Past Events

Saturday, May 13, 2017 – William A Kerr Foundation (21 O’Fallon Street – map ) 

Our annual NMC showcase will feature regional and local electronic musicians, DJ’s, and video artists.

Tickets are now available here

RSVP on Facebook here

Join us for a end of the season party
Saturday, May 13th, 2017
William A Kerr Foundation LLC (21 O’fallon Street)
Doors at 8pm. Concert begins at 9pm.

New Music Circle presents
Matchess (Chicago)
Robert Beatty/Three Legged Race (Lexington, KY)
Hylidae
Nadir Smith (aka Biggie Stardust)
Guest DJ’s: Crim Dolla Cray & The Freaker’s Ball w/ DJ Swan on KDHX
Guest visuals by: José Garza, Cole Lu, Chad Z Hickman, Blake Butler, and Jeremy Kannapell. More to be announced…

—
Matchess (Chicago, IL)
http://matchess.tumblr.com/

Matchess is the solo work of musician Whitney Johnson. The project considers the reproduction of sound and meaning through a range of historical material processes, including live tape looping, cassette sampling, and field recording. With the limited palette of a 1960s Ace Tone organ, viola, analog drum machine, stereo reel-to-reel, and voice, she crafts a sound collage of ephemeral songs on a surface of droning ambient noise. Matchess invokes music of the past, including musique concrète, komische, and early electronic experiments, while also referencing texts of the past, including symbolist poetry, science fiction metanarrative, and her own lyrical technique of the sigil mantra. In addition to her solo work, Matchess collaborates widely in Chicago with such artists as Circuit des Yeux, Gel Set, TALsounds, and many others.
–
Robert Beatty/Three Legged Race (Lexington, KY)
http://www.robertbeattyart.com/

The scope of Robert Beatty’s hydra-headed art practice has grown into an extreme articulation of unconfined creativity across multiple disciplines. A founding member of 2000′s noise outfit Hair Police, as well as visionary illustrator and album-art designer for many of this era’s most celebrated underground artists.

Robert Beatty performs his solo work (sometimes under the name Three Legged Race) favors an intentionally dematerialized approach, employing just a sequencer program in an iPhones, assorted pedals, and a lone tape machine. Acoustic instruments, (such as dulcimer and piano), are sampled elements which warp into un-recognizable dimensions.

In addition to his music and graphic art, however, Beatty has quietly created dozens of moving-image works: music videos (for groups such as On Fillmore) as well as in art installations (like an upcoming program at Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan). Where Beatty’s album designs call to mind the graphic and optical intensity of 1960s-70s psychedelic cover art, among many other influences, his video works reflect his devotion to a wide range of experimental cinema, in particular the films of Polish animation and pioneers of computer art.

–
Hylidae (STL)
https://hylidae.bandcamp.com/

Hylidae is the moniker of Jon Burkhart, a St. Louis native who records music which seeks the danceable intersection of pop and experimental music. Burkhart utilizes synths, samplers and sequencers in his current setup to produce psychedelic-tinged electronica. Since debuting his project in 2013, Hylidae has become an essential presence on the St. Louis underground music scene.

He occupies a lonely alleyway between the club and the avant-garde, offering little compromise while blending hyperactive beats with more pensive ambient works. His recent album, a self-titled release through Minneapolis-label Night-People Records/ Wet Hair, is proof positive of Burkhardt’s vision—an audible dance party at the end of the world.

–

Nadir Smith (aka Biggie Stardust) – (STL)
https://www.stlmag.com/arts/music/the-intuitive-soundscapes-of-biggie-stardust/

“When I think about [the music] too much, it just really doesn’t work out. I try to keep things as intuitive as possible. I see it as me building a riddle in a live setting,” says electronic sound artist Olan, short for Thomas Olanrewaju Osunsami, the figurehead behind Nadir Smith (formerly Biggie Stardust). He relates a stream of consciousness using two sample machines, calling on pieces pulled from lost or long-forgotten sources. Olan’s approach feels most akin to a journey—like soundtracking a film too alien for the human eye to see. He counts on brevity to break from the pack, with set times that run roughly half the length of his peers in the ambient genre. That respect for the audience’s time can be traced to Olan’s roots in the DIY scene of his hometown of Peoria, Illinois.

NMC and KDHX present
Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up
8 PM – Saturday, April 29th, 2017
The Stage at KDHX
3524 Washington Ave. 63103 (map)

tickets are now available here

New Music Circle and KDHX present

Erik Friedlander’s Black Phoebe Trio
8 PM Thursday, March 16. 2017
The Stage at KDHX
3524 Washington Ave. 63103 (map)

Advanced tickets are available here 

Erik Friedlander – cello / compositions
Shoko Nagai – piano / accordian / electronics
Satoshi Takeshi – drums

“It’s not your skill level, it’s how much you communicate,” cellist Erik Friedlander suggests. “It’s how much you express that the audience really wants to hear. They come to hear you be real.” Friedlander, however, is clearly not a musician lacking for chops. The years of training and gigging he did to establish himself in New York City’s avantgarde jazz scenes, through his distinct approach to cello, has taken him all over the genre map by collaborative efforts with artists like Laurie Anderson, Mike Patton, The Mountain Goats, and extensive duties in John Zorn’s Masada groups. Recently he has focused on his own soloist and composer work, releasing a series of albums on ECM. In these works Friedlander displays an underlying sonic curiosity and ability to aurally convey deep emotional experience that shapes the ongoing evolution of his work. In his most most recent group project, Black Phoebe Trio, Friedlander brings together the talents of emerging talents Shoko Nagai (piano, accordion, electronics) and Satoshi Takeishi, (percussion).

This concert is presented in partnership with KDHX

Workshops TBA

PLEASE NOTE NEW DATE FOR THIS CONCERT (FRIDAY, JAN 20TH, 2017)

8 PM, January 20th, 2017
Joe’s Cafe
6014 Kingsbury Ave. 63112 (map)

Iva Bittová – violin / vocals
Hamid Drake – drums / percussion

Vocalist/violinist Iva Bittová (Czech Republic) is internationally known for her unique music, which draws on influences from her native Moravia and her lineage in the rich traditions of Slovakia and the Roma people. Her ability to bring those influences together with such modern inspirations as Meredith Monk’s wordless vocal pieces and free improvisation,  creates music that feels both ancient and new, simultaneously surprising and familiar. Bittová is a storyteller who rarely uses actual language to convey the emotions of her stories. While either singing wordlessly or using an implied language of her own, she crafts intimate, engrossing narratives, ultimately creating her own truly personal style of folk music.

Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist, living in Chicago, but spending a great deal of his time touring worldwide. Drake is widely regarded as one of the great percussionists in jazz and improvised music, with a uniquely poetic approach to drumming; he draws from Afro-Cuban, Indian and African percussion instruments and influences. His musical involvements date back to 1974 when he began working with the AACM and felt impelled to explore earlier forms of drumming. He soon began working with several of the greatest innovators in jazz at the time: Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, and Peter Brötzmann. In live settings he continually takes collaborators to higher rhythmic levels, while at the same time carving out space for his own explorations. For over 30 years he has remained one of the most consistently venturesome and compelling drummers of his time.

Additional workshops/events TBA