Crippled Symmetry (What Would Morton Feldman Do?): See Konk Pack at Hallwalls Sunday

Friday, April 9

See Konk Pack at Hallwalls Sunday

Sunday, April 11, 8pm, Hallwalls, 341 Delaware Ave, $15 general admission, $10 members/students--KONK PACK: Tim Hodgkinson (lap steel guitar, electronics, winds); Thomas Lehn (analogue synthesizer); Roger Turner (drums, percussion).

The British/German trio Konk Pack handles a gritty, writhing mass of electroacoustic sound/noise with the rare finesse and skill that one would expect from veterans of the European improv scene. Puckish and virtuosic, Konk Pack has created a music that is as detailed as it is massive. Thomas Lehn manipulates his analogue synthesizer with an electrifying, kinetic physicality. Lehn's background is as a pianist in both New Music and Jazz. His able pianism, obvious in live concert, is fused through the patchbay of his vintage synthesizer, warping and mutating into a something startling and alluring. A founding member of the legendary and radical art rock band Henry Cow, Tim Hodgkinson's musical output is marked by versatility, creativity, and an intense work ethic. Hodgkinson's work has encompassed improvisation, composition, activism, writing, lectures, and ethnomusicology. To Konk Pack, he brings a sense of musical precision and instability, elements that have roots in his political and cultural view of music-making. Both intense and nuanced in his approach, veteran drummer Roger Turner exemplifies the extremes of percussion in contemporary jazz and improvisation. A powerful presence behind the kit, Turner demands attention as he brings a roar to a whisper. He draws the listener in with intricate detail, and then drives them into a foot stomping beat or an irresistible swing groove. Turner was musically active in England's pioneering rock and jazz scenes of the 1960's and 70's. In addition, he has extensive background in African music, film music, and theater. In the 1970's, he made his mark in the important London free improvisation scene. The physicality of Turner's performances is not easily forgotten. The strength of his personality projects a natural humor that is well-balanced by his focused intensity.

http://thomaslehn.de/read/info_kp.html
http://www.myspace.com/konkpack
http://www.timhodgkinson.co.uk

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Who is Morton Feldman? (And Why Should I Care)?

A towering figure in 20th-century New Music, Morton Feldman radically re-imagined the possibilities of musical form through an approach to sound correlated with abstract painting. In 1973, Feldman became the Edgard Varèse Professor of Music at the University at Buffalo, a title he retained until his death in 1987. Feldman's tenure is emblematic of a renaissance period of progressive creative activity that brought Buffalo's cultural affiliations international acclaim.

What Would Morton Feldman Do? situates its speculations on multiple levels, firstly imagining the artist as an angry young man contemplating his social calendar. But WWMFD also addresses a larger crisis of relevance facing experimental culture in the 21st century. WWMFD builds on the city's radical legacy, but views history as a challenge to the present - what are you going to do NOW? WWMFD imagines its avant-classical hero wandering the crumbling streets in search of the new and the now, not through escapist longings for another era's modernisms but in concert with the cause of action necessitated by absence.

In this regard, WWMFD begins where Basta! Or Too Much! (We Will Always Know Ourselves), an avant-pop zine published locally from 1997-2001, left the page for the "stage." Collecting de facto proposals for civic reinvention utilizing the fractured experiments of Buffalo's postmodernist cultural community as blueprints, Basta! concerned itself not with art dialogue per se, but with changing what it means to grow up in a shrinking city. From these proposals (which tended to embrace rather than resist post-industrial existential crises) emerged a series of large scale multi-media events (Murder the Word) and ultimately, the performance program at Big Orbit Gallery. Big Orbit's "Soundlab" series, for which the venue of the same name was founded, was conceived of as a multi-faceted, continuously evolving "workshop" for the exploration of contemporary post-cultural incentives. Coming full circle, WWMFD hopes to re-contextualize Soundlab's explorations, and to include other relevant local sound and performance activities in its critical orbit.

Crippled Symmetry (What Would Morton Feldman Do?)

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Friday, April 9

See Konk Pack at Hallwalls Sunday

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