Boris to Release 7" Series

By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:

There's no new Boris album this year, but the Japanese metal band is keeping busy. Over the next three months, their descriptively titled Japanese Heavy Rock Hits 7" series will drop three new slabs of distorted swagger on the world. Southern Lord, the band's label, has all the details on its website.

Starting with September, Boris will release one 7" per month. You can buy them individually or pre-order the whole series. If you pre-order all three, you'll also get a fourth 7", as well as an exclusive Boris T-shirt. So yeah, you're probably going to want to do that.

Boris played Soundlab in late fall, 2008.

This Week at Soundlab... Fruit Bats, Iran

Wed, September 16--FRUIT BATS with IRAN and KEVIN BARKER.

Fruit Bats started in the mid 1990’s as the four-track project of Eric D. Johnson. The name “Fruit Bats” was actually one of many cryptic monikers scrawled on the cassettes. Somehow that one stuck. Some of the other band names included “Holiday Inn,” and “Senseless Tripe.” For a number of years there were many warbling, feedback laden tapes, but no shows and no band.

In early 2000, Johnson joined the cast of characters that made up Califone and the whole Perishable Records family. It was this kinship with a bunch of like minded folks that coaxed the Fruit Bats from out of the bedroom and turned the shy lo-fi project into a real band.

Brian Deck produced the first record, Echolocation, which featured hi-fi versions of many of the old four-track tunes. The album sold poorly, but garnered rave reviews in places like Mojo and The Village Voice, the latter calling it “a mini-masterpiece of zoology rock.” Shows were offered, and a band was hastily put together. The lineup would remain ever shifting for the next eight years or so.

Tours and friendships with Modest Mouse, Iron and Wine and The Shins led Fruit Bats to sign with Sub Pop records in 2002. The first release on that label was Mouthfuls. The record went on to be a modest success, selling well and ending up on many of 2003’s “best of” lists.

2004 would see the release of a limited edition, vinyl only rarities compilation, Tragedy Plus Time Equals Fruit Bats, as well as a move to the west coast for Johnson. In 2005, Spelled in Bones was released. The album debuted at #4 on the college radio charts, and the band had its first network TV appearance on “Last Call with Carson Daly.”

Four years went by, in which time Johnson continued his career as a sideman, most notably with Vetiver and The Shins. Fruit Bats reassembled in late 2008. The next album, The Ruminant Band was recorded with Graeme Gibson at Clava in Chicago. Incidentally, Clava is the same studio where Echolocation had been recorded nine years before.

Besides the aforementioned “zoology rock,” the two best obscure genres the Fruit Bats have been linked to by the press are “bootgazer,” and “rustic pop.” Life is a sweet peach.

Fruit Bats are Eric D. Johnson, Christopher Sherman, Ron Lewis, Graeme Gibson and Sam Wagster.

Totally Weird: Win a YACHT New Era x FADER Hat

Yup, Buffalo-based hat producer New Era makes a YACHT cap, and Fader magazine is giving one away. Here's what they have to say about it:

Continuing their beloved themes of triangles and all things nautical, DFA home electronics-loving beat punks YACHT designed a poop deck-ready, crisp black and white cap with a giant anchor for our New Era hat series. We’ve got a number of these super limited hats to give away to oceanic dance lovers. All you have to do is leave a comment with your favorite body of water and why, your hat size (they’re fitted!) and register with your real email so we know how to find you.

Yacht played Soundlab on 08/27/07 with Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend.

This Weekend in Theater (Multi-Media)

This Friday, Sept 11, Downtown Buffalo celebrates the official start of the theater season with CURTAIN UP!, a city-wide evening of cocktails, theater and street parties marking the simultaneous opening of 14 different shows at 8pm on the same night. Here is the skinny on 3 companies with ties to Soundlab, but to see the full schedule check out: www.curtainupbuffalo.com

FREUD AND THE SANDMAN: based on a Tale By Hoffman and an adaptation by Sigmund Freud.
Devised and directed by Robert Waterhouse
September 10 – October 3
A new and uncanny entertainment, featuring puppets by Michele Costa and an award-winning score by Paul Kozlowski, about a nightmarish figure who steals the eyes of children….based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s Tale THE SANDMAN and an original version by Sigmund Freud.
Thurs., Fri., Sat. 8 pm. Tickets: $15 - $20
The New Phoenix Theatre On The Park, 95 Johnson Park, Buffalo, NY 14213
(716) 853-1334

TWILIGHT by Anna Deavere Smith
September 3- 26
This passionate one-woman docu-drama tells the real story of the 1991 Los Angeles riots in the words of the people who actually lived it.
Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m. Donations accepted
Manny Fried Theatre, 255 Great Arrow Drive, Buffalo
Subversive Theatre, 380 Maryland Ave., Buffalo, NY14202
(716)408-0499

AREA by Dan Shanahan
September 10 – 27
AREA makes the smallest observations mythic through movement of people and objects in sculptured space by use of light, sound and images as two women confront their roles in a visceral crime scene.
Sept. 10 – 12; 18 & 20; 25 – 27 at 8 pm. Tickets: $12 - $20
Adam Mickiewicz Dramatic Circle, 612 Fillmore Ave., Buffalo, NY,
(716) 812-5733

This Weekend at Squeaky Wheel... Submerged Ghosts

Friday, Sept 11, 7-10pm--SUBMERGED GHOSTS (Opening Reception). 7:30pm - Artists Lecture w/ Megan Roberts & Raymond Ghirardo. 8:30pm - Outdoor Animation Festival (Encore Screening) in Adjacent Parking Lot.

On September 11th, 2009, Squeaky Wheel will celebrate the opening of their newly accumulated storefront exhibition space during Curtain Up! 2010 with a full-scale video/sound sculpture, "Submerged Ghosts", by award winning artists Megan Roberts & Raymond Ghirardo. After spending much time on the west coast during various art residencies, this Ithaca-based art duo created “Submerged Ghosts” with a fascination regarding ghost towns and ghost lands, specifically to address issues surrounding the disappeared towns of the west-- not just for the historical narratives, artifacts and physical evidence, but for the initial stories conjured that lead to other stories told. This site-specific video and sound sculpture will feature video projections which reflect off of multiple man-made ponds built into the space and casted salt molds of body parts that will slowly disintegrate throughout the duration of the exhibition.

