Touch ensemble at Experimental Intermedia

Sun 16 Sep, 2012, 8pm
Experimental Intermedia: 224 Centre Street, 3rd floor, NYC

Featuring: Marcus Davidson, Philip Jeck, Dave Knapik, Lary 7, Ken Montgomery, JG.Thirlwell and very special guest The Enchantress of Bioluminosity & others... Conducted by Mike Harding

JG Thirlwell is a composer/producer/performer based in Brooklyn NY. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, where he studied art at Melbourne State College for two years before moving to London in 1978. After working with experimental group Nurse With Wound, Thirlwell started making his own records in 1980, initially releasing them on his own  “Self Immolation” label. Thirlwell’s discography is extensive under many pseudonyms including Foetus, Steroid Maximus, Manorexia, Baby Zizanie, Wiseblood, Clint Ruin and others. If there is a common thread to his varied musical styles, it is dramatic intensity and evocative, cinematic quality. Thirlwell’s oeuvre stretches the gamut from orchestrations, big band, cathartic noise-rock to abstract electronics and sound sculpture, chamber music, serial music and imaginary soundtracks – sometimes all in the same album. Thirlwell is also a member of the “freq_out” sound-art collective, who create on-site sound and light installations led by curator Carl Michael Von Hausswolf. In addition, Thirlwell scores “The Venture Brothers”, a hit cartoon show on Adult Swim/Cartoon Network.

Philip Jeck works with old records and record players salvaged from junk shops turning them to his own purposes. He really does play them as musical instruments, creating an intensely personal language that evolves with each added part of a record. Philip Jeck makes geniunely moving and transfixing music, where we hear the art not the gimmick. Jeck studied visual art at Dartington College of Arts. He started working with record players and electronics in the early '80's and has made soundtracks and toured with many dance and theatre companies as well as his solo concert work. Perhaps his best kown work is "Vinyl Requiem" (with Lol Sargent): a performance for 180 '50's/'60's record players won Time Out Performance Award for 1993. He has also over the last few years returned to visual art making installations using from 6 to 80 record players including "Off The Record" for Sonic Boom at The Hayward Gallery, London [2000]. In 2010 Philip won The Paul Hamlyn Foundation Composers Award.

For 30 years Ken Montgomery has used sound as the primary source material in his artwork and performances. Montgomery finds novel ways to work with sound and the experience of listening. He has created an audio-only CD-ROM (Inner Eye / Outer Ear), a record label for experimental music (Generations Unlimited), the first sound art gallery in NYC (Generator), and a Ministry devoted to conducting one-on-one listening rituals (The Ministry of Lamination). Since 1985 he has performed multi- channel sound concerts in intimate settings, often in total darkness. Montgomery used analog synthesizers to create soundtracks for non- existent films beginning in 1979. In the early 80s Montgomery produced and traded sound art cassettes through what became known as the International Cassette Network. He has presented his sound work in Europe, Canada and the U.S. In New York his sound work has been heard at MOMA,The Whitney Museum, The Stone, P.S. 1, The Kitchen, Harvestworks, White Columns, Rotunda Gallery, Issue Project Room, Pierogi 2000, Experimental Intermedia, P.S. 122, Roulette, Lotus Music & Dance, Gargoyle Mechanique, and The Pyramid Club. Montgomery received a Sound ArtFellowship from Media Alliance and The Jerome Foundation in 2000, and in 2003 he was awarded NYFA Fellowship in Computer Arts. He was awarded Artist Residences at Harvestworks in 1991 and at Spritzenhaus (Hamburg, Germany)in 1999. In 2008 Montgomery was invited to each Sound Art and New Media at the University of Cincinnati – College of DAAP.

Marcus Davidson was a chorister at Worcester Cathedral. He read Music at Birmingham University, studying composition with Vic Hoyland, and later received a master’s degree in composition at City University, London, studying with Rhian Samuel. Marcus has worked particularly in the fields of music for dance and music-comedy, arranging and writing for stage, radio, video and television. He specializes in playing for Ballet and Contemporary Dance at London professional schools, and is a member of Spire, the Organ based project by Touch. Spire has performed at the Hardingtonar Festival 2008, York Minster in 2007, the Festival of Holland 2006, the Fuse Leeds 2006 contemporary music festival, the Gas Festival 2005 in Stockholm, La Batie Festival 2004 in Geneva, Spitalfields, London 2012 and on BBC Radio 3.

Lary 7 is a co-founder of Plastickville Records and is a major figure in the New York experimental music underground. He has worked with Jarboe and Jimi Tenor, and has appeared on releases from Touch. He succeeded in upstaging Arto Lindsay at their 2003 concert at the Barbican Theatre in London, by getting the most jeers for his ground-breaking style of irritainment.

Mike Harding is a curator, producer, lecturer, publisher, author and editor.  He also occasionally participates in exhibitions, installations and performances.  Harding has run the audio-visual label Touch for 30 years and in this period has acquired much experience and information on disseminating cultural sounds to a wider audience. Harding also runs the label Ash International (since 1995) and computer music label OR (with Russell Haswell since 1998).  Harding is the UK ambassador of Elgaland-Vargaland [KREV], and a member of freq_out and THE FREQ_OUT ORCHESTRA.