Battle Trance

Saturday, Dec 2, 2017

+ SPECIAL POP-UP EVENT JUST ADDED (DETAILS BELOW)

The Luminary
2701 Cherokee St., 63118

Travis Laplante – saxophone
Patrick Breiner – saxophone
Matthew Nelson – saxophone
Jeremy Viner – saxophone


The all-tenor sax quartet, Battle Trance, specializes in the uncanny transformations of their instruments. Together they perform longform, meditative pieces with a strong emphasis on drone, circular breathing, and trancelike repetition, bringing to mind the works of 20th Century minimalist composers like Philip Glass or Steve Reich, but with an added primal energy and urgency reminiscent of Pharaoh Sanders or Joe McPhee.

Battle Trance has released two albums to date on the prolific indie-label, NNA Tapes: Palace of the Wind (2014) and Blade of Love (2016). Both albums have won praise for their genre-crossing compositions, drawing comparisons to the contemporary classical world, modal avant-garde jazz, and noise-based experimentalism. In live settings the quartet is capable of creating a hypnotic fury of notes, unifying both the harmonic and physical in sound.

Presented in partnership with The Luminary.

+ Saxquest, NMC, and Dead Wax Records present: Pop-up concert with Battle Trance 

Saturday, Dec 2md at Dead Wax Records. 1:30pm – 2:15pm. FREE (no rsvp needed)

info at Facebook event page: HERE

 

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John Wiese (Solo Performance and Composition for St. Louis Ensemble)

John Wiese (Solo Performance & Composition for STL Ensemble / + STL Residency)
Saturday, November 11, 2017

advanced tickets here / RSVP on Facebook here for updates on residency and promotions
Xavier Hall University Theatre, Saint Louis University
3733 West Pine Mall, 63108  / *UPDATE – A DETAILED MAP to Xavier Hall may be found HERE ( http://newmusiccircle.org/2017/11/08/xavier/

John Wiese – electronics & compositions for St. Louis ensemble

Darin Gray – upright bass
Danielle Taylor Williams – harp
Julio Prato – electronics
Coby Pear – modular synthesizer
Drew Gowran –  percussion
Michael Williams – tapes / electronics
Chris Trull – Guitar
Fred Tompkins – flute
Sarah Vie – violin
Alex Cunningham – violin
JJ Hamon – pedal steel guitar / trombone
Hannah Costillo – keyboards
Necia Baxter – turntables
Dave Stone – Saxophone
Syrhea Conaway – vocals / electronics
Josh Kahl – Modular synthesizer
Alberto Patino – drums
Louis Wall – cymbals

+ STL RESIDENCY: Please see red text below. 


John Wiese is an artist and composer living in Los Angeles, California. He is a native of St. Louis, where as a young teenager he began experiments with home-recording on a cassette 4-track. He has since solidified his name as a tremendously prolific performer and recording artist, with expertise in composition, texture, and sonic experimentation. Wiese says he doesn’t really think of himself as a musician in the traditional sense, and instead of writing purely notated music he works with manipulating, cutting and arranging sounds electronically. The end product is more like a meticulous collage, built upon dense, nuanced sounds ranging from the minimal to the frenetic.

With a lengthy résumé of solo releases, Wiese’s projects as a collaborator have increased over the last decade to produce works with the likes of veteran jazz-improviser, Evan Parker, rock bands like No Age and Wolf Eyes, and metal groups such as Sunn O))). Recently, he has lead collaborative projects for large groups, developing a method of “text-based scores”. For his St. Louis performance he will debut a site-specific composition that includes over 20 local musicians, utilizing both traditional and non-traditional instrumentation.

 

STL RESIDENCY: Workshops, artist-talks, and film screenings…

Weds – Nov 8th

9am – 10am 
Washington University’s Sam Fox School:  Constellations, Sequences and Series – class – Room: Steinberg 026
event page here
11:30am – 12:30pm
Lindenwood University (St. Charles)
Room: room LARC 117
contact: 314-374-9188 / bscholle@lindenwood.edu
event page here
3:00pm – 4:00pm
Dept. of Music at Washington University
Department of Music | Blewett Hall : Tietjens 4
event page here & here
 
Thurs November 9th 
 
11am – 12:30pm
Forrest Park Community College
Room F410
event page here
8pm – 9pm
Films by John Wiese (free screening)
Moolah Theatre (@ Mini Moolah)
3821 Lindell Blvd
event page here

Co-presented in partnership with Department of Fine & Performing Arts, Saint Louis University
Special support provided has been provided Arts and Education Council

