Friday, September 16, 2011

ASAC show on Sept. 25th!!

The Albany Sonic Arts and the Arts Center of the Capital Region co-present

Doug Van Nort / Al Margolis duo and Mysterybear (Dave Seidel) / Julia Alsarraf

Sunday 9/25 @ 2pm
The Arts Center of the Capital Region
265 River Street
Troy NY
$5 suggested donation


The duo of Al Margolis (If, Bwana) and Doug Van Nort utilizes two distinct approaches to manipulating sampled material, grabbing one another's sound on the fly and forming an endless feedback loop of re-imagined sonic identities. The result is a rich palette of sound informed by classic electronic composition, minimalist drone works, and modern noise music. "Structure to chaos, drone to acoustic collages..."

Doug Van Nort is an experimental musician whose work explores the sculpting and radical transformation of his sonic environment, as well as interaction with/through machines. His instruments are custom-built electro-acoustic systems and digital processes, with an ear towards noise, immersion and free improvisation. Van Nort performs solo and in the trio Triple Point with Pauline Oliveros and Jonas Braasch, and has collaborated recently with others including Francisco López, Stuart Dempster, Chris Chafe, Al Margolis, Ben Miller, Anne Bourne, Sarah Weaver and Judy Dunaway. Recordings of his music can be found on Deep Listening and Pogus among other labels, and his writing has recently appeared in Organised Sound and the Leonardo Music Journal. Van Nort is currently research associate in music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

If, Bwana was born on New Year's Eve 1984, making music that has swung between fairly spontaneous studio constructions and more process-oriented composition. A recent review of Margolis's work says: "Let it be declared that Al Margolis/If, Bwana is some sort of evil genius working with raw materials which are never adapted to a genre or a context, because they create one in that very moment. Those sources are radically altered up to an utterly unrecognizable state, anarchic manifestations moving in compact determination." (Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes) www.ifbwana.com

Dave Seidel is a composer/performer based in southern New Hampshire who works with electronics in both live-improvised and composed idioms, usually under the name mysterybear. As a guitarist, he participated in the downtown New York music scene in the 1980s, most notably as a member of Scott Johnson’s and Lois V Vierk’s ensembles and in the bands La Guapa Papa and People Falling, performing at venues including CBGB, Danceteria, Mudd Club, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop and Alice Tully Hall. His premiere recordings of Vierk’s "Go Guitars" and "Red Shift" were released on the XI and Tzadik labels, respectively, and he appears on Guy Klucevsek’s album "Flying Vegetables of the Apocalypse".