LISTENING PARTY $8

Thollem / electric amalgam of PsychPunk, WorldBlues, NoiseLounge Post-Americana  + Glenn Weyant / Tucson-based jongleur + Anthony & Danielle Sanchez / analog synths & organic samples  + Chelsey Lee Trejo / experimental ambient folk-blues with a drone undertone = a quality brew of revolutionary entertainment 

Thollem’s Electric Confluence is a series of compositions for solo synthesizer integrating the multitudinous sonic experiences from Thollem’s life-long travels throughout the U.S., his curiosity and appreciation of diverse cultures and musical approaches. His compositions combine elements from disparate musics such as Gamelan, Taiko Drumming, Appalachian Folk Music, Baroque, Electro-Acoustic music, Noise, Blues, Tango, Salsa, Persian Music and more. “His compositions are a wonder, transforming the keys into a texturally staggering ensemble.” – Detroit Metro Times

Exploded View presents the premier of local filmmaker Bryan Nelson’s short film Transforming Agave on Sunday February 11. The film runs 6 1/2 minutes long; the filmmaker Bryan, it’s subject Kyle Bert, and soundtrack composer Ryan Chavira will all be on hand to play music and talk about the film, as well as locals Blue Stained Stems. It was all filmed in the Tucson area, and is a 100% local production.

Synopsis: local musician and crafter Kyle Bert finds serenity and self-acceptance while crafting unique didgeridoos out of agave flowers that he harvests in southern Arizona.

Director’s statement:Transforming Agave is a film about more than just the art of crafting an idiosyncratic musical instrument. It’s about how the interwoven elements that go into making art are what imbue it with meaning. Kyle’s agave didgeridoos are embedded to place, to community, and to his own psychological well being in a way that reminds us of the value of deep contextual connection.

The music: Kyle Bert and Ryan Chavira infuse the natural rhythms and harmonics of an ancient world inspired by the didgeridoo (Kyle), along with the Sci-fi soundscapes of analog synthesis (Ryan), oscillating meditative patterns into a cohesive singularity best described as otherworldly.

Blue Stained Stems (incarnation 2) feeds off an interplay between Brazilian drummer Mario Iochpe and local Tucsonian Michael Henderson to arrive at ever-expanding sonic crossroads that mix samba, afrobeat, jazz, maqam, punk and rock n’ roll into a free form trance. With a playful aversion to order, yet a mindful adherence to a much necessary flow state, the band strives to perform an incrementally changing repertoire. From an immersive musical dialogue, Blue Stained Stems finds shape through guitars, oud, bassoud, and a 4-piece drum

Since the early 1960s, Tony Conrad’s films and compositions have been the stuff of legend. His development and practice of Just Intonation and Minimalism through his work with Stockhausen and La Monte Young and his pivotal role in the formation of The Velvet Underground has been incredibly influential.  Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present by Tyler Hubby examines the pioneering life and works of this amazing artist, musician, activist and educator.   Opening the show will be Glenn Weyant conducting “TONY BECOMES A BUDDHA”.  Weyant’s original score is built upon sound ideas and philosophical ruminations put forth by Tony Conrad for an orchestra of amplified bowed guitars, cellos, violins, violas . These include but are not limited to: just intonation, 60-cycle amplifier ground hum tuning, improvisation, drone, noise, piezo amplification, harmonics and slavish Pythagorean demagoguery deconstruction. Orchestra is: Glenn Weyant, Samantha Bounkeua, Robert Villa, Sophie Gibson-Rush, Nik Rayne, Grant Beyschau, Connor Gallaher, Richard Young, John Melillo, Miguel Urbina, Jake Sorgen and Vicki Brown!!

An evening of electro-acoustic innovations featuring Minnesota’s mad genius Tim Kaiser!  Kaiser is a sonic inventor exerting prowess over his hand-crafted instruments. A rig of Frankenstein objects creates a wall of sound, reacting to light, the flip of a switch, a shifted knob or the plucking of a steel rod. Growing out of this array are audible undulations, sheets of reverb and unknown timbre– all mutable, amorphous and evolving. Kaiser’s tableau of instruments resemble a scientific laboratory, a steampunk console, entertaining our imagination and questioning our definition of music. Joining Kaiser are Fawn Bones, Skincage and Igloo Martian!!

