1. Avram’s Electric Kool-Aid
Date: Monday, August 23, 2010
Time: 9pm
Venue: Nublu (62 Avenue C, East Village, New York, NY)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Jazz/Funk
Avram’s Electric Kool-Aid is playing his original compositions, with improvisations by some of NYC’s most creative groove players. The music has a variety of influences, including Ornette Coleman’s Primetime, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, Moroccan Gnawa music, and Stanley Turrentine. The members are: Avram Fefer (sax), Kenny Wessel (gui),
Dave Phelps (gui), Chris Eddleton (dr) and Todd Isler (perc).
2. Merzbow w. MV Carbon and Philip White
Date: Monday, August 23, 2010
Time: 7pm & 10pm
Venue: The Issue Project Room (@ the Old American Can Factory, 232 3rd Street, 3rd. Fl., Brooklyn, NY 11215, 718-330-0313)
Ticket: $30
Genre: electronics/noise
Merzbow (Masami Akita) was born in Tokyo in 1956. He listened to psychedelic music, progressive rock and later free jazz in his youth, and all have influenced his music. His album Aqua Necromancer, for instance, samples progressive rock drum lines. Later he went to Tamagawa University to study art. It was there that he learned of Kurt Schwitters’ Merz, or art made from rubbish, including Schwitters’ Merzbau, or “Merz building”, hence the name Merzbow. His earliest music was made with tape loops and creatively recorded percussion and metal, and has been compared to Throbbing Gristle and Nurse With Wound (an acknowledged influence). Early methods included what he referred to as “Material Action”, in which he would closely amplify small sounds so as to distort them through the microphone; later, he made several albums of “SCUM” (”Scissors for Cutting Up Merzbow”/”Society for Cutting Up Merzbow”), for which he would cut up previous Merzbow albums until they resembled something new. His tendency to work in themed phases recalls his training as a visual artist. He released his music on cassettes through his own record label, Lowest Music & Arts, which was founded in 1979. In the early 1980s, after meeting the Italian avant-gardist noise artist Maurizio Bianchi/M. B. in Milan, he founded a second label, ZSF Produkt.
Read about MV Carbon and Philip White.
3. Taka Kigawa, piano w/ music of Xenakis, Boulez, Webern, Pintscher, and Eckardt
Date: Monday, August 23 , 2010
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012, Phone: 212- 505-3474)
Ticket: $12
Genre: classical music/piano
Critically acclaimed pianist Taka Kigawa has earned outstanding international recognition as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber music artist since winning First Prize in the prestigious 1990 Japan Music Foundation Piano Competition in Tokyo, and the Diploma Prize at the 1990 Concurs Internacional Maria Canals De Barcelona in Spain, with such accolades from The New York Times as “Mr. Kigawa’s feat deserves the highest praise, especially since it was combined with such alacrity and sensitivity to the musical material … brilliantly done … a careful and serious-minded musician, quietly poetic and considerate” and from The New Yorker “Unbelievably challenging program. Kigawa is a young artist of stature.”
Program:
Pierre Boulez: Sonata No. 1
Jason Eckardt: Echos’ White Veil
Matthias Pintscher: On a Clear Day
Anton Webern: Variations, Op. 27
Iannis Xenakis: Evryali
4.Trio Creole
Date: Wednesday, August 25 , 2010
Time: 5pm – 7pm
Venue: Rubin Museum (150 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011, 212-620-5000)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Jazz/World
Trio Creole are: Sylvain Leroux (on flute and sax) with Haitian percussionist Sergo Decius (on congas) and Matt Pavolka on bass.
Read more about this band in DBDBD.
5. Stereo Total w/ Les Sans Culottes and Mixel Pixel
Date: Wednesday, August 25 , 2010
Time: 8pm
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012, Phone: 212- 505-3474)
Ticket: $12
Genre: French pops, electronica, indie rock
The music of the chanson- electro- nonelectro- garage- rock’n’roll- french-pop- rock-à-billy- disco- international- underground- duo Stereo Total can be described as: 40% Yéyétronic, 20% R’n’R, 10% Punkrock, 3% electronic effects, 4% French 60ies beat, 7% genious dilettantism, 1,5% Cosmonaute, 10% really old synthesizers, 10% 8-bit Amiga-sampling, 10% transistor amplifier, 1% really expansive and advanced instruments, a minimalist production, meaning a home- made- trash- garage- sound crossed with underground, authentic as well as amateurish, ironic as well as effective, pop as well as political. In the course of fourteen years, eight albums and one hundred and sixtythree songs , the Berlin duo STEREO TOTAL has created a colourful and fascinating universe. Stereo Total are Françoise Cactus, (from France, drums and vocals) and Brezel Göring (guitar, synthesizer, sampler).
The opening acts are Les Sans Culottes and Mixel Pixel.
6. OLIVER LAKE ORGAN QUARTET
Date: Wednesday, August 24 & Thursday, August 25 , 2010
Time: 9:30pm
Venue: JAZZ STANDARD (116 East 27th Street, New York, NY 10016-8942, (212) 576-2232)
Ticket: $20
Genre: Jazz
- Oliver Lake – alto saxophone
Jared Gold – organ
Freddie Hendrix – trumpet
Chris Beck – drums
Oliver Lake is a true Renaissance man of music who’s played with everyone from the World Saxophone Quartet to Native American wood flutist Mary Redhouse. But the Organ Quartet creates some of the most infectiously joyful and purely swinging music that Lake has ever made. Attending a performance by this group a few years ago, Zan Stewart of the Newark Star–Ledger observed that the saxophonist “worked with a searing, direct sound…going from bluesy, rhythmically punched ideas and longer, colorful strands to streams of smeared notes” while trumpeter Freddie Hendrix provided contrast with a more mainstream approach that still left room for free expression, reminding one occasionally of the great Lee Morgan.” Plan is the new album by the Oliver Lake Organ Quartet, now available on Passin’ Thru Records.
7. Annie Gosfield chamber works – Ne(x)tworks String Quartet
Date: Friday, August 27 , 2010
Time: 8pm
Venue: The Stone (located at Avenue C and 2nd Street)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Modrn music/electronics
Cornelius Dufallo & Christopher Otto (violins), Kenji Bunch (viola), Yves Dharamral (cello), Keith Kirchoff (piano, electronics) and Annie Gosfield (sampler, piano).
A concert of Annie Gosfield’s chamber music that marries the purely acoustic to the noisily electronic in a sometimes unholy union. Neil Dufallo performs the ethereal “Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites” for violin and satellite sounds, Keith Kirchoff performs the very raucous “Lightning Slingers and Dead Ringers” for piano and sampler, and for the first time, Ne(x)tworks String Quartet performs “Lightheaded and Heavyhearted”.
8. Elikeh
Date: Saturday, August 28, 2010
Time: 9:30pm
Venue: Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10003, 212-967-7555)
Tickets: $14
Genre: Afro Beat/Funk/Togo
Washington D.C. based Togolese Afro-Rock ensemble Elikeh performs at Joe’s Pub on August 28th, From The Afrobeat Blog: “His combination of funk, rock, highlife, and reggae have successfully created a hallmark brand of music all his own.”