Raymond Ghirardo, a sculptor and media artist, has worked collaboratively with Roberts in sculpture, installation, video, and performance for the last 30 years. They have received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Experimental Television Center. Their work has been widely exhibited and screened nationally and internationally, most recently in Finland, Anchorage and Seattle.

During the opening night, both artists will be present for an artist lecture at 7:30pm. The installation will be on view in our new ground level gallery space through Friday, Oct. 9th, 2009. Hours of gallery operation are Tues - Thurs. from 1-7pm, and Fri & Sat from 1-5pm. This event is co-sponsored by the Experimental Television Center and UB Dept. of Media Study.

This Weekend at Soundlab... Josh the Funky 1

Saturday, September 12, 10:30pm, $10. MUSIC IS ART AFTERPARTY feat. JOSH THE FUNKY 1, AMUNGUS, BRANDON CHASE, DJ K GUNZ

Hailing from Chicago, USA (the birthplace of House Music) Josh The Funky 1 wears the hat of DJ, producer, radio/podcast host and founder of the label Funktion Recordings. Having firmly etched his way into the fabric of Dance music culture and recently being hailed as “one to watch” in Mixmag magazine (UK), the world has begun taking notice of one of North Americas finest exports.

In a world where everyone wants to be a DJ, he has carved his niche by combining superb showmanship with turntabilist styled DJ skills. “For me Deejaying is about being an entertainer and a music selector, I never have to pretend like I’m feeling the music, it shows naturally and its infectious to others in the crowd.” A DJ now for over a decade, his travels across the world have developed his unique musical sense, easily genre hopping between styles, it’s not surprising to hear a blend of Big-room house, uplifting vocals, tech, progressive, tribal and funky jacking beats all side by side. “I look at my sets like cooking , you need different ingredients and spices together or it's a bland meal”

While some DJ’s are content simply playing record to record "The Funky 1" has become synonymous with using scratching, loops, acapellas, and effects, while playing on three CDJ decks, allowing for an unparalleled level of creativity

Lee Ranaldo Injures Wrist Playing Tennis, Sonic Youth Postpone Shows

By Michael Schmelling for Pitchfork:

If you're going stand onstage and reproduce the jagged riff-sprawl that Sonic Youth have spent decades perfecting, your wrists need to be in perfect working order. Unfortunately, guitarist Lee Ranaldo's wrists are not in perfect working order at the moment. As the band's website reports, Ranaldo fractured his wrist playing tennis (Andy Ranaldorick over here!), and the band have had to postpone some of the dates on their fall tour as a result.

Two of the band's shows have been straight-up canceled: September 26 in Santa Barbara and October 4 at the Austin City Limits festival. The band will make up the rest of those dates in January.

On 09/07/01, The Lee Ranaldo/William Hooker/Glenn Hall Trio played the Tralf as part of a co-production between Hallwalls and Soundlab/Big Orbit Gallery.

Download New DJ Spooky "Azadi" feat. Sussan Deyhim

According to Ryan Dombal for Pitchfork:

Thurston Moore, the Coup, the Jungle Brothers, and Rob Swift are just a few of the guests set to show up on eclectic producer DJ Spooky's sixth LP, The Secret Song, out October 6 on Thirsty Ear. Download a track from the record, called "Azadi", here.

The notes accompanying the track on Soundcloud.com explain further:

The term Azadi simply means "Freedom" in Farsi. The song "Azadi" is an interpretation of an ancient poem by the legendary poet Rumi, sung by renowned Iranian artist Sussan Deyhim, with prouduction by Dj Spooky from New York City. The collaboration is a single on Dj Spooky's next album "The Secret Song" that will be out in October, 2009. For a translation of the lyrics and more info about the project, head to: http://djspooky.com/art/the_secret_song.php

DJ Spooky played 2 seminal shows at Soundlab, the first being the inaugural event at the first space, on 4/05/02 with DJ Marcos/DJ Del Mar and Christ Sinister/God Morgen (live video by Chris Borkowski & Chris Coleman); the second being a Benefit for the Critical Art Ensemble, on 04/20/05, that also included Polmo Popo (DJ set), Mark Kloud and Cort Lippe/Jonathan Golove.

Aki Onda: "Cinemage"

Watch an exclusive excerpt from Aki Onda's Cinemage project (via The Wire online). Music by Loren Connors and Alan Licht. This is a short excerpt from "Lost City" (2007), and the images were shot in New York between 2001 and 2002. Video editing by Simpei Takeda.

"Cinemage refers to “images for cinema” and “homage to cinema.” In this project, I show still photo images by old-fashioned slide projections with music which is improvised by solo or duo guitarist(s) - Loren Connors, Alan Licht, Noël Akchoté, Jean-François Pauvros and Oren Ambarchi.

The visual images are snapshots taken from my daily life. I apply similar methods developed from my work as a composer, particularly the ongoing project Cassette Memories, in which I play field-recordings which I keep as a sound diary. By documenting fragments of my personal life, something is revealed in their accumulation. The meaning of the original events are stripped of their significance, exposing the architecture and essence of memory.

Although most photographers slice out a single moment in time to render an image as absolute, my photographic images consist of a moment within a movement. The sensibility is essentially filmic. The photos are more like moving images than stills and the style is similar to Chris Marker's La Jetée. Projected on a screen, the images have the eerie familiarity of an out-of-focus memory and evoke a feeling of déjà vu."--Aki Onda.

Aki Onda performed cassettes at Soundlab on 04/10/05 with John Long/Amber Long.

This Weekend at Soundlab... Keir Neuringer

Saturday, September 12, 9pm--Music Is Art Afterparty Pre-Party feat. KEIR NEURINGER and an ensemble that includes members of Buffalo experimental groups TENTET/OCTET and NOVELIST

For this performance, NYC-based artist, composer and musician Keir Neuringer will collaborate with Buffalo based art/improv groups Tentet/Octet and Novelist on a piece in which the assembled musicians perform a response to computer-generated scores projected on the wall behind the stage. Neuringer writes, "An audio waveform acts as the score and backdrop of Dodging Bullets. Performers are given a set of gestures they can choose from in order to interact with and complete the score, confronting it in real-time. As they perform, they ‘learn’ the piece and make choices based on how they perceive each of the other performers’ musical decisions. Dodging Bullets is what people do, figuratively and literally, all the time. I constructed a piece that reflects that, but allows the players to learn how to react over time, how to improvise a collective response that sounds, perhaps, less like dodging and more like firing back."

