The fourth annual Unsound Festival, which highlights cutting-edge experimental electronic music from around the world, features more than two dozen artists who will be playing such venues as Issue Project Room, Cameo Gallery, the First Unitarian Church, Experimental Intermedia, BAMcinématek, and the Wick from April 2 to 6. Among the performers are Evol, Phil Niblock, Kapital, Håkon Stene, Stara Rzeka, and, opening night at Issue, Oren Ambarchi with Sinfonietta Cracovia Quintet & Friends. In addition to ticketed performances, there are several free events: the multimedia olfactory “Ephemera” art exhibition at AVA on the Lower East Side; “Lixiviation,” a collaboration between Suzanne Ciani and Neotrantrik on April 3 at 7:30 at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium, with Piętnastka opening; and a Listening Session with Porter Ricks’s Thomas Köner on April 5 at 1:30 at the Goethe-Institut, followed by a conversation between Ciani and Andy Votel at 3:00 and the panel discussion “Network Theory — an Intro into ICAS (International Cities of Advanced Sound)” at 4:30 with Mat Schulz, Oliver Baurhenn, Malcolm Levy, and Martin Craciun, moderated by Andy Battaglia.
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UNSOUND FESTIVAL 2011
The Skull Defekts are headlining a special Unsound Festival show at Littlefield on April 6
Goethe-Institut, Wyoming Building (and other venues)
5 East Third St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
April 1-10, free – $30
www.unsound.pl/en
www.goethe.de
After a successful debut last year, the Unsound Festival is back with an amazing lineup of concerts, lectures, discussions, and film presentations that explore the past, present, and future of electronic music. Focusing primarily on European performers, the festival begins tonight at 8:00 with “Collaborations 1” ($12) at the Issue Project Room, with HATI + Z’ev, Anna Zaradny, MERCE, Dawid Szcsesny, and Aki Onda. Tomorrow at 5:00 at the Goethe-Institut, the BFI DVD project MisinforMation will screen for free, consisting of clips of public-information shorts rescored by Mordant Music. On April 3, sound artist Stephen Vitiello will give a free talk at 1:00 at the festival’s home base, the Goethe-Institut, about his High Line installation, “A Bell for Every Minute,” in addition to other of his public projects. On April 5 at the Walter Reade Theater, Clay Gold, Demdike Stare, Felix Kubin, Peter Kutin, Raime, and Rob Eggers collaborate on the five-channel horror-sound program Cinema for the Ear ($12). Among the many other participants in the festival are Deaf Center, Henryk Gorecki, Alan Howarth, Harald Grosskopf, Emeralds, Carlos Giffoni, C. Spencer Yeh, Robert Piotrowicz, Marcus Schmickler, COH, Instant Coffee, Lustmord, and Void ov Voices. There are plenty of other special events; below are some of our favorites.
Gospel of the Skull: On Sunday night at 8:00 at Littlefield ($10), the Skull Defekts will premiere songs from its latest disc, Peer Amid (Thrill Jockey). If you’re going to call yourself the Skull Defekts, you better play loud, crazy-ass music. Fortunately, this Swedish experimental rock group does just that on such songs as “No More Always,” “In Majestic Drag,” and “Fragrant Nimbus,” with Henrik Rylander, Joachim Nordwall, Jean-Louis Huhta, and Daniel Fagerstroem joined by Lungfish vocalist Daniel Higgs, who brings a whole new dimension to the group. Also on the bill is Thrill Jockey labelmate Zomes, the solo project of Lungfish guitarist Asa Osborne, who are touring behind their 2011 record Earth Grid, which was made on a cassette tape, and Polish-born German electronic percussion specialist Paul Wirkus.
Legendary electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick will make two heavily anticipated appearances at the Unsound Festival
Unsound Labs: Nosferatu, Symphony of Fear: On April 4 at 7:30 ($15), BAMcinématek will screen F. W. Murnau’s classic 1922 horror film, Nosferatu, accompanied by a live score performed by acoustic doom creator Svarte Greiner and Wirkus.
Music for Solaris: On April 6 at 8:00 at Alice Tully Hall ($20-$25), the Unsound Festival New York Opening, held in conjunction with the Krakow festival Sacrum Profanum, celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel, Solaris — famously turned into films in 1971 by Andrei Tarkovsky and 2002 by Steven Soderbergh — with a specially commissioned score by Ben Frost and Daniel Bjarnason performed by Sinfonietta Cracovia and with film manipulations by Brian Eno and Nick Robertson. Sinfonietta Cracovia will also play works by Steve Reich and Krzysztof Penderecki.
Morton Subotnick: American electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick will take part in a pair of very cool events at the Unsound Festival. On April 7 at 7:30 (free), he will present “Modular Dreams” at the David Rubenstein Atrium, revisiting his 1967 debut record, the seminal Silver Apples of the Moon, with video supplied by Lillevan. (Atom™ is also on the bill.) On April 8 at 6:00 ($15), Subotnick will give the lecture and demonstration “The Transistor, the Tape Recorder, and the Credit Card: The Technological Big Bang” at the Greenwich House Music School, focusing on his groundbreaking work with the Buchla voltage-controlled modular synthesizer.
SILENCE AND NOISE PART 1
Radian will team up with labelmates Mountains for Unsound Festival show
UNSOUND FESTIVAL
le poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Wednesday, February 10, $15, 7:00
212-228-4854
www.unsound.pl
www.myspace.com/lepoissonrougenyc
Poland’s Unsound Festival is currently under way in New York City for the first time, featuring 11 days of modern music from all over the world through February 14, at such venues as Lincoln Center, Public Assembly, the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building, Harvestworks, and Issue Project Room. The series includes electronic music workshops for children, an art show, a tribute to Andy Warhol, panel discussions, and plenty of cool concerts, with performances by Finland’s Vladislav Delay, England’s Untold, Germany’s Jan Jelinek, Switzerland’s Kadebostan, Ukraine’s Zavoloka, Poland’s Zenial, Holland’s Legowelt, New York’s Alexander Kaline, and dozens more. One of the best lineups of the fest occurs on February 10 at le poisson rouge, when “Silence and Noise Part 1” features Kids Electronic Music Band, America’s Mountains, Sweden’s Tape, Austria’s Radian, and Canada’s Tim Hecker. Friends since middle school, Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp founded the music label Apestaartje in 1999 and shortly after that formed the group Mountains. Working and living in Brooklyn, the duo released two albums last year on Thrill Jockey, CHORAL and ETCHING, featuring monumentally minimalist electronic soundscapes mixing guitar, binaural field recordings, live sampling, and other subtle instrumentation primarily recorded live in their Brooklyn studio. The duo’s beautiful, hypnotic compositions take listeners on intriguing musical journeys that range from about two minutes to more than twelve, welcoming all comers into a mesmerizing, meditative, masterfully melodic experience. Labelmates Radian recently released their first album in five years, CHIMERIC, with Martin Brandlmayr, Stefan Nemeth, and John Norman displaying a somewhat calmer side to their electronic music on such songs as “Git Cut Noise” and “Feedback Mikro / City Lights,” with more bass, guitar, and drums added to the computerized samples and sequencing.