Ann Adachi is a flutist, pianist and multimedia performer, working with sound, the moving image, and performance. Compositions involve through-composed music for one or more acoustic instruments, and in some pieces, interaction with video and light as sculptural and environmental element. Ann is a member of the Eidolon Ensemble which performs original compositions monthly in New York. Education includes Berklee College of Music (B.M.), and Massachusetts College of Art (course work).
Marie Evelyn is an extended vocalist and interdisciplinary artist. She works with amplified and unamplified extended voice rooted in mimicry and reenactment. She is the founder of Analogous, for which she directs several sound-based projects. Her work has been reviewed in The Wire, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, and elsewhere. Marie holds a B.A. in Mathematics and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University.
Nick Lesley is a musician and video artist. He primarily plays improvised drums and interactive electronics (analog or laptop). His drumming style is in the realm of “free-improvisation” but infused with the distinct hardcore-punk he grew up with in San Diego. On any instrument, he focuses on allowing space and creating energy and drama in an improvised performance. Nick holds an MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College, and a BA in Media Arts from U.C. San Diego.
From a young age, Todd Merrell has been fascinated with the continuum connecting melody, harmony, timbre, tempo and dynamic. These ambiguities form the nexus of his work.
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1967, he spent his early years in isolated, remote areas of New England and New Mexico, and found deeply human connections through radio transmissions, and inspiration from music synthesis. In 1978 he discovered the imperceptible environment of electromagnetic radiation that shortwave radio and processing can capture, and transform into an immersive, musical environment. In 1991 he began exploring the musical possibilities of this world in a collaboration with Patrick Jordan. The result was ‘SWR’, a two movement work that was performed several times in Chicago, and on WBEZ National Public Radio. Composer Lou Mallozzi, of the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, wrote in P-Form Magazine:
“It soon becomes clear that the focus of the work is not on achieving any particular musical moment, but on the ephemerality of sonic transformation itself. Unlike compositions that utilize radio in part for its referential or signifying qualities, SWR is more in the minimalist tradition of relying on the primacy of the material itself. The work is a celebration of the radio as material and of the belief that minutiae and limited systems can yield rich results. But it is also a celebration of the rich, ragged, unstable thickness of analog sound in a world anesthetized by the crisp and clean precision of digital audio.”
He has since developed these techniques, incorporating the melody, harmony and timbre blurring possibilities of granular synthesis and other contemporary electronic compositional methods, to create a larger, more sonically, visually and emotionally evocative world, with an emphasis on live performance, and the thrilling contingency and danger that such site- and time- specifically dependent work produces. Along with several current solo projects, he continues to work with like-minded musicians and sound artists, and completed a project with Aidan Baker, who joined him in 2004 on a mini-tour of the Northeastern United States.
Todd Merrell studied music composition and voice at Berklee College of Music, and with James Sellars of The Hartt School. A 2008 New Boston Fund Individual Artist Fellowship recipient, AIRtime resident artist and transmission artist at free103point9, his work has been performed by many ensembles, including Chicago A Capella, Jan Williams Percussion Ensemble and The New York Festival of Song. He has contributed live and recorded work to festivals and exhibitions throughout the world, from MACBA (Barcelona) to The New Museum (New York), and Orange 94.0 (Vienna) to The New American Art Union (Portland, Oregon, USA). His work has been reviewed in The Wire, Signal To Noise, and The New Art Examiner, and he has been interviewed for Monitoring Times, as well as WBEZ and WFMT in Chicago, East Village Radio in New York, and WWUH in Hartford. He has performed at many venues, including The Guggenheim Museum, The Stone, Issue Project Room, Knitting Factory, and HotHouse, collaborated with BT, Aidan Baker, and bassist Robert Black, and recorded for the Whirlybird, Dreamland, Archive, Mode and Mille Plateaux labels. He makes his home in Connecticut, New York, and the rest of the world.