Bocian Showcase: Paal Nilssen-Love / James Rushford & Joe Talia / Kapital

Sun 06 Apr, 2014, 6pm
($15 - 12) All-Access

Unsound Festival New York closes at ISSUE Project Room with a triple-bill highlighting artists of the Warsaw, Poland-based experimental label Bocian Records. The commanding avant-garde Polish duo Kaptial bring together the two disparate musical worlds of electro-acoustic music and extreme psychedelic guitar. Melbourne-based performers James Rushford and Joe Talia perform duo, a longstanding collaboration whose most recent works explore a unique palette of submerged synthesizers, expiring drum machines and domestic detritus. The much-admired and acclaimed master Norwegian free-jazz drummer Paal Nilssen-Love performs solo.



Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love has established himself on the international scene as a powerful drummer with high energy and creativity. In 2002 he was "Artist in Residence" at Molde International Jazz Festival, a title Chick Corea and Pat Metheny held in previous years. After 7 days and 9 concerts at the festival, Down Beat stated, "His week at Molde proved a revelation: Nilssen-Love is one of the most innovative, dynamic and versatile drummers in jazz." Among many groups and ensembles Nilssen-Love performs with Mats Gustafsson and Ingebrigt Håker Flaten in the trio The Thing, with the Scandinavian free jazz supergroup Atomic, and with Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet.



James Rushford is a composer, pianist, violist and improviser engaging electro-acoustic media and experimental forms. Ensemble commissions have included the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Neon and Decibel, and he has featured in the Oslo Ultima Festival, and the Now Now Festival among others. Regular collaborators include Jon Rose, Oren Ambarchi, Ned Collette, Francis Plagne and Joe Talia. His music and performances have been published by Cajid Media, Pogus, Sabbatical, Touch, Prisma, Mego, Bocian and Kye.

Joe Talia is a drummer, percussionist and electro-acoustic performer. He is active as a member of the Andrea Keller Quartet and in many collaborative projects, including a long-term duo with Oren Ambarchi. Talia also works in the realm of electro-acoustic composition and performance, working with reel-to-reel tape machines and other analogue devices. He has performed, recorded and toured with Jim O'Rourke, Anthony Pateras, Boredoms, Mary Halvorson, and Marco Fusinato, among many others.


Kapital is a duo of Polish artists Kuba Ziołek and Rafał Iwański, generating psychoactive electro-acoustic music with electronic instruments and found objects, and extreme psychedelia based on the sounds of processed guitar. Their debut album "No New Age" will be released by Bocian Records in March 2014. Kuba Ziołek is known solo as Stara Rzeka, using processed sounds of electric guitar and electronics in the spirit of noise, drone and psychedelic music. His debut album titled "Cień chmury nad ukrytym polem" released in the spring of 2013. He has performed in groups including Alameda 3, Innercity Ensemble, T'ien Lai, Hokei and Ed Wood. Rafał Iwański is a sound artist, a percussionist, a curator and ethnologist who performs solo as X-Navi:Et. He creates electro-acoustic music combining sounds of electronic devices with acoustic instruments and found/field recordings. He is a co-founder of musical group Hati combining ritual-meditative and improvised music. He is also a member of such groups as Voices of the Cosmos, PRSZR, Innercity Ensemble and audio-visual project Aqualuna.

Photo: Joe Talia and James Rushford by Unremarkable Garden.

Unsound Festival New York is presented by: Fundacja Tone and the Polish Cultural Institute New York, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Production Partner: ISSUE Project Room.

In co-operation with: TMU (Trust for Mutual Understanding), City of Krakow, Krakow Festival Office, The Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York, Goethe-Institute New York, Electronic Music Foundation, the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, BAMcinématek, The Bunker, Mutual Dreaming, Experimental Intermedia and SubPac.