Poster by Jules Galbraith
Spiral Generator, Cienfuegos, Meesh Sara Fradkin + Jon Elbaz, ANNIHIL, Bodyweather (mankind + Julia Santoli)
'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
Join us for an evening of textural, experimental noise and dance music with Spiral Generator, ANNIHIL, Bodyweather (mankind + Julia Santoli), in addition to multichannel performances by Cienfuegos, and Meesh Sara Fradkin + Jon Elbaz.
Spiral Generator is a shapeshifting sonic entity of hybrid instrumentation and vinyl. Its original two-member formation has since expanded to an extended crew of portal opening transformers, scratchers, and rhythmic alchemizers. This extended crew currently includes (but is not limited to) Rage.inald, T. Wan, DJ KL, infinityBC, MIRA MIRA and Pamela_ and her sons. Each show may be a different formation. Waves of pressure and release in the temporal and energetic realms.
Cienfuegos produces hypnotizing industrialized techno — grafting together layers of noise, distorted vocals, and bass-heavy rhythms influenced by his Latin-American roots. Recordings are often lush landscapes with raw metallic reverberations & feedback, akin to the works of early SPK or Muslimgauze; at his selection this environment could be injected with a vibrant & distorted drum beat. The result is an intentionally abstract form of dance music, not designed within the common structures of dance but still it compels movement and release on the floor. He has described his music as an ode to his culture — contemplations on the tensions of the prolonged adrift state and industrial US assimilation that is a common experience of Cuban refugees. The distorting textures that weave throughout his record A Los Mártires (2015; label: Unknown Precept) are as organic-sounding as their source: phone recordings of his NYC neighborhood — factory noises, plonked and scraped metal, machines rolling & dragging across the pavement. Suárez began as a trained jazz guitarist and salsa performer, becoming enveloped in the world of punk & noise before finding a place in underground electronic music, regularly sharing the same driving creative principles as its punk & noise peers. Cienfuegos had released work on labels at the forefront of documenting the underground music world, including L.I.E.S., BANK, Primitive Languages, and Ascetic House. Suárez can often be found playing shows in his resident New York, and has been on international techno/electronic lineups for several years.
Meesh Sara Fradkin is a writer and artist working with sound, text and media.
Jon Elbaz started studying the piano at age 8 and was fortunate to hear CDs of Erroll Garner, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and many others in the car when his mom was driving to work or elsewhere. He began taking jazz piano lessons at 14 and studied with Aaron Weiman and Jeremy Manasia during this time. He attended New England Conservatory from 2013-2017 and was active writing his own music and leading bands while taking lessons with Frank Carlberg, Jason Moran, Joe Morris, and a few others. His classmates a significant source of inspiration for him, he was exposed to the gamut of contemporary (and canonical) music through his peers and was often hunkered down in the practice rooms for 10 hours a day trying to work out one idea or another. Throughout his musical journey he has run parallel courses in investigating the work of the deceased but spiritually alive master musicians while engaging in a scientific exploration of his own understanding of music. Based in NYC since 2017, he has worked regularly in an eclectic assortment of settings like many other musicians in the city. He leads his own band a few times a month with saxophonist Matt Knoegel, bassist Henry Fraser, and drummer James Nadien.
ANNIHIL is the alias of New York based composer, producer, and performer, Nihil Hell Lean. Traversing the realms of the underground since his youth, ANNIHIL uses live experimentations with hardware and sound synthesis to create compositions that are as dark, grimey, and textured as his roots in the freak experimental circuit. As a performer, ANNIHIL is interested in deconstructing the “live hardware set” associated with electronic music, exploring the tensions between body/voice/equipment. He has toured throughout North America and Europe, and is a former artist in residence at EMS Stockholm, SE, Chaos Computer, and The Silent Barn.
Bodyweather is Draye Wilson (mankind) and Julia Santoli.
Spiral Generator is a shapeshifting sonic entity of hybrid instrumentation and vinyl. Its original two-member formation has since expanded to an extended crew of portal opening transformers, scratchers, and rhythmic alchemizers. This extended crew currently includes (but is not limited to) Rage.inald, T. Wan, DJ KL, infinityBC, MIRA MIRA and Pamela_ and her sons. Each show may be a different formation. Waves of pressure and release in the temporal and energetic realms.
Cienfuegos produces hypnotizing industrialized techno — grafting together layers of noise, distorted vocals, and bass-heavy rhythms influenced by his Latin-American roots. Recordings are often lush landscapes with raw metallic reverberations & feedback, akin to the works of early SPK or Muslimgauze; at his selection this environment could be injected with a vibrant & distorted drum beat. The result is an intentionally abstract form of dance music, not designed within the common structures of dance but still it compels movement and release on the floor. He has described his music as an ode to his culture — contemplations on the tensions of the prolonged adrift state and industrial US assimilation that is a common experience of Cuban refugees. The distorting textures that weave throughout his record A Los Mártires (2015; label: Unknown Precept) are as organic-sounding as their source: phone recordings of his NYC neighborhood — factory noises, plonked and scraped metal, machines rolling & dragging across the pavement. Suárez began as a trained jazz guitarist and salsa performer, becoming enveloped in the world of punk & noise before finding a place in underground electronic music, regularly sharing the same driving creative principles as its punk & noise peers. Cienfuegos had released work on labels at the forefront of documenting the underground music world, including L.I.E.S., BANK, Primitive Languages, and Ascetic House. Suárez can often be found playing shows in his resident New York, and has been on international techno/electronic lineups for several years.
Meesh Sara Fradkin is a writer and artist working with sound, text and media.
Jon Elbaz started studying the piano at age 8 and was fortunate to hear CDs of Erroll Garner, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and many others in the car when his mom was driving to work or elsewhere. He began taking jazz piano lessons at 14 and studied with Aaron Weiman and Jeremy Manasia during this time. He attended New England Conservatory from 2013-2017 and was active writing his own music and leading bands while taking lessons with Frank Carlberg, Jason Moran, Joe Morris, and a few others. His classmates a significant source of inspiration for him, he was exposed to the gamut of contemporary (and canonical) music through his peers and was often hunkered down in the practice rooms for 10 hours a day trying to work out one idea or another. Throughout his musical journey he has run parallel courses in investigating the work of the deceased but spiritually alive master musicians while engaging in a scientific exploration of his own understanding of music. Based in NYC since 2017, he has worked regularly in an eclectic assortment of settings like many other musicians in the city. He leads his own band a few times a month with saxophonist Matt Knoegel, bassist Henry Fraser, and drummer James Nadien.
ANNIHIL is the alias of New York based composer, producer, and performer, Nihil Hell Lean. Traversing the realms of the underground since his youth, ANNIHIL uses live experimentations with hardware and sound synthesis to create compositions that are as dark, grimey, and textured as his roots in the freak experimental circuit. As a performer, ANNIHIL is interested in deconstructing the “live hardware set” associated with electronic music, exploring the tensions between body/voice/equipment. He has toured throughout North America and Europe, and is a former artist in residence at EMS Stockholm, SE, Chaos Computer, and The Silent Barn.
Bodyweather is Draye Wilson (mankind) and Julia Santoli.