ryan jewell, nate wooley, jesse kudler + talibam!

Wed 16 Jul, 2008, 8pm
Old American Can Factory

“…to explore the micro and macro structural implications of improvised forms in a real time collaborative environment utilizing the the minute control of unstable sounds in excess audio and silence..”

For this ISSUE Project Room performance, Ryan has brought together two of his favorite collaborators, Nate Wooley and Jesse Kudler, who will be performing together publicly for the first time on this date.

Ryan Jewell- snare drum, electronics
Nate Wooley- trumpet
Jesse Kudler- electronics

Ryan Jewell was born in a small Appalachian river town in southern Ohio in an environment set between the rundown post-industrial factories by train yards and the natural beauty of the forested foothills on the Ohio River. The juxtaposition of these two seemingly conflicting environments has profoundly affected his aesthetic. He studied percussion and electronic composition techniques at Capital University and has since studied drumset with Susie Ibarra and tabla with Dr. Lowell Lybarger. Ryan regularly works as a solo performer and collaborator in the arenas of very quiet improvised music and very loud harsh noise. In addition to being a perpetual traveler of the US, he has also toured extensively in Europe. He was invited to perform at such respected international festivals as the SOWIESO 1 festival in Paris, the Kraak Festival in Brussels, the International Noise Conference in Miami, SXSW in Austin and Les Sciences Bruitistes also in Paris. He has collaborated with such diverse artists as C. Spencer Yeh, Greg Kelley, Nate Wooley, Jack Wright, Christine Sehnaoui, Bhob Rainey, Larry Marotta, Mike Shiflet, Tatsuya Nakatani, Reuben Radding, Hasan Abdur-Razzaq, Tom Abbs, David Boykin, Douglas Ewart (AACM), Graveyards, Envenomist, Fossils, Wasteland Jazz Unit, and many more…

Nate Wooley (b. 1974) was born in Clatskanie, Oregon. He began his professional career on trumpet with his father at the age of 13. After a brief stay in Denver, Nate moved to Jersey City in 2001. He has developed a highly personal style, mixing his knowledge of jazz and classical trumpet tradition and context with a very healthy bit of experimentation. His solo album, “Wrong Shape to be a Storyteller” on Creative Sources Recordings from last year was a culmination of this kind of thinking and was critically acclaimed as a benchmark for solo documents in the lowercase/reductionist tradition. His main thrust is still the trio, Blue Collar, whose sophomore cd “Lovely Hazel” on Public Eyesore was voted one of the top 10 jazz and improv cds by the Philadelphia CityPaper in 2005. Besides these projects, Nate does a great deal of work as a sideman with figures as diverse as John Butcher, Anthony Braxton, Paul Lytton, John Olsen of Wolf Eyes, David Grubbs, Daniel Levin, Stephen Gauci, and the Sound/Vision Orchestra.

Jesse Kudler, born 1979, improvises on guitar, synthesizer, tapes, radios and electronics, and he makes music on the computer. Recent interest has focused on both internal (electronic) and external (microphone/speaker) feedback, from radios/transmitters and microphones, allowing dynamic textures to arise in concert with the space in which they are played.

In his various travels, Kudler has performed with Matt Bauder, Kyle Bruckmann, Gene Coleman, James Coleman, Tim Feeney, Marcos Fernandes, Brent Gutzeit, Horse Sinister, Bonnie Jones, Jason Kahn, Mazen Kerbaj, Pauline Oliveros, Bhob Rainey, Vic Rawlings, Christine Sehnaoui, Mike Shiflet, Jason Soliday, Howard Stelzer, Christian Weber, Matt Weston, Jack Wright, Jason Zeh, and many others. He has toured the United States several times.
Jesse Kudler lives in Philadelphia. Current projects include: Benito Cereno (with Dustin Hurt, Chandan Narayan, Tim Albro, and Ian Fraser); HZL, an electronics duo with Tim Albro (and sometimes Dustin Hurt, as HZL BRD); Tweeter, a treble-intensive noise trio with Alex Nagle and Eli Litwin; solo performance and recording; and various ad hoc groupings.

His last name rhymes with “muddler.”

Hailing from New York, Talibam! have been making their presence felt since 2003 through numerous live gigs, self-released cdr’s and label releases. Talibam! have toured Europe five times since 2006 and will be going back later this year. They have releases on Azul Discografica, Evolving Ear, Pendu Sounds, Ecstatic Peace, Gaffer Records, Blackest Rainbow, and others.

Talibam! Is one of the most potent and fascinating bands in contemporary music. The five years of interplay between Mottel and Shea has created one of the most unique and exciting live shows and some of the most powerfully recorded documents of any era. At a time when most culture sticks to conservative niche opportunities, Talibam! is interested in expansion and exploration; They manage to part the sea by not sticking to genre, aesthetic predisposition or the usual norms of what being a ‘band’ is. More inclined to put on a show that any and all will like, and not be stymied by ‘avant’ type casting, they have won over both unsuspecting and in the ‘know’ audiences worldwide.
Matt Mottel’s visage should be familiar to anyone who’s been going to shows in NYC in the past ten years. He’s been hanging around NYC clubs since he was like 16, and dropping electric mind bombs with his synthesizer in those clubs nearly as long with folks like Awesome Color, Akron/Family, Kenny Wollesen, Chris Corsano, Ras Moshe, Cooper-Moore, Sean Meehan, and his new band Shadow Maps.

Kevin Shea’s drumming and stage gymnastics have been gazed at with wide wonder through his membership in bands like Storm & Stress (Touch & Go), Coptic Light (No Quarter), People (I and Ear), Peter Evans Quartet (Firehouse 12), Sexy Thoughts (rcarchives.com), Mostly Other People Do The Killing (Hot Cup), etc.