Sagittarius A-Star U-Nite

Fri 22 Apr, 2011, 8pm

Sagittarius A-Star is the new incarnation of the legendary Italian label Qbico.  Qbico specialized in limited edition, hand-painted vinyls releases, ranging from free jazz to Japanese psychedelia, free-folk, and electronic improvisation. The special aesthetic of the colored vinyls and the limited edition cover art are testaments to the dedication and skill that goes into each of Sagitarraus A Records.

The Second Family Band is a collective of musicians based in Madison, Wisconsin. Formed in 2002, the group was created to provide an open and improvisational environment for local musicians. The band has been influential in the explosion of the Free Folk movement that developed in the U.S. throughout the early 2000s. Their musical style encompasses a variety of influences including free jazz, Indian raga, krautrock, bluegrass, psychedelic rock, and experimental avant-garde music. Inevitably, their instrumentation is also eclectic in taste, involving percussion, Moog & ARP synthesizers, piano, organ, violin, flute, home-made electronics, sound sculpture, field recordings of natural environments, vocal chants, guitars, sitar, banjo, sticks, rocks, stones, and anything else that can be found in the surroundings of each musical ritual.

Trulofa Trio is a Danish improvisational free folk/free jazz band consisting of members Nikolai Brix Vartenberg, Jon Dræby Nielsen, and Magnus Olsen Majmon. The trio is dedicated to playing music that encapsulates the intensity of the “now,” in tandem with the repetitive energy of a transcendental pulse tinged with free jazzy tribal outblows. They use both Western and non-Western reeds, drums, strings (Arabian Ney), saxophones, recorders, the Persian Daf, a conventional drum set, cello, middle-eastern Zurnai, the Chinese Erhu, and flute. The group has an upcoming LP release through the Italian label, Qbico.

Matt "MV" Valentine: Guitarist, bantar-ist, singer, writer currently active as one half of "MV & EE". First outing as leader "Ego Synchronicity Music", released on Audible Hiss 1997. Followed by "Glorious Group Therapy" on cassette under sobriquet "Matthew Dell", reissued on LP under real name by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley's Ecstatic Yod. Throughout the 1st decade of the 21st century 3 LP's released in Italy only as leader, "Space Shanties", "Creek To Creation", "Pulsations", on the Fringes and Qbico labels respectively. A founder of the Tower Recordings and the Superlux imprint. Prior to that blackened teeth with label Part Trance Records and various other cut out bins. Since 1999 has run "The Child Of Microtones Terran Library Of Exploratory Music". Child Of Microtones - COM - as it is affectionately called, and its subsidiary Heroine Celestial Agriculture, releasing limited edition ephemera of the highest and lowest quality form.

The Sagittarius A-Star show will feature accompaniment from The Aquarian Foundation (Erika Elder, Ron Schneiderman and Willie Lane) who will be performing "Environments."