Zun Zun Egui

Zun Zun Egui conjure up bona fide rebel music that is full of body, raw in spirit and totally free of precedent. A heavy, heavy dance band, they fire up mighty, eternal grooves worthy of some dust-caked Lagos street jam, but don’t just settle for that: tropical melodies, thrilling stop-start time switches, scorching psychedelics and robust underground rock flourishes are gathered up as the momentum swells towards frenzied, ecstatic finales. East African guitar practice is inflamed by multi-lingual incantations (in French, English, Creole, Japanese…), sinuous prog gets a big bass undertow. It’s roll and roll, a rainbow blaze of rhythm and sound that pulls both the rockers and the writhers into its heart.

Zun Zun release their first EP ‘Bal La Poussiere’ on Blank Tapes (home of Bass Clef, Scatter, Thee Stranded Horse) as a limited edition 12″. The title is a Mauritian saying loosely translated as ‘the best dancer raises more dust from the floor…’

Borne of Bristol, England (where Zun Zun Egui met and unhatched), this is music that has seen rare corners and a genuinely unique cross-range of cultures. Frontman and guitarist Kushal Gaya grew up off the coast of Madagascar, one foot in Reunion Island, the other on the adjacent isle of Mauritius. Life on Reunion made a particularly telling mark, as the teenage Kushal was awakened to the music of traditional ceremonies performing in honour of local ancestry – proud Creole customs that had been demonised by French colonial influence in the sixties. It took small and enterprising groups of Kushal’s young adult peers to find the courage to reclaim these folk traditions for what they were: in a weird parallel with the “rebellious” subcultures of western youth, Kushal would have to sneak off to such gatherings without his mother and father’s blessing. “The colonialists had fed my parents’ generation the idea that these services were devil-worshipping rituals”, he explains, “when in fact they were a really important part of Creole culture and identity – and the music you’d hear at them reflected the social mix on the island, this unique form of blues played with African rhythms and Indian melodies.”

Migrating to Nottingham in 2000 to live the English student life, Kush found himself reveling in a very different kind of subcullture: devouring a reputed 50 albums a month, he majored on the keystones of leftfield American rock such as Touch & Go Records and The Jesus Lizard, and wound up fronting a chaotic psycho-punk-blues group known for unhinged, exhibitionist live performance inspired by rock/art freaks like GG Allen and Delta blues legend Son House.

It was upon relocating to Bristol in 2005 that Kush started to crave a music which, whilst retaining the loose ‘n’ wild streak of his recent musical history, played down the wilful provocation in favour of a different intensity – something more joyful, groove-led, and in tune with the tropical blues scales and skipping, reverential rhythms Reunion and Mauritius had ingrained within him. He found a perfect foil in Yoshino Shigara, a Japanese animator, visual artist, and inventive keyboardist he met through a local jam band, whose soulful, explosively technicolour art seemed to paint the music of Zun Zun Egui before the band had even come to be (Yoshino is now responsible for all the band’s visual elements). After some early tinkerings, a permanent, all-English rhythm section was found in bassist Luke Mosse and drummer Matt Jones – suitable wide-minded students of beat and metre both, who swiftly became compositional partners in the Zun Zun democracy. It’s then the alchemy really started fizzing…

So far the band have been busy playing with all sorts of acts at all kinds of shows, from underground bunker busters with Whitehouse, Flower-Corsano Duo, and Peeesseye to larger gigs with the likes of David Byrne (at The Royal Festival Hall), Antibalas (at The Barbican), Hypnotic Ensemble and A Hawk and A Hacksaw, as well as ecstatically received appearances at Green Man and End of The Road festivals. They recently toured the UK with Fuck Buttons and were hand-picked by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow to play Invada Invasion at Bristol’s Colston Hall. Meanwhile the band hone their room-wrecking jamboree sound on home turf, as resident band at the club night they run in Bristol called ‘How Come…’

Instrumentation
Kushal Gaya: guitar/vocals
Luke Mosse: bass
Yoshion Shigara: keyboards
Matt Jones: drums/percussion

photo: Fumie Ishii

Gary War Human Teenager

Human Teenager is Greg Dalton (Gary War) and Taylor Richardson (Infinity Window, Prehistoric Blackout, Purple Haze).

Human Teenager’s Cyclical Plan (Edition)
-Core Prophecy II:            _______________________
-Kawaii Quantum Apologizer:
Applied By : _____________
*Phil Pfizer (Rep for dramaumentaria )- Enthusiast Arpeggiator, Thrown-Chair Pedal
*Robert Taylor Richardson (of Nights and Prehistoric Eulogy)- Adding Machine, Various Secretions
A
N    t                      the gig            for gigs
D                                                             _______________    much more, taped stuff
Various mirages susceptiblity to Private transmissionsy i.e. creation of cardboard chemical- organ hybrids + blue technologies…
W      hