Electronics and improvisation
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New in The New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure section: my exit interview with the great trombonist and composer Jim Staley, who co-founded the essential new-music institution Roulette in 1978, and replanted it in his NYC loft in 1980, as he prepares to step away from leadership in June after 45 years.
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"Peter Rehberg, Influential Electronic Musician And Label Head, Has Died At 53"NPR MusicAugust 10, 2021
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I recall writing this review, which predates this blog by just over two years, but I don't remember for what outlet I wrote it. I located it today on a whim – after posting the image you see above on Twitter – on Acoustic Levitation, an online journal edited and published by Steve Koenig, a
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Brian ChasePhotograph courtesy Terrorbird Originally published on National Sawdust Log, April 13, 2018 Drummer Brian Chase is best known as a member of the vital indie-rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but that only reveals the tip of the iceberg where his creative life is concerned. A longtime participant in New York City’s busy underground-music scene,
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Photograph: Walter Wlodarczyk Originally published on National Sawdust Log, Nov. 29, 2017 Even for an artist as versatile and unpredictable as Sarah Hennies—a percussionist, improviser, and composer originally from Louisville, Kentucky, and now based in Ithaca, New York—her newest work represents a substantial achievement. Contralto, an hour-long work for vocalists on video with strings and
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The Goings On About Town section in The New Yorker remains suspended indefinitely in its conventional format, replaced with a mix of album reviews and listings for events taking place online—some live, others pre-recorded. (Click on the image to enlarge it, or hit the link to read the text on the New Yorker website.) [link]
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Change is upon us once again, and with it a fresh start for Night After Night—elsewhere. As of Thursday, April 23, the primary focus of my work has shifted over to a newly launched Substack newsletter, also called Night After Night. That title has provided my online identity – my "brand" – for more than
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ShotsBlank Forms, Brooklyn, NY February 27, 2020 General admission Personnel: Daniel DiMaggio, amplified objects, recordingsJohn Friberg, amplified objects, recordings Matthew Friberg, amplified objects, movement On Thursday night at Blank Forms, the intimate third-floor walk-up gallery space recently opened in Clinton Hill by the curatorial organization of the same name, the trio Shots played a brief
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If you happen to be in the vicinity of Ramapo College in Mahwah, NJ, tonight (Feb. 13) at 8pm, you can see the premiere performance of Fantini Futuro, a new multimedia piece by the great experimental trumpeter and composer Ben Neill. Inspired by Girolamo Fantini, the Baroque composer credited with bringing the trumpet in from
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The extraordinary French composer Éliane Radigue was born on this day in 1932, and celebrated her 88th birthday today as an artist whose star very much appears to be in the ascendant. Her recordings are widely available now, in lovingly prepared editions with beautifully restored sound. Occam Ocean – the body of acoustic work Radigue
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Say hello to my first obsession of 2020: "King of Thumbs," a selection from Reality Rounds, a new album by the composer and vocalist Alex Dowling. I find this realization of a cybernetic vocal consort – created by four singers individually equipped with AutoTune and other effects, and synthesizer accompaniment – completely mesmerizing. In this
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David Tudor: Forest SpeechPerformed by Lea Bertucci, John Driscoll, Ed Potokar, Margaret Anne Schedel, and Philip WhiteMuseum of Modern Art, New York, NYNovember 17, 2019 Sunday afternoon, after my daughter attended a performance of David Tudor's Forest Speech at the Museum of Modern Art with her mother and me, I asked her what she'd thought.
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Among the many, many things to admire about the newly expanded Museum of Modern Art – which officially opens to the public on Monday, Oct. 21, but actually had a secret soft opening on Sunday, Oct. 20 – is an installation of Rainforest V (variation 1), as conceived by the iconic experimental composer/performer David Tudor,
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>>news added to the end of this post…<< The Morton Feldman Piano box by Philip Thomas on Another Timbre unquestionably is among this year’s foremost achievements… but Philip has another new CD that's worth your attention, as well: as if as features original compositions and Derek Bailey transcriptions (!!) by Chris Burn, just out on
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"Clarice Jensen: A Consummate Team Player Calls Her Own Tune"National Sawdust LogApril 3, 2018[link] As the founder of one of New York City’s most versatile and in-demand new-music groups, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), the cellist Clarice Jensen has been an advocate for countless composers. The ensemble initially bridged the so-called uptown and downtown
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Daniel Land One of the things I've always cherished about Brian Eno's 1982 album Ambient 4: On Land is the sense it gives of occupying a space that's somewhere and nowhere at once. Like Ambient 1: Music for Airports, its better known predecessor, On Land is part of Eno's classic sequence of four albums denoted
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Photographs courtesy of Joda Clément Originally published by National Sawdust Log on Dec. 15, 2017 I've always listened to a lot of what might be termed electronic music, but I haven't always felt especially comfortable writing about it. Evaluating music in print can be challenging under the best of circumstances, given the intrinsic subjectivity of
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Vanessa Rossetto (Image: Matthew Revert) Vanessa Rossettoerased de kooning + rocinanteBandcamp; DL only Originally published by National Sawdust Log, May 5, 2017 Everything that’s erased leaves its trace of its passage behind: a point as familiar to the manuscript recyclers of antiquity for whom the term palimpsest was coined to modern-day digital data-recovery sleuths. We learn
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WHO: Lea BertucciWHAT: Axis/AtlasWHEN: Wednesday, April 27, 8 p.m.WHERE: School of the Museum of Fine Arts, 230 The Fenway, BostonHOW: Non-Event Axis/Atlas by Lea Bertucci I caught wind of composer/sound artist Lea Bertucci first when she was roughly half of TwistyCat, an improv combo that played lots around New York's artier fringes. I say roughly
Night After Night 