Title tk + Architeuthis Walks on Land

Sat 11 Feb, 2012, 8pm

Title TK (Howie Chen, Cory Arcangel and Alan Licht) is a banter-prone band that has been described as ‘a cross between David Antin and Spinal Tap.’

Sawing, sputtering, gurgling and wailing, Architeuthis Walks on Land is every bit the displaced and terrifying cephalopod that the name suggests. The viola and bassoon are two instruments rarely associated with free improvisation and noise; yet on Natura Naturans Amy Cimini and Katherine Young rip it up with particular aplomb, weaving disjunct lines, constructing chaotic sound masses and raising towering monoliths. Crafting their improvised materials into tight structures, the eight tracks on Natura capture the compositional, timbral and expressive breadth of this uncommon coupling: from divergently soloistic to profoundly intertwined playing, from a slowly unfolding intimacy to a jagged and kinetic style. Cimini and Young lunge and flutter through their materials with the intuition and energy of constant discovery.

Violist Amy Cimini and bassoonist Katherine Young have been performing together as Architeuthis Walks on Land since 2003, drawing on their mutual interests in free music, rock, and contemporary classical music. The duo developed their early style within Chicago’s experimental music community, relocating to New York in 2008. They have collaborated with artists such as Anthony Braxton, Peter Evans, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Adam Sonderberg, Jessica Pavone, Jason Ajemian and Hans Joachim Irmler from Faust. Known for a charismatic stage presence and aggressive playing styles, Cimini and Young are equally at home in rock clubs and concert halls, and they maintain busy performing schedules in New York, Chicago and beyond.

Chamber Music Month is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.