(Filmmakers in person)

Since the early eighties, Experimental filmmaker Nina Fonoroff (New Mexico) has created some of the most haunting, incisive and poetically beautiful investigations of the psyche known to personal cinema. Writes Fonoroff, “Mainly a visual artist who “happened into” film, I consider my work a hybrid of collage, painting, musical composition from sampled sound and cinema. Though I begin work on a film with a rough plan, the process remains fluid, indeterminate: partly a matter of calculation and planning, partly of serendipitous discovery. This evening, Fonoroff presents several short pieces including a new film, Ursule, featuring performances by Eva Hayward (poet, scholar, and professor). As their altered selves— ingénue Clarissa and her Auntie Hortense—-the two present a series of moving images and audio collages that mark their nearly 15 years as sometime collaborators.

SONAURAL is the debut performance of an electronic music project by Tucson-based artist JAMES COLBY (Vox Urbana/New Doubt). Each composition is created entirely from field recordings collected in Tucson over the past 6 months and mangled into half-recognizable leftfield beats and drones. DC-based film artist PATRICK CAIN will induce synesthesia with accompanying live video manipulations, and the night will culminate with a DJ set from local producer legend ALTRICE. Come and dance to sounds wrangled directly from the concrete urban prairies of Tucson!

The Lo-Fi Film Festival, which is produced by Basement Media (Chicago), is a survey of contemporary artists working with low definition, low technology, and low fidelity motion picture techniques. LFFF is a celebration of the signal to noise ratio that underlies all media- of #fuzzy, #glitchy, + #grimy. Expect a fantastic opening set by local musical polymath Prabjit Virdee (Mute Swan, Union Pacific) setting the stage for a scratchy evening of lo-fi sonic & visual kulture!

Bill Mackey’s REGRET AND RATIONALIZATION

Art Installation Opening

Regret and Rationalization is a piece that uses sound, text, drawing, photography, and video to explore and portray the human aptitude to regret and rationalize at the individual and community level. Individually, we process this loop of regret and rationalization as we travel through the landscape (what else is there to do as we drive our cars, ride our bicycles, or take the trolley?). Collectively, the stories, policies and the subsequent built environment are supported by a public process of regret and rationalization.

Bill Mackey is the principal at Worker, Inc., a company that specializes in the production of architecture, exhibits, pamphlets, books, artworks and other ephemera. His main objective is to explore the psychological, cultural, physical, and political connections humans have to the physical landscape.

Drawing on works made by artists-in-residence and students at the Echo Park Film Center, this program is loosely based around the intersection of film and music in Los Angeles, from pop to experimental, noise to hip hop. Eve LaFountain’s Smudge Series, a trilogy of 16mm films made with musician Jon Almaraz, Rick Bahto’s Finale, a music video for Julia Holter’s song Tragedy Finale projected from the Super 8 camera original, Andrew Kim’s untitled 16mm film made with a live recording of a performance by 2Hi2Die, and Kate Brown’s Super 8 4X3 with sound by percussionist Corey Fogel, were all made in direct collaboration with musicians, while John Wiese’s videos are a direct extension of his work in sound. Penelope Uribe-Abee’s regular 8mm Dear Diary with sound on cassette tape and Walter Vargas’s LA Rising–fm both use pre-existing music as a way of extending the expression of their own personal and political ideas. Other works on the program are portraits of people or spaces that are involved in music, including an excerpt from Sharmaine Stark’s feature-length documentary about women in the underground West Coast hip hop scene Imma Hustle Girl: The Heart of the West, the Super 8 dual-projection film the wulf. to Jancar Jones by Pablo Valencia, incorporating a portrait of the Los Angeles experimental music venue the wulf. with music by Lucie Vítková, and Beaux Mingus’ Pipe Organs Exclusively, a portrait of the late James R. Spohn of Bakersfield as he discusses his hobbies of 35mm carbon arc projection, telephony, and theatrical pipe organs in the historic Granada Theater. Program approximately 90 minutes, works projected from Super 8mm, 8mm, 16mm and video.

Opening will be Timo Sweet (aka Dr. Decent), Sonora in Stereo pt1, DJ set w/ some original electronic works in progress, inspired by the New York artist’s recent arrival in these sublime surroundings.

Glitch In Green by Dr. Decent on Mixcloud

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