Born in New York in 1976, Keir Neuringer is a composer and performer (saxophone, voice, electronics). His output ranges from pulse-based electronic music, through free jazz and experimental electroacoustic improvisation, to music for theater and notated compositions for contemporary chamber ensembles. He also writes texts and makes videos and installations critical of the destructive behavior of the dominant culture. In 1999 he moved to Europe and spent ten years, during which time he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Adacemy of Music in Krakow, a master's degree graduate of The Hague's interdisciplinary ArtScience Institute, and curator of the audiovisual program at contemporary art platform. It was in these ten years that he cultivated a personal and intensely physical approach to solo saxophone performance that honors, builds upon, and eschews diverse music-making traditions. Keir Neuringer collaborates with a wide and undefined network of musicians, including Rafal Mazur, Ensemble Klang, Joel Ryan, DJ Sniff, Carlos Iturralde and Matt Bauder. He has performed and exhibited works in the US, Mexico, Israel, Turkey, South Africa and throughout Europe. He moved to New York in January 2009.

"...a cleverly programmed synthesis of sound and vision…we witnessed Neuringer move – very quickly at times – from absurdly long circular breathing tones to abrupt shifts in register and high and low skronks, leaving him looking thoroughly exhausted by the piece’s end."-classicalsource.com

http://keirneuringer.com/info.html http://www.myspace.com/tentetoctet http://www.myspace.com/novelist

Attend Alison S. M. Kobyahsi and Lewis Colburn Opening at Hallwalls

Friday, 9/11--ALISON S. M. KOBAYASHI and LEWIS COLBURN (Opening Reception 8-11pm). Artist Talks at 8pm in the Hallwalls Cinema. Exhibition on view 9/11-10/23/09. Gallery Hours Tues-Fri 11-6, Sat 11-2

Alison S. M. Kobayashi: Videos. Alison S. M. Kobayashi is a visual artist working in video, performance, installation and drawing. In her performance video works, Kobayashi explores issues of identity, crossing in/between gender, race, class and sexuality. Her work with found materials has resulted in two critically acclaimed videos, From Alex To Alex and Dan Carter. Finding a lost letter in the first case, and a discarded answering machine tape in the second, Kobayashi imagines identities for each person mentioned in the narrative, performing each role. For her exhibition at Hallwalls, Kobayashi will present these two works and a new Buffalo-based video, Period 4L, which is derived from a letter found on a Buffalo sidewalk in 2004 by Hallwalls Visual Arts Curator John Massier. Kobayashi's installation is curated by Media Arts Director Carolyn Tennant.

Lewis Colburn: Interregnum (1815-1969). Interregnum (1815-1969) takes the form of a large-scale, mixed media installation. The project consists of a life-size replica of Napoleon Bonaparte's carriage, crashed on a stage set of the Moon. Flanked by a backdrop depicting the lunar surface, the wrecked carriage is surrounded by a raised boardwalk from which viewers experience the piece. By drawing a line from Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo to the now-faded promise of the Apollo landings, the project asks us to question the significance we assign to these supposedly pivotal moments in history.

Matt and Kim "Daylight" Remix Featuring De La Soul

By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:

You really have to hand it to Matt and Kim. A couple of years ago, they were exclusively playing Brooklyn loft spaces that smelled like spilled beer to an audience of 20 people. Now they've got one of history's greatest rap groups on a remix.

That's right: De La Soul have dropped verses on Matt and Kim's single "Daylight", which you might know from "Kimmel" or that Bacardi commercial. DJ Troublemaker's synth-heavy, De La-boosted reworking of the song will appear in EA Sports' game "NBA Live 2010", which will be in stores October 6.

Check it out here, and catch them live at Soundlab on Friday, October 2.

This Week at the Adam Mickiewicz Dramatic Circle (Multi-Media)

TORN SPACE THEATER Presents: AREA. September 10th, 11th & 12th / 18th & 20th / 25th, 26th & 27th @ 8:00pm. Adam Mickiewicz Dramatic Circle, 612 Fillmore Ave. $15 general admission, $12 students.

Synopsis: This production attempts to illustrate the nuances of a world lost to simulation. In AREA we follow a girl as she enters an environment of images that are at times alluring and sometimes shocking. Although she experiences moments of terror, she does not turn back, but remains in search of some unattainable end. As her journey continues, we watch as her past begins to fade, obscured by the lens of this new world. Then a crime is committed. There are questions that need answering. Her response could reconnect her with her ever-distant past or condemn her to a constant state of unfulfilled desire - in a region of indefinite boundary.

Written and Directed by Dan Shanahan. Featuring: Kara Gabrielle McKenney, Rebecca Globus, and Melissa Meola. Video and Production Design: Tim Stegner and Brian Milbrand. Sound Design: Justin Rowland. Set Design: Greg Faust. Still Photography: Lukia Costello

“Leaving a performance of “AREA” in Torn Space Theater is a lot like waking up after a fitful nightmare. You know you’ve just been through a vaguely terrifying experience, but the second you try to grasp at the memory of it, the essence of it slips into the ether of your subconscious.”

“The haunting nature of the production is augmented by video and sound design from Tim Stegner and Brian Milbrand, incorporating alternately violent and beautiful still photography by Lukia Costello.”--Colin Dabkowski, The Buffalo News

On 10/22 and 10/23/04, Torn Space used Soundlab to stage a variation on their original production Muriel Vanderbilt Goes Walking, written and directed by Dan Shanahan.

