Below is a reprint of the interview/article that appeared in the QC Times.

'Feedback Not Part of FluiD's Performance'

While noise is often characterized by massive amounts of feedback from those not into the music genre, the second Noise Shock Festival at Mixtapes in East Moline this weekend will feature several artists who don't use feedback or even looping pedals in their sets.

Chris Gilmore, the man behind FluiD, takes songs he's recorded on piano, saxophone, clarinet, drums and bass and loops sections together to form a continuous 30-minute set. What makes his performance different than what a DJ would do is that he loads 100 clips, none longer than 20 seconds, and continually mixes bass lines from one song, keyboards from another and vocals from a third song, creating a completely new, improvised song on the spot.

"It's a complete reimagining of the audio," he said. "That's basically what my show is, a remix or re-contextualization of my existing songs."
While the occasional traditional noise element will slip into FluiD's performance, Gilmore said the music aligns most closely with the concept of dubbing.

"It's definitely not a wall of sound or noise for five minutes or 30 minutes," he said. "For me, that would become kind of boring because that would be the same thing, almost flip a switch and just run a noise generator through a few pedals. There's people who do that very well, they're very imaginative, and then there's other people that don't do that so well and it ends up becoming a monotone thing."

Joe Grove doesn't fall into the typical category of noise music, either, because he doesn't use feedback or looping pedals in his set. He does, however, build his own instruments, which is common among noise musicians. In fact, he usually spends more time building the instruments, which are AM radios with wires soldered to them or children's toys that he circuit-bends, than he does playing them.

For the Noise Shock Festival, Grove is hoping to build a new instrument that he would stand on and play with his feet and toes instead of with his hands and fingers.

"I'm a really big procrastinator, and I really decide what I'm going to do the day before," he said. "It's all improv, usually."

Like FluiD, he uses prerecorded songs in his performance. He records everything from playing the guitar himself to reading poems on a four-track recorder and then plays it back through a Walkman hooked up to a crappy speaker Grove has had since he was a teenager but won't get rid of because he likes the sound.

John Zorn 'Cobra' performance

As part of NOISE SHOCK II (July 10th & 11th), there will be two "performances" of John Zorn's Cobra. The performances are scheduled from 4:00 pm to 5:45 pm both days.

"Cobra is an unpublished but recorded and frequently performed musical omposition by John Zorn that was conceived as a system with very detailed rules but with no pre-conceived sequence of events, or game piece, for a group of musical improvisors and a prompter".

For more on John Zorn and 'Cobra' -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zorn

http://www.myspace.com/johnzorn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_(Zorn)

NOISE SHOCK II, set times

(((NOISE SHOCK))) II July 10th & 11th

Times and Dates: BOTH DAYS EVENTS START AT 4:00 pm

Friday:

COBRA (open performance of ZORN’s piece until 5:45)
JEFF LANDGRAFF[St.Louis] 5:45-6:20
SWIM IGNORANT FIRE [Chicago] 6:20-7:00
SINJO THRAW MASH [East Moline] 7:00-7:40
MAKE BELIEVE BOMBS [Iowa City] 7:40-8:10
SOBO SHUU [Q.C] 8:10-8:40
EL DIABLO BLANCOS [Omaha] 8:40-910
NUDE SUNRISE [Q.C] 9:10-9:50
JOE GROVE [Dubuque] 9:50-10:20
BLACK SATURN vs. SUBDUXTION[Chicago] 10:20-11:00
JESSES NOBODY [Atlanta] 11:00-11:40

Saturday:

COBRA 4:00-4:40
ARU [Dubuque] 4:40-5:10
BOAR [Dubuque] 5:10-5:40
FLUID [Chicago] 5:40-6:10
STATIC RYTHMIC STATIC [Chicago] 6:10-6:50
EYES [Q.C] 6:50-7:30
X+X [Q.C] 7:30-8:10
JESUS IS ANGRY [Greece] 8:10-8:50
SUCKLING PIGS [Chicago] 8:50-9:40
UNICORN BASEMINT [Minneapolis] 9:40-10:10
ONO [Chicago] 10:10-10:40
KITTEN FOREVER [Austin, TX] 10:40-11:10
DAUGHTERS OF THE SUN [Minneapolis] 11:10-11:40

Hope to see you all there.

NOISE SHOCK II, Abstract Art & Music Festival

NOISE SHOCK II - Abstract Art & Music Festival, Friday July 10th & Saturday July 11th @ Mixtapes Record Store, 830 15th Ave., East Moline, IL., 61244

Jeff Mills - 'The Good Robot' EP

Pioneering techno legend Jeff Mills aka The Wizard has a new EP out called 'The Good Robot'.

From Jeff Mills: "Though the title is called, 'The Good Robot'', it isn't about good or a robot at all. Instead it references the multilateral degree of bad that we humans wield upon ourselves and each other, decorated under the mantra of good or better. Since the dreams of artificial humans began, there has always been the need to counter the charge of whether we as humans have the capacity to accept robots as just our servants. We want all good robots, but are we capable of producing them?"

You can watch a video interview of Jeff discussing his new EP as well as his thoughts on a multitude of important issues. The topics range from Mr. DJ, who are you?, The role of electronic music in informing people, Technology: its' uses and affects, The reaction between DJ & audience, producer & listener and Digital DJing: hard-drive vs. record box.

http://eq-mag.co.uk/jeffmills.html

Version Fest, Chicago

Having just celebrated its' eighth incarnation last April and May, Chicago's Version Fest is a ten-day mash-up of curatorial projects, public interventions, musical events and academic forums. The festival spans the burgeoning artist neighborhood of Bridgeport and animates the area's longstanding cultural centers and newer galleries. Version Fest's events culminated in Chicago's first art parade.

http://www.versionfest.org/

http://version09blog.blogspot.com/