Electric Possible
2008 Show Log--The Fifth Year!
DC's mad monthly laboratory for sonic surprises
New Technology, New Spirit, New Energy, New Music.
official logo by Jeff Bagato
May 4--Three Flavors of Electro-acoustic free improvisation with Angus Brainpan + Geodesic Gnome (Baltimore) + Vector Trio
Angus Brainpan---Cheryl (guitar + efx, beats, vox) and Pat (electronics, beats) touch down with a new set of shoegaze-inflected trance states and noises without apology. Interstellar bucolic soundscapes commingle freely with rhythmic squalls. No web site, no recordings, you'll just have to be there.
Geodesic Gnome--John Berndt's conceptural Baltimore supergroup takes abstract music to a whole new level, with paradoxes-as-compositions, logically impossible scores, merging of totally unrelated areas of human cognition, foundationless games, and "Gnomic Utterances" which are so hard to parse they actually temporarily decrease a user's intelligence. The group dissolves the categories of drama, language, music, film, lightshow, and sound effect in classically disorienting ways, while still managing to be a bunch of extremely talented and singular improvisors. They have been called "All Things to All People," and "More Fun Than Theodore Sturgeon's Liver." With John Berndt, Sarah El Jallad, Ric Royer, Lexi Macchi, Mike Muniak, Samuel Burt, John Eaton, and Ciat-Lombarde.
Vector Trio--WDC
based project designed to explore freedom and possibility in three voices,
contextualized by cultural disharmony. The limitations of a trio are quickly
dissolved by their use of looping devices which create infinite possibilities.
Their latest direction, which began last summer, mixes industrial noise,
extended improvisatory techniques, fractured funk, and film score techniques
with a no-holds-barred approach to improvisation. VT includes: Scott Forrey--trumpets,
effects, loops, percussion; Gary Rouzer--NS bass cello, effects, loops
and preparations; Marshall Hughey--drums, electronics and landscape percussion.
Also see their myspace page.
April 6--
Experimental voiceworks with Jenny Graf (Harrius, Metalux) + BLK w/BEAR + the Resurrection of Croniamantal!
Jenny Graf--Baltimore based musician (and art professor!)
Jenny Graf Sheppard creates vivid, compelling soundworlds using intuitive/primitive
homebrewed electronics (including stuff built by Pete Blasser), guitar
and voice. Jenny is one-half of the famed noise duos Harrius (with Chiara
Giovando, great LP on Ehse Records)
and Metalux (with MV Carbon,
recordings on Hanson, Load and 5RC/Kill Rock Stars, etc). This is a rare
solo set, not to be missed!
As an attempt to further place
what J. Graf does, check this blurb about Harrius from the Ehse sites:
"Enter the Cotton Ring is an exploratory mack truck of left-hemisphere-manifestation-in-time.
Unlike the majority of vocal-noise hybrids bubbling up lately, Graf and
Giovando reference neither sound poetry, nor metal (for the dudes) or jazz
balladry (for the ladies) bu tinstead a novel hybrid of dream-incantation,
lieder and effects that electronics might achieve but how? An unsettlingmix
of vocal wrenching and mlifluousness, effected guitar twang fuckery and
intuitive anti-system electronics, it'll send you on a rapid shuttle ferry
on the space-time straits compells you to keep chewing slowly."
BLK w/BEAR--J S Adams heads into a mountain range of drones as a setting for intense emotional, personal and political ideas drawn from Wilcox-Gay Recordio Discs and other prepared vinyl sources. (Recordio discs were homemade recordings created in photo booth-like setups where an individual could record their message/song and get one acetate recording out of the machine.) New BLK w/BEAR recording available for download: "Version 3" the third installment in Long Division with Remainders' "14 versions of the same EP project." Adams will be joined by regular collaborators Doug Poplin on cello + effects, and PD Sexton on bass and effects. Among other recordings, check out BLK w/BEAR's collaboration with Rothko; one of their trax was even used on some TV show. Adams is also the instigator of the annual Queering Sound festival.
Croniamantal--El
Possible's first improvisation laboratory project gathered a set of local
free improvisors and one avant garde poet to create some exciting new sounds.