This Week at Soundlab... Free Energy

Thursday, September 10--FREE ENERGY with WORRYWORT (ex Besnyo). From Artvoice:

With a roster that includes Hercules and Love Affair, Hot Chip and Yacht, DFA Records pretty much owns the hipster dance genre it created in the early 2000s with seminal releases by the likes of the Rapture and label founder James Murphy’s group, LCD Soundystem. Trending toward a sound reminiscent of late ‘70s and early ‘80s punk-funk, DFA tends to release rock music you can dance to, and dance music you can rock to. In the case of their newest act—Minneapolis rockers Free Energy—the emphasis is clearly not on dancing, which is surprising considering LCD Soundsystem’s Murphy and Pat Mahoney not only produced the record but filled in on bass and drums respectively. Making summery power-pop evocative of ‘70s rockers like Cheap Trick or Steve Miller, Free Energy will likely confuse those looking for a party—unless it’s of a more laid back sort. As Pitchfork put it, Free Energy makes “Perfect mood music for a night that looses itself in the afterglow of the inevitable busting of the moontower kegger, leaving everyone a little high, a little bored, and completely enraptured with the endless possibility of youth.” Opening for them next Thursday (Sept. 10) is the new Buffalo group Worrywort, featuring ex members of Besnyo.

Catching Up With Marina Rosenfeld

In addition to a variety of upcoming appearances, installation projects and live performances, art-turntablist/sound artist Marina Rosenfeld has 2 albums in the works. Due this fall are: Plastic Materials (2009, Room40); and Sour Mash (vinyl)/ Sour Mash (CD), dual-function recording and 'DJ tools' by Marina Rosenfeld and George Lewis (2009, Innova). For those seeking a broader survey of her past work, Ubuweb.com will soon post a full archive of rare and unrelased performances, collaborations, video and audio, dating from 1998 to the present.

Marina Rosenfeld performed a solo turntable set at Big Orbit Gallery on 11/16/01. She returned to Buffalo to play the old Soundlab as part of a DJ trio organized by Christian Marclay (who could not make it), that also included DJ Olive and Toshio Kajiwara.

This Weekend at Soundlab... Shock & Awe

Saturday, September 5, 11pm--SHOCK & AWE.

Headbands are so last season, even Ms. Waldorf has graduated to ciggies & condoms. Get your denim on & perfect your Courtney Love costume because SAT. SEPT 5th we're all dropping out.

This Weekend at Soundlab... Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber

Friday, September 4, 9pm, $8-$10--BURNT SUGAR THE ARKESTRA CHAMBER

Founded by conductor, producer, musician and Village Voice icon Greg Tate, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber is a sprawling band of musicians whose prodigious chops cover a wide swath of the experimental soul-jazz-hip hop spectrum. Anchored by Jason DiMatteo (acoustic bass) and Jared Michael Nickerson (electric bass), the live version of the group can feature as many as 22 players at any one time.

Our manifesto: Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber was originally conceived in 1999 as a forum for the New York area improvisational musician to compose, record and perform material which reflects the breadth and depth of American diasparan music in the 21st century. The intent of the Arkestra Chamber, through the deployment of Butch Morris’s conduction system, is to make every performance a fresh interpretation of its constituent parts.

Rather than limit ourselves to the straight jackets that the commercial recording industry uses to market contemporary Black Music, Burnt Sugar freely moves amongst many styles, eras and genres to devise its own exciting hybrids. These hybrids are based on a solid foundation of various musical traditions and the use of cutting-edge music technology. In this sense the group mission honors its deepest inspirations, the first post-modernists of American music – Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, Parliament Funkadelic and The Art Ensemble of Chicago.

As with any venture of this ambitious nature, audience development must come in many forms – live performance, magazine and newspaper profiles, and most importantly, cutting-edge recordings, which seem to generate the former two. Because of the necessity to build the TruGroid brand; Burnt Sugar, and its collective, must continually generate new product highlighting the Arkestra Chamber’s continual metamorphosis integrating rhythm and blues vocal extrapolations, rock and roll guitar brio, free jazz horn explorations, 20th century string dissonance and up-to-the-minute electronic manipulations.

Music must be heard – especially music designed to push back current musical boundaries. Burnt Sugar and TruGroid fill a major vacuum in terms of reestablishing a presence and profile for American experimental music on the world stage that is conversant with the idioms and recording techniques of hip hop, drum and bass, jazz and alternative rock. In today’s musical context there are few American bands like the Arkestra Chamber that are innovative on stage and in the recording studio.

Dirty Projectors Perform "Cannibal Resource" on Letterman

OK performance on Letterman 8/31/08. Dirty Projectors have performed at Soundlab 3 times: on 06/29/05 with Wind Up Bird and Nat Baldwin; on 04/18/06 with Why? (and "The Getty Address," an animated film by James Sumner); and on 08/27/07 with Yacht and Vampire Weekend.

WHY? and Themselves Team Up for New Song: "Canada"

By Tyler Grisham for Pitchfork:

Themselves, the duo of Doseone and Jel, have teamed up with WHY?, whose main man Yoni Wolf was a member of seminal Anticon group cLOUDDEAD with Doseone, to bring us the song "Canada".

"Canada" was recorded for a possible compilation that hasn't been released; the vibe recalls WHY?'s Alopecia, as do lyrics like "You're showing your pinkest parts in my absence". Both Themselves and WHY? have new albums on the way later this year: CrownsDown and Eskimo Snow, respectively.

Stream and/or download "Canada" here.

Why? performed at Soundlab on 04/18/06 with Dirty Projectors.

In Praise Of Jason Forrest's "War Photographer" Video, Unjustly Excluded from Pitchfork's "Top 50 Videos of the 2000s"

By Rob Harvilla for The Village Voice's Sounds of the City blog:

No quarrel with this list overall -- hell, I love "Pork & Beans" as much as the next dude, and probably way more so, to my possible detriment. But operating under the assumption that everyone who reads the headline immediately thinks of their personal favorite music video, eagerly awaits its placement on the list, and gets offended when it ain't there at all, this whimsically deranged gumbo of pirates, cock-rock guitar, Voltron, and marching bands is my jam. I tear up a little sometimes at the brass-heavy grand finale, for reasons I will make no attempt to explain.

"War Photographer" is from his manic 2005 macho-disco opus Shamelessly Exciting, a fine gym record if you're trying to injure yourself. Lately Jason's moved on to making badass iPhone apps.

Jason Forrest hit Soundlab twice, first on 03/29/06 and again on 10/20/06.

Aki Onda Live

See Aki Onda's solo performance at the European Sound Delta / Ososphère in Strasbourg, France, in 2008. The footage was filmed and edited by Vincent Voillat (Collectif MU). Via The Wire online.

