Contrafuego, Ebrima Jassey, Sphente, Fedra
5.22.26
7pm - Midnight
5.22.26
7pm - Midnight
'vienna', a new release on Small Forms Records w FIM Basel Concert March 2023 Hypersurface is a NYC-based trio consisting of Drew Wesely (guitar/objects), Lester St. Louis (cello), and Carlo Costa (percussion). Hypersurface explores timbral, durational, and formal aspects of improvisation with lenses focused on their instruments' acoustic particularities alongside employing tiles, railroad spikes, ceramic plates and other objects to expand them further. In coming together Carlo, Drew and Lester wanted to create a music that puts emphasis on the erasure of sonic boundaries, embracing the liminal spaces between their instruments, their sounds and the greater sonic environment. Timbre, gesture, duration, particles, layers… a real time tapestry of its own. The trio has given performances throughout the United States and Europe in a diversity of concert settings from clubs to large halls and galleries; with each utilizing the acoustics to follow potent musical pathways. Kamau Amu Patton is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work examines history and culture through engagement with archives, documents, stories, and sites. Patton’s projects are dialogic and take form as expanded field conversations. http://kamaupatton.com
Contrafuego returns to L&SD for a gathering around rhythm and chant, calling on the spirits to dance their way down to our realm and join us in welcoming the summer.
Doors will open with Fedra, whose globally-informed sound will move through emotion and groove for the first hour. With roots stretching from Armenia, Argentina, and Colombia, Fedra’s selections showcase their innate sensitivity for storytelling through syncopated rhythms, hypnotic melodies and contemplative textures.
The live portion of the night begins with Sphente, whose practice reaches rare technical and emotional depths. Sphente is a vocalist, fretless bassist, electro-acoustic gong pioneer and hifi club sound engineer whose musical output prioritizes the psychosomatic experience of the waveform in space. His Long Gong series, first developed in a Queens warehouse, explores the physical intensity of amplified gong in extended, near-dark performances. After years focused on this solo work, he spent six months in Brazil refining his fretless bass and vocal practice, shaping a new body of work that rethinks his approach to rhythm, tone, and the instrument itself.
For the second live act, the room will be filled with the ancestral tones of the Balafon, a west African gourd-resonated “xylophone”, played by Gambian maestro, Ebrima Jassey. Currently based in The Bronx and often seen performing in the streets and stations of all five borroughs, Ebrima Jassey comes from a family lineage of Jalis, West African hereditary troubadours, that extends back nearly 1000 years. His chanting and playing encapsulate a unique feeling of hypnosis and joy, only achievable by music that’s genuinely connected to the earth.
The call of the Tambó will have filled the room with spirits by the time Contrafuego jumps in. Brought to life by Matük and a group of musicians from NYC’s Gaita and Bullerengue scenes, the six-piece ensemble anchors its language in the musical traditions of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. The skin of the drum, the cry of the flute, the life force of the voice - all intertwined in a trance-inducing swirl of synthesizers, samples and drum machines.
Doors will open with Fedra, whose globally-informed sound will move through emotion and groove for the first hour. With roots stretching from Armenia, Argentina, and Colombia, Fedra’s selections showcase their innate sensitivity for storytelling through syncopated rhythms, hypnotic melodies and contemplative textures.
The live portion of the night begins with Sphente, whose practice reaches rare technical and emotional depths. Sphente is a vocalist, fretless bassist, electro-acoustic gong pioneer and hifi club sound engineer whose musical output prioritizes the psychosomatic experience of the waveform in space. His Long Gong series, first developed in a Queens warehouse, explores the physical intensity of amplified gong in extended, near-dark performances. After years focused on this solo work, he spent six months in Brazil refining his fretless bass and vocal practice, shaping a new body of work that rethinks his approach to rhythm, tone, and the instrument itself.
For the second live act, the room will be filled with the ancestral tones of the Balafon, a west African gourd-resonated “xylophone”, played by Gambian maestro, Ebrima Jassey. Currently based in The Bronx and often seen performing in the streets and stations of all five borroughs, Ebrima Jassey comes from a family lineage of Jalis, West African hereditary troubadours, that extends back nearly 1000 years. His chanting and playing encapsulate a unique feeling of hypnosis and joy, only achievable by music that’s genuinely connected to the earth.
The call of the Tambó will have filled the room with spirits by the time Contrafuego jumps in. Brought to life by Matük and a group of musicians from NYC’s Gaita and Bullerengue scenes, the six-piece ensemble anchors its language in the musical traditions of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. The skin of the drum, the cry of the flute, the life force of the voice - all intertwined in a trance-inducing swirl of synthesizers, samples and drum machines.