Four original members (Pat Gillis/TL0741, Amber Dunleavy/Echolalia, Paolo
Vallodolid, and Jeff Bagato/Tone Ghosting) plus newbie Layne Garrett on
guitar and found stuff. Their bard for this incarnation will be legendary
DC avant garde poet Rod
Smith, long holding it down as editor of Aerial/Edge
magazine; check out Rod's work here.
Rod also promises to drag along a trio of visiting Russian poets. MP3 and
complete project history on web page.
March 2--Cutest Puppy in the World + 36 + MudPie
36--DC power noise legend Sam Lohman brings a box full of stomp machines and drum boxes to unleash the maximal sonic mayhem of his 36 project, started in Osaka, Japan over decade ago. One half of Ca$h $lave Clique--who's new CDR "White Props" (Panic Research Audio) will be available at the show. Sam's also held down the drum kit for Acid Mothers Temple (no joke!) and sax legend Steve Mackay; toured as a member of noise supergroup Radon Ensemble, played drums in Osaka's avant rock trio Nimrod, and cofounded Japan Overseas records. Respect!
Cutest Puppy in the World--Bryan Rhodes (B'more) & Layne Garrett (DC) explore emergent formes, extremes of saturated and empty space, scorched remnants of the familiar. Freely improvised music made with keyboards, guitars, found objects, & whatever's within reach. "...a gloriously unkempt patchwork...gritty amp-hum claustrophobia..., chaotic ecstasy..., mangled, soulful kinetics...From this strange vantage point in the nexus of these disparate traditions and vocabularies, The Cutest Puppy manifest pieces of music whose range and depth is nearly as varied and limitless as the imagination itself..."--Germ Ross, Artnoise
MudPie--Avant-eclectic
trio of Sergio Dalek, Tim Sickles, and Carlos Pazmino promise to do their
"e-bow set", one of many modes they've developed over the 2 years since
they played El Possible. "The term Mudpie came to describe an experience
in tonal communication which we may have unknowingly experienced when we
were small children playing with sand, mud, sticks, rocks, and anything
else to create our own little Utopia within the sphere of life....This
is an opportunity to rekindle that innocence and liberation we felt as
children and participate in the serendipitous harmony of the whole. We
are all musicians, but more importantly, we are pulsators--a term to describe
all of life within and around us which has not been created in isolation,
but is a gift of universal harmony and balance."--from their website.
February 3--El Possible's first book reading!!
Marc Masters' "No Wave" book reading + Pierce, Putter & Rumble + Safe 2
Marc Masters--DC-based music writer reads selectrions from his new book ìNo Waveî(Black Dog Press)--a history of the 1970s underground scene that spawned Lydia Lunch, DNA, Mars, etc. Marc writes for Wire, Signal to Noise, and other publications. Books available for sale and signing!
Pierce, Putter and Rumble--Trio of GWU profs takes jazz to the 5th dimension. Includes El Possible sponsor Peter Fraize on sax, Jim Levy on piano, Steve Hilmy on electronics.
Safe 2--Solo incarnation of local electro-acoustic improv unit using analog modular electronics PLUS video processing module. Full spectrum sound & vision experience!
January 6--Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind + Many/Nix + Nuss
Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind--DC-based experimental electronics trio uses laptop, turntables and keyboards to create soundscapes of dynamic aesthetic and political consciousness. Features two members of the Transparent Productions crew bringing free jazz artists to DC. Tonite, MOMMOM will be performing to "Luma 1," a new film by Michael Sargent. MOMMOM is: Chris Downing - freeboards, laptop; Bobby Hill - record players; Thomas Stanley - electrons. Bobby Hill also produces "The Other Side" on WPFW, playing avant garde jazz, hip hop and other musics.
Many/36--Two DC outmusic legends together for the first time! Many Spaceships (Hat City Intuitive/The Plums/Spaceships Panic Orbit) and 36 (Cash Slave Clique/Nimrod/Acid Mothers Temple). Likely to include some combination of sax skronk, intense drumming, guitar noise, FX pedal abuse, and the unknown.
Nuss--Solo project of Piasa's Scott Nussman plays sets "ranging from acoustamatic to harsh noise to songs using a drum machine, bass, and a sampler."