Monotonix "Set Me Free" Mp3 Preview

From Drag City:

The world is a sick place, full of uptight repressed people who don’t know how to just lighten up. But Monotonix is all about levity − levity in spirit and levitation (you know what we mean if you’ve ever seen them live). It’s about rock ‘n’ roll being not only fun, but funny.

On September 8, 2009 Monotonix will release Where Were You When It Happened?, their first full-length debut and follow up to 2008’s Body Language EP. Where Were You When It Happened? roils and rocks with frenetic glee, shows a lot of skin, and is over before you know it.
But before you truly get to know the record in the biblical sense, Monotonix have released a little tantalizing peak into the album with the track “Set Me Free.”
When everything is going wrong, remember that the world is not so bad. Monotonix can release you from the sickness of this world through the prowess of rock and roll.

Download the mp3 here. Monotonix visited Soundlab as part of the Fuck Yeah Fest on 07/06/08.

This Weekend at Soundlab... Communist Party feat. Rrrump!

Friday, August 28, 11pm
COMMUNIST PARTY feat. RRRUMP!

See Matt and Kim on Jimmy Kimmel Tonight, at Soundlab Friday, October 2

RJD2 Launches Own Label, Offers Free Download

By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:

It's been a minute since we've heard anything from the Philly-based indie rap producer and (more recently) singer-songwriter RJD2, but that doesn't mean the man hasn't been busy. In a mammoth post on his MySpace blog today, RJ lets the world know exactly what he's been up to. RJ now has his very own record label, RJ's Electrical Connections. And the first artist on the label is RJ himself, which probably made for some easy contract negotiations. Writes RJ: "I am now a free agent, working for myself."

To celebrate his new label's existence, this week RJ digitally reissued a ton of rare material. On Tuesday, Your Face or Your Kneecaps, In Rare Form, and Things Go Better Instrumentals, three comps' worth of B-sides and rarities that RJ previously put out on his old imprint Bustown Pride, were released digitally for the first time via RJ's Electrical Connections. Your Face or Your Kneecaps features two previously unreleased bonus tracks. Right-click here, to download "Find You Out" from Your Face or Your Kneecaps.

On October 20, RJ's Electrical Connections will drop a huge vinyl-only box set on the world. RJD2 2002-2010 will include the LPs of vintage RJD2 releases Deadringer, The Horror EP, and Since We Last Spoke, as well as The Tin Foil Hat EP, which contains seven new, unreleased songs. (No The Third Hand, but maybe that's for the best.) RJ also promises "a hand silk-screened, signed and numbered poster, a download card for exclusive treats, plus a beautifully printed box." That's a lot of RJD2!

Finally, RJ also reports that he's done recording his next full-length, The Colossus. He says it'll be out "early this winter", but he hints that this means 2010, not 2009.

RJD2 hit Soundlab on 09/20/04 with Diplo and Rob Sonic. On 04/23/06, he returned with Soul Position (RJD2 and Blueprint) with One Be Lo.

The Books Spill Details of New Album

By Ryan Dombal for Pitchfork:

It's been four years since sound collagists the Books released their last proper LP, 2005's Lost and Safe, but Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong are "well underway" with the as-yet-untitled follow-up, due early next year. The long gestation process makes sense considering the painstaking work required for each of their found-sound tracks, which are usually made up of tons of tiny samples from all sorts of unique and/or forgotten sources.

"We started collecting audio tapes and video tapes on our last tour and we came home with a mountain of stuff-- around 4000 tapes," said Zammuto in a recent phone interview. "There's an unbelievable amount of treasure to go through, and that's what we've been up to over the past few years."

The duo are set to show off about a half dozen new compositions on a two-week tour of the U.S. next month, each one paired with exacting, synchronized videos that are often as impressive as the music itself. Click on for details about the new record (including a song based on Talkboy tapes) and some insight into how these guys distill thousands of hours of found material into something that's not only enjoyable but enlightening.

The Books performed with Todd Reynolds and The Sleeping Kings of Iona at Soundlab on 05/01/06.

Dan Deacon: "Paddling Ghost"

By Ryan Dombal for Pitchfork:

Dan Deacon gets his own mini-me in this cute-overload puppet clip courtesy of director Natalie Van Den Dungen. A ghost with an eye-patch and a skeleton pirate also star in the video for "Paddling Ghost", a highlight off the laptop guru's recent Bromst LP.

On 04/01/05, Dan Deacon played Soundlab with Height w/Bow and Chugga Chugga.

Tyondai Braxton: "Platinum Rows"

By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:

You've already read that Central Market, the new solo album from Battles noisemaker Tyondai Braxton, is coming out next month via Warp-- September 14 in the UK, September 15 in the UK (the vinyl will have a bonus track). And you've heard one track from the album, "Uffie's Woodshop". Well, now we've got something else for you. Click here to hear album centerpiece "Platinum Rows" a 10-minute nu-classical piece that combines rushing strings with rabid kazoos and spy-movie guitars.

"Platinum Rows" sounds something like what might happen if you asked the guy who made the squeaky-voice noises on "Atlas" to score a Warner Brothers cartoon from the 1940s. It will make you dizzy.

Battles performed at Soundlab on 4/02/07. Guitarist Tyondai Braxton performed, with Parts & Labor, at the second Soundlab's soft opening on 10/26/03.

YACHT Release See Mystery Lights Instrumentals. Download Them Here

By Tyler Grisham for Pitchfork:

YACHT are hoping you've got the remix itch from listening to their sunny new album, See Mystery Lights, which got a Best New Music nod a couple weeks ago. Now you can download the instrumental tracks from the album over at the Creative Commons-friendly Free Music Archive. You can also get your indie karaoke on with voice-less versions of YACHT dude Jona Bechtolt's early tunes and the tracks he did for the Blow's Paper Television here.

Yacht played Soundlab with Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend on 08/27/07.

MV & EE New Album on Ecstatic Peace!

By Ryan dombal for Pitchfork:

Freak-folk stalwarts MV & EE get ready to blow your mind all over again (man) on October 13, when they drop Barn Nova via Ecstatic Peace! The album features J Mascis on "drums, guitar, plate reverb."

MV & EE first played Soundlab as part of the Tonight Let's All Make Love in Buffalo festival, on 07/09/05. They returned on 08/01/06 to share a bill with Ravid Padmanhaba/Steve Baczkowski Duo.

High Places Release New Video, Mixtape

By Zach Baron for the Village Voice's Sound of the City blog:

If nothing else, this new and somewhat maddening High Places video--in which Rob Barber and Mary Pearson wander hills and dunes and trees for twelve long minutes to no particular purpose--is an excellent delivery vehicle for its song, the still-lovely and leisurely "Late Bloomer." Those looking for a slightly more galvanizing experience might try the mixtape the band just made with Hisham Bharoocha (whose Soft Circle provides the other side of "Late Bloomer"'s 12") for Vice, which goes from vintage Nausea to Underworld in three moves and from Underworld to the Delfonics in just two. It's a tape with a keen arc and a keen ear and, like everything else these days, a Drake cameo. Full tracklist and download at the Vice Music Blog.

High Places and Soft Circle played Soundlab on 02/11/08.

This Weekend at Soundlab... Health & Beauty

Sunday, August 30, 9pm--HEALTH&BEAUTY, A RELATIVE TERM.

Health&Beauty is a long-standing, radically shifting unit centered around the compositional ideas of Brian J Sulpizio. At any given moment, he is probably working on a Health&Beauty record as well as recording the musical work of others and playing drums in various improvised groups and pop bands. Brian uses mostly The Guitar within the Health&Beauty idiom, but usually incorporates sequencing and improvised performances by friends and self. Varying from solo to trio in live performance, Health&Beauty sets involve carefully sculpted pop songs with frequent improvisational digressions.

New Free Energy Video - "Free Energy"

By Brandon for Stereogum:

Good-time classic-rocking James Murphy-produced Philadelphia quintet Free Energy have come up with an appropriately celebratory Scott Thrift-directed video for their eponymous "Free Energy" fight song. The lyrics let us know they're "young" and "alive" with time on their side and all of that good stuff, while the images second the emotion. It is fun watching the group tear into their '70s guitar parts and hardcore cowbell hits amid a sea of friends and balloons. As I tried to describe when posting their "Dark Trance," they tap a mix of '90s slacker-rock, Television via a Strokesian update, and something Cheap Tricked-out. This time also keep your eyes peeled for the three wolf moon t-shirt.

Free Energy hit Soundlab on 9/10.

New Pyramids With Nadja - "Another War"

By Brandon for Stereogum:

Across four extended soundscapes, psychedelic Denton post-metallers Pyramids team with seemingly everywhere/highly collaborative Toronto duo Nadja to create expansive ambient dirges that feel both fragile and heavy. You get the blast beats and wraithlike black metal vocalism of Pyramids' gorgeous self-titled debut on the airily pummeling "The Sound of Ice and Grass" and for sections of the highly triumphant closer "An Angel Was Heard To Cry Over The City Of Rome," but elsewhere the Texas quartet meld with Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff to create something entirely new: A spacious, darkly illuminated naturalist drone. The collection includes well-chosen guest spots from Cocteau Twins/This Mortal Coil bassist Simon Raymonde, Albin Julius of Der Blutharsch, and Mineral's Chris Simpson. The Mineral/Gloria Record frontman provides haunted vocals for "Another War," a track you can lose yourself in right now.

On 08/23/07 Nadja graced Soundlab's stage with Beta Cloud and Mutus Liber.

New Music Tapes Video - "For The Planet Pluto"

By Panda for Stereogum:

Julian Koster has a specific vision and saw-singing sound for The Music Tapes, so you shouldn't be too surprised by much of what goes on in the Pluto-homaging "For the Planet Pluto" video. It features background vocals by fourth graders from Barrow Elementary School in Athens, Georgia and stars Major Organ And The Adding Machine's Kiran Fernandes and Sophie Fernandes. Speaking of organs, you'll also spot Kevin Barnes playing "The Slightly Sinister Father."

The Music Tapes hit Soundlab on 02/28/09 with Icy Demons.

New Asobi Seksu - "Transparence"

By Brandon for Stereogum:

Our last look at Asobi Seksu came via "Me & Mary," the first single from their third album Hush. In that vein, the New York dream-poppers are releasing a limited-edition 10" that includes a slightly different version of Hush's "Transparence" along with two unreleased tracks from the Hush sessions and a remix of the title track by Aa. For now, here's Yuki Chikudate & Co. digging into the sunny (then icy, windy) "Transparence." Hardcore indie-pop trivia buffs will note a new introduction.

You could have seen Asobi Seksu on the Soundlab stage with Besnyo (or maybe you did) on 09/16/06 .

Deerhoof Star in Art Film Feat. Free Toronto Show 9/17

By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:

The Rolling Stones and Deerhoof have roughly three things in common: They're both comprised of carbon-based life forms, they both make some form of rock music, and they are both liked by arty filmmakers. That's pretty much it.

The huge gulf between the Rolling Stones and Deerhoof is going to get a little narrower soon, though.

Artist Adam Pendleton has chosen Deerhoof to star in BAND, a new multimedia work that refashions Sympathy for the Devil, Jean-Luc Godard's 1968 Stones sorta-doc. BAND will intercut images from Sympathy with footage of the infinitely less decadent Deerhoof recording and rehearsing in Toronto. Pendleton will wrap up his filming when Deerhoof plays a free show at Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square on September 17, one of the Toronto International Film Festival's "Future Projections" events.

In a press release, Pendleton said of Deerhoof, "I was really looking for a group that balanced experimentation with a slightly pop, slightly rock sensibility and had a dynamic performance presence and style... Deerhoof had at it all."

Deerhoof hit Soundlab on 05/10/05 with Needel and Ho-ag.

This Week at the Albright-Knox... Mike Basinski

Friday, Aug 21, 8:30, the steps at the Albright-Knox--MIKE BASINSKI - Live Vocal Soundtrack to Silent Film Friday.

Squeaky Wheel's Silent/Sound Film Festival is an annual event that pairs local sound artists with a classic silent film. This year, local poet Mike Basinski (UB Poetics, founder of Bufffluxus Group) will perform a live vocal soundtrack to FW Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924), a silent film that tells the tale of an experienced doorman at a fancy hotel who is absurdly demoted to lavatory attendant. Stunned and humiliated, the old man struggles to carry on with his life. After finally accepting his loss of status, he unexpectedly inherits the fortune of a gentleman who passes away in the hotel's bathroom. With this unexpected happening, the former doorman's life goes from bitter emptiness to ultimate worldly fulfillment. Watch this classic outside on the stairs of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery!

Michael Basinski is the curator of The Poetry Collection State University of New York at Buffalo. He performs his work as a solo poet and in ensemble with the EBMA and his own group, BuffFluxus. Among his many books of poetry are HEKA (Factory School); Strange Things Begin to Happen When a Meteor Crashes in the Arizona Desert (Burning Press); The Idyllic Book (Michel Letko, Houston, Texas); Mool, Mool3Ghosts and Shards of Shampoo (Bob Cobbing's Writers Forum); Cnyttan and Heebie-Jeebies (Meow Press); By and The Doors (House Press); Un-Nome, Red Rain Two, Abzu and Flight to the Moon (Run Away Spoon Press): Poemeserss (Structum Press) and many more.

Michael Basinski is a veteran of Soundlab and Basta!/Big Orbit Gallery "Murder the Word" events.

New Dirty Projectors EP feat. New Tracks

By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:

In a year full of quirky, mesmerizing art-pop records, Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca is right at the top of the heap, its sideways guitar riffs and starchy R&B vocal affectations still revealing themselves months later. So here's some good news: the band recorded a few extra songs during the Bitte Orca sessions that didn't make the album, and we'll get to hear two of them soon.

On September 28, Domino will release a new Dirty Projectors EP called Temecula Sunrise in the UK. It'll feature the title track, as well as the Bitte Orca highlight "Cannibal Resource". But the real selling points here are a pair of new tracks: "Ascending Melody" and "Emblem of the World". The Domino website says that these two new jams will involve "the band's signature rhythms and stunning singing." Nice.

Dirty Projectors have performed at Soundlab 3 times: on 06/29/05 with Wind Up Bird and Nat Baldwin; on 04/18/06 with Why? (and "The Getty Address," an animated film by James Sumner); and on 08/27/07 with Yacht and Vampire Weekend.

New Lightning Bolt: "Colossus"

Amy Phillips reports for Pitchfork:

Lightning Bolt has unleashed the first attack from their highly anticipated new album Earthly Delights. "Colossus" lives up to its title, clocking in at over seven minutes of trademark Lightning Bolt bass/drums/mask-mic-thing attack, leveling everything in its path.

Check out Colossus, from the new album, here. Lightning Bolt played on the floor at Soundlab on 03/28/07, a slamming performance captured in several rough clips posted to You Tube.

Download Do Make Say Think "Other Truths" Album Sampler

Do Make Say Think have played Soundlab 3 times, first at the original space, with Fly Pan Am, on 10/08/02; then at the new place with Plants and Animals on 07/02/05 and lastly, with Bare Flames on 10/06/07. Their sixth album, Other Truths is due for release on October 20 from Constellation. Check out the album sampler here.

On You Tube: Rhys Chatham's "A Crimson Grail" for 200 Electric Guitars

On August 8, 2009 Rhys Chatham realized a New York City version of his piece, A Crimson Grail, in Damrosch Park outside the Lincoln Center. Here's clip 7 of 8 posted to You Tube by lonelycubicle. As he correctly suggests: "Note acts of religious fervor beginning at 7:29." Chatham performed at Soundlab with his minimalist death metal project Essentialist on 09/15/06. On 02/01/07, he assembled a group of Buffalo musicians to realize his seminal no wave-minimalist piece Guitar Trio.

Six Organs of Admittance's Ben Chasny on God, Hardware, and His New Luminous Night

By Tony Rettman for the Village Voice's Sounds of the City blog:

For the past ten years, Ben Chasny has been recording under the moniker Six Organs of Admittance. His first self-released recordings, put to tape in his birthplace in the California Redwoods, were homespun abstractions that paid equal homage to the subtle string pyrotechnics of infamous hamburger gobbler John Fahey and the brute expressionism of modern day noise mongers such as Japan's Fushitsusha. Somewhere down the line, Chasny fought his way through the fog of bowed cymbals and drones to become a halfway decent songwriter. On 2003's Compathia, Nikki Sudden, Bud Light, and cheap thrills came together to create a new chapter in Chasny's musical existence, and he's been writing the wave ever since. His latest release, Luminous Night (out tomorrow on Drag City), abandons the frightened psychedelic yelp of its predecessor (2007's Shelter From The Ash) and delivers a dream-like suite of hopefully desperate tracks. We recently got in touch with Chasny to discuss the new record, higher forces, and hardware.

Click here to read the interview. Six Organs of Admittance has played Soundlab 3 times, first on 04/17/04 with Sunburned Hand of the Man and Pengo; second on 10/10/05 with Hush Arbours and Warmer Milks; and most recently, on 01/30/08, with Mick Turner (of Dirty Three) and The Lochs.

"I Basically Dare You to Date Me”: G. Lucas Crane featured in Time Out New York's Sex & Dating Column

Master tape jockey G. Lucas Crane has performed at Soundlab 3.5 times: first and second as a duo with performance poet Ric Royer, third as a guest of Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice (although he didn't actually show up because he had a wedding to attend instead), and last night with Woods.

About G. Lucas’s music: “I do what’s called ‘tape manipulation’ if you’re being literal, or ‘weird shit’ if you’re watching me jam on the floor at a sweaty basement show. I record samples onto common cassette tapes and mix them by hand crossfader-style through effects, and into a found-sound wall of shifting texture. I know, I know, don’t tell your mom. I also play tapes and sing affected vocals in Woods and do a solo drone project called Nonhorse. It’s all very abstract and insectoid.”

G. Lucas’s top five favorite albums: Stevie Nicks’s Bella Donna, Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, Love by Love, Can’s Ege Bamyasi and any Billie Holiday album

The last amazing concert he saw: “Are you kidding? It’s all a blur…Magic Markers at Shea Stadium. Unstoppable.”

Read the rest here.

Paul Sharits: Epileptic Seizure Comparison (1976)

Featured August clip, from Ubuweb:

"Epileptic Seizure Comparison" (1976) is one of Sharits' most elaborate and violent installations. Sharits writes: "Seizure Comparison is an attempt to orchestrate sound and light rhythms in an intimate and proportional space, an ongoing location wherein non-epileptic persons may begin to experience, under 'controlled conditions'Š the majestic potentials of convulsive seizure."

[1976, 16mm, color, sound, 34 min]

Interview: Mount Eerie's Phil Elverum

By Michael Miller for the Village Voice's Sounds of the City blog:

When SOTC caught up with Mount Eerie's Phil Elverum on the phone a couple weeks ago, he wasn't quite ready for us. "Just let me turn down my Nirvana," he said before asking me to call him back. It felt very appropriate. The Washington native's latest, Wind's Poem is an ode to the massive guitars of grunge and Kurt Cobain at his absolute creepiest. Just don't call it black metal. Elverum turned off the Nirvana and helped clear the air about a lot of things, from touring with a full band to Buddhism to Elverum's enduring love and artistic affinity for David Lynch's Twin Peaks.

Continue reading here. Phil Elverum played Soundlab on 10/31/07 with Privacy and Al Larsen.

This Week at Soundlab... Eli Keszler/ Ashley Paul Duo

Friday, August 7, 9pm, $8--ELI KESZLER/ASHLEY PAUL DUO, NOLA RANALLO/STEVE BACZKOWSKI DUO CD Release Party. From Artvoice:

Eli Keszler and Ashley Paul's electro-acoustic take on freely improvised music eschews the one-way, outward expressiveness of American free jazz, instead clearing a space for sonic exploration where noises and gestures inhabit (rather than transcend) unique aural environments. Featuring Keszler on drums, bells, bowed metal, guitar and contact mic and Paul on reeds, electronics and voice, the duo shapes open-field blasts of clattering noise interspersed with sustained high-pitched tones and discordant rattling percussion. The effect is subtle and aggressive, open-ended and full of stark contrasts, filled with dark shadows and bright sonic clusters. Joining them on the bill at Soundlab this Friday is the Steve Baczkowski/Nola Ranallo duo, who are celebrating the release of their new CD, "Live at Soundlab," which incorporates "elements of noise, harmony and pensive retreat" through an equally boundary-less mix of elements that includes improvised sax, avant-garde vocals and manipulated turntable.

Sunn 0)))'s Greg Anderson on “Big Church” and Monoliths & Dimensions

By Randall Roberts for La Weekly:

“Big Church,” by the L.A./Paris duo Sunn 0))), begins with a female chorus. Then a low-tuned, distorted guitar powers up like a muscle car, and the juxtaposition between the chorale passage — all altos and sopranos — and the creeping guitar pattern (baritone and bass) is striking. Both move slowly and with great intent, beauty colliding with darkness, melting into a mysterious other. This other glides into a layer of orchestrated feedback and male chanting, courtesy of Attila Csihar, too quiet to comprehend. Then a long drone, a solitary church bell and a swath of rich silence that proves John Cage’s theories. Another guitar ignition bursts forth, as though Sunn 0))) guitarists Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley, joined on this track by Earth founder Dylan Carlson and Oren Ambarchi, have discovered and unlocked an infinite cavity inside their guitars.

There are no drums. The beauty is the anticipation, the waiting for something big to happen. It’s 10 minutes long, so we’re not in any hurry. Where epic rock songs of yesteryear such as “Sister Ray,” “In a Gadda Da Vida” and “Losing My Edge” find beauty in serialistic, Steve Reichian repetition, fewer are the extended songs that use space and time to craft something huge, which takes patience and concentration to resolve. The prog-rock bands of the 1970s made long songs that took advantage of the space, but ELP, Yes and King Crimson used the full album sides to show off their chops and quote melodic patterns from baroque and romantic sources. They used “classically trained” as an excuse.

Sunn 0))) offer big ideas gradually, thoughtfully, create a monolith of sound and then mold it into something graceful but menacing. It’s no accident that their new album, Monoliths & Dimensions, features a cover painting by sculptor Richard Serra; the band’s output feels heavily inspired by Serra’s massive series of Torqued Spirals.

West Coast Sound recently sat down with Sunn 0))) co-founder Anderson at the offices of the record label he co-owns, Southern Lord. Located in East Hollywood, the second-floor Lord HQ is much less dark and menacing than the records that the label, a consistently surprising and barrier-busting metal imprint, delivers. We asked him about the genesis of “Big Church.” What follows is an edited transcription of the conversation.

Read more here. Sunn O))) performed at Soundlab on 07/01/04 with Orodruin

Droning, Fast and Free: Eli Keszler Interview

Multi-instrumentalist Eli Keszler is one of a coterie of exciting new Boston-based musicians whose music pushes the boundaries of noise, drones, improv, and electro-acoustic composition. Using a variety of percussion instruments, as well as guitar and electronics, Eli creates intense drones and fast, rhythmically complex pieces. In addition to his solo work, he currently plays in a number of ensembles including a new trio with keyboardist Anthony Coleman and reed-player/vocalist Ashley Paul, a duo with guitarist Geoff Mullen, and a longstanding partnership with fellow multi-instrumentalist Steve Pyne called Red Horse. He has a pair of CDs out on REL, both of which showcase his extraordinarily dynamic playing.

Check out the interview here. Eli Kesler performs with Ashley Paul at Soundlab on Friday, August 7. Joining them is the duo of Steve Baczkowski and Nola Ranallo, celebrating the release of "Live at Soundlab."

On the Exhausting Exhilaration of Oneida

By Rob Harvilla for the Village Voice:

What you oughta know about Oneida, Brooklyn's finest (and most robustly prolific, extravagantly aliased, and relentlessly propulsive) art-rock band, is that they just put out Rated O, the second in a long-threatened "triptych" of releases, spaced out by a year or so and collectively, informally dubbed "Thank Your Parents." Rated O is a three-CD set. A trilogy within a trilogy. Oneida do not do small gestures, nor, come to think of it, do they do mere gestures at all. Their muscular, maximal minimalism—i.e. pick a chord and bash at it for the approximate length of your daily commute—can provoke awe, hypnosis, or profound irritation (a passive-aggressive Wikipedia clause: "In addition to the use of repetition that easily outstrips the patience of most casual listeners . . ."). But above all, it's simply overwhelming, in length, in scope, in intensity. They aim to outhammer a drum machine the way John Henry outhammered a steam engine.

Read more here. Oneida performed at Soundlab on 08/03/06 with From Monuments to Masses and Sleeping Kings of Iona