World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures

1966 marked the first ever World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures held in Dakar, Senegal; this celebratory event brought together people of different nationalities and generations with a common goal: to shed light on the struggle and persistence of black people in the face of colonization. In 1977, the second festival was held in Nigeria. And now, on December 10th, 2010- three decades later- the third World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures returns to Dakar, and lets just say, it seems the third time's a charm.

This year's lineup includes concerts, dance performances, documentary and feature film screenings, theatre, lectures on various art forms (from architecture and design to reggae) to name a few, that will run through New Year's night, with free admission to it all. As we learned on the Black World Festival website, the event this year focuses on Africa in it's new context: Africa as free, proud, creative, and optimistic. Brazil will be the guest of honor, bringing along with it a slew of artists that are culturally diverse and emblematic of the dialogue between different people and cultures, created by this year's event. Check out our slide show of videos below for a look at our favorite artists featured at this year's event.

http://blackworldfestival.com/wp/en/
http://www.facebook.com/BlackWorldFest

Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts

This Friday, Oct. 1st, 2010, I will be performing at Spark Festival as a special guest of PAS.

Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts 2010

September 28 - October 3, 2010

University of Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

"For one week each year, the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts gathers creators and performers of new media arts from around the world to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul, USA to showcase their work to the public."

http://spark.cla.umn.edu/

Zeppelin 2009

Black Saturn has contributed a sound piece to the Zeppelin Festival. The festival takes place in Barcelona, Spain, December 10 - 12 2009

http://sonoscop.net/zeppelin2009/index.html

Zeppelin 2009 - Sounds of Power / Listening to Fear "is dedicated to thinking about issues that have been insidiously encircling us for some time. We are concerned about signs that might suggest we’re going backwards in terms of hard-won social and intellectual achievements and freedoms".

Brooklyn Gets Liquified

Two shows this weekend in Brooklyn, NY, Saturday Nov. 7th and Sunday Nov. 8th. Both shows were put together by Robert of Brooklyn's Post Abortion Stress.

Spectral Music 2.0

In a previous post I detailed my increasing interest in "spectral music" and the use of FFT analysis for producing very unique sounds and compositions. The "sounds" could be described as being similar to those produced by granular synthesis. The possibilities that FFT analysis offers for live performance is incredible.

Below is a brief definition of Spectral Music -

"Spectral music (or spectralism) is a musical composition practice where compositional decisions are often informed by the analysis of sound spectra. Computer based sound spectrum analysis using a Fast Fourier transform is one of the more common methods used in generating descriptive data. Using FFT analysis, features of a particular sound spectrum can be visualized using a spectrogram. Spectral composition focuses, then, on bringing out these features, interconnecting them, and transforming them. This analytical approach to spectral composition originated in France in the early 1970s and the techniques were primarily developed, and later refined, at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, Paris, and with the Ensemble l'Itinéraire, by composers such as Gerard Grisey and Tristan Murail. However, Murail has described Spectral music as an aesthetic rather than a style, an attitude towards composition rather than a set of techniques - the attitude being that "music is ultimately sound evolving in time" . It has been suggested, however, that a number of major practitioners of this compositional method consider the term inappropriate, misleading, and reductive. More recently (2003) the Istanbul Spectral Music Conference redefined 'spectral music' to encompass any music that foregrounds timbre as an important element of structure or musical language".

There is also an upcoming performance of Spectral Music in October:

Spectrum XXI: international festival of Spectral Music

12, 13, 15 October at 7pm, The Warehouse, 13 Theed Street, London SE1

17 October at 7pm, LSO St. Luke's, 161 Old Street, London ECIV

Compostions by Iancu Dumitrescu, Ana-Marie Avram, Giacinto Scelsi, Iannis Xenakis, Tim Hodgkinson, Costin Cazaban, Horatiu Rodulescu and Mario Diaz De Leon

You can listen live on Resonance 104.4 FM (UK)

http://resonancefm.com/

There is also a lengthy interview with Iancu Dumitrescu in the October 2009 issue of The Wire -

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/3042/

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