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59th Season Opening Concert: Steve Swell Quintet

Saturday, October 7, 2017

7pm doors / 8pm concert – tickets at door or advanced here

The Stage at KDHX
3524 Washington Ave., 63103 (map) – FB event page here

Steve Swell – trombone & compositions
William Parker – upright bass
Chad Taylor – drums
Jemeel Moondoc – saxophones
Dave Burrell – piano

Veteran free-jazz trombonist and composer Steve Swell makes his St. Louis debut, performing with master bassist William Parker, drummer Chad Taylor, saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc, and pianist Dave Burrell. Long associated with New York’s downtown avant-garde scene, Swell began his career in 1975, and since then he has built one of the most expansive and wide-ranging careers in jazz, touring and recording with artists such as Tim Berne and Ken Vandermark. His work as a collaborator and sideman is extensive, and significant partnerships include Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, and John Zorn.

Dave Burrell is known for his solo-piano works as well as his collaborations with Archie Shepp and Pharaoh Sanders,. William Parker is an iconic musician who the Village Voice has called, “The most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time”. In 2013, he received the Doris Duke Performing Arts Award in recognition of his musical impact over the past 40 years. Jemeel Moondoc was a featured soloist for Cecil Taylor. Chad Taylor is a regular collaborator of Marc Ribot and Pharaoh Sanders, and continues his decade-plus role as percussionist in Chicago Underground Duo.

Workshops / Artist Talks by Steve Swell:

* Friday, October 6th – Steve Swell will lead two youth workshops at Lafayette Preparatory Academy (Soulard) – 10am – 12pm
* Friday, October 6th. 4pm – 5pm: Steve Swell Lecture at The Department of Music at Washington University. Event page HERE . (6500 Forsyth Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63105), Music Classroom Building 102. This Event is free and open to the public.

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Robert Beatty / Matchess / Hylidae / Nadir Smith + More…

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.

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Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up

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

fujiwara
Tomas Fujiwara and The Hook Up
Jonathan Finlayson – trumpet
Brian Settles – tenor saxophone and flute
Mary Halvorson – guitar
Adam Hopkins – bass
Tomas Fujiwara – drums and compositions
Tomas Fujiwara is a Brooklyn-based drummer and composer. Described as “a ubiquitous presence in the New York scene…an artist whose urbane writing is equal to his impressively nuanced drumming” (Troy Collins, Point of Departure), Tomas is an active player in some of the most exciting music of the current generation, with his bands Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up and The Tomas Fujiwara Double Trio; his collaborative duo with cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum; the collective trio Thumbscrew with Mary Halvorson and Michael Formanek; and a diversity of creative sideman work with forward thinking peers like Matana Roberts, Amir Elsaffar, Tomeka Reid and Ben Goldberg. In The New York Times, Nate Chinen writes, “Drummer Tomas Fuijwara works with rhythm as a pliable substance, solid but ever shifting. His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has a way of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting up a rigorous scaffolding of restraint…A conception of the drum set as a full-canvas instrument, almost orchestral in its scope.”
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In describing Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up, Jim Macnie of The Village Voice says, “The drummer has named his band appropriately. Ensembles can go anywhere if the intra-group chemistry is cooking…Fujiwara sounds like he’s got his mates on speed dial.” The band’s first record (Actionspeak, 482 Music) was named one of the best debuts of 2010 by the New York City Jazz Record and received a four-star review in Downbeat. The group’s second album (The Air is Different, 482 Music) “continues upon a course, teeming with unanticipated shifts in strategy, but not executed in shock-therapy mode. With a superfine support system of revered improvisers, Fujiwara reaps the benefits of a distinctly fresh musical climate. With off-kilter patterns, cunning geometric architectures and sudden paradigm shifts, the band merges a search and conquer tactical component with an acutely balanced mix of structure and free-form dialogues.” (Glenn Astarita, Jazz Review). It was included on several Best-of-2012 lists including All About Jazz Italia and Something Else. “The Air Is Different is wildly creative music that never veers into inaccessibility. If you’re wondering where jazz might be headed in the new millennium, it’s a good place to start.” (Robert Bush, All About Jazz). The band’s third album (After All Is Said, 482 Music), “layered and cohesive, rhythmically diverse, with a lean but muscular sound that defines Fujiwara’s distinctive approach to melody and harmony,” (Terrell Holmes, New York City Jazz Record) was released in April, 2015; “One of the most accessible, challenging and inventive recordings of recent vintage.” (Troy Collins, All About Jazz)
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