Obsolete Staircases (Label Showcase)

Obsolete Staircases

Obsolete Staircases is label based in Louisville, KY, organized and curated by Dustin Markam (who performs under the moniker, Hairbrushing). Since 2017 Obsolete Staircases has released over 30 titles, and been responsible for organizing many of the experimental music events taking place in Louisville.

Noted Hairbrushing cassette releases include Drip Prediction (2016), Drip Intervals (2017),Two Broken Mirrors & Thirty-One Open Windows (2018), and a 10 track digital album, Unlisted Natural (2021). These releases combine highly articulated electronic sounds, with freeform sonic wanderings, and seamlessly render synthetic melodies with soundscapes.

For his online performance, Hairbrushing will be a trio comprised of Marcum on electronics, Jackie Royce on bassoon, and Nick Layman also on synthesizer/electronics.

Dane Waters / Arsenio Zignoto (duo performance)

Dane Waters is an eclectic musician from Louisville, KY. Growing up, Waters was surrounded by music. Her mother was an opera singer with the Kentucky Opera. Waters joined chorus in high school and went on to study opera. She writes many of her own songs and performs solo as well as with bands in Louisville, including Sapat and Softcheque. She enjoys song writing and finds inspiration from sounds in her environment.

“….Dane Waters haunts that conceptual space between Björk, Woodpecker Wooliams and Ruby Throat: fey, spooky vocals, mysterious instrumental backings and impenetrable lyrics… Sometimes you know an artist has that special ingredient – “it” – and, through all the weirdness, Dane Waters certainly has “it.” ”

– Terrascope Rumbles, United Kingdom, January 2013.

Arsenio Zignoto is an enigmatic artist and composer who has performed with various experimental musical groups in Louisville for over decade. His recent and ongoing music collaborations include Softcheque, Deep Pockets with Aaron Rosenblum, Ghost Stripper, and Jackie O Motherfucker. His live solo sound work has included a performance at SONIC Bernheim featuring altered field recordings of frogs, and a 2012 project called Raw Thug, which featured a mosh pit of children playing Casio keyboards. Zignoto received a Masters in Electronic Media and Audio Recording at Mills College in 2015.

Flanger Magazine

Flanger Magazine is the solo project from Chris Bush (Caboladies/Flower Man & Equipment Pointed Ankh). Often combining electronics with acoustic instruments, his works recall The United States of America at their most chiming and bucolic, and utilize a range of influences from electronic-music pioneers, to library LP’s, to country/folk balladeers. His most recent LP, Breslin, was released in 2018 on the Sophmore Lounge label, which was described by Keith Fullerton Whitman as “A set of spry, pastoral Aecoustic Guitar and errant Electronic pieces that harken back to libraries by Teisco, Vittorio Marino, and the like, yet mapped in an alien manner unlike any known lanes. Unusual, and uniformly excellent”.

Equipment Pointed Ankh

Chris Bush – electronics
Dan Davis – drums/electronics
Ryan Davis – synths/drum machines/melodica
Jim Marlowe – keyboards/electronics/woodwinds
Shutaro Noguchi – guitar/electronics

Since forming, Equipment Pointed Ankh has focused on a sort of long-form blown out raga, noise, drone vibe with a rotating cast of players joining Marlowe at varying intervals. Within the past 2 years, they have seen this group of five come together as a unit – Marlowe with Chris Bush (Flanger Magazine, Caboladies, Flower Man), Ryan Davis (State Champion, Tropical Trash), Shutaro Noguchi (Feeding Tube artiste) and Dan Davis (Tropical Trash).

EPA recently released a full length LP, Without Human Permission, on the Sophore Lounge label. Without Human Permission” was recorded in Pawtucket, Rhode Island at Machines with Magnets with engineer extraordinaire Seth Manchester in August 2020, fresh off a 16-hour van ride from Louisville. EPA locked themselves in a studio for an entire week – no riffs were written ahead of time, not even a single conversation was had regarding who would play which instruments or what they would record.

Connor Waldman

Connor Waldman, a St. Louis native, is a composer, sound artist, and software engineer currently based in Louisville, KY. Most recently, his solo work has focused on narrative-based compositions, field recording, and electroacoustic experiments. He has collaborated and shared the stage with a wide range of musicians from Louisville and beyond.

In addition to his compositions, Waldman uses his background in software engineering to develop systems for musical composition and performance, focusing on experimental signal processing. His work exploring the intersection of natural phenomena, data mining, and various synthesis techniques has been showcased in event series such as SONICBernheim, where he presented an outdoor quadraphonic piece using live earthquake data. Waldman has also taught at Bellarmine University’s Music Technology department since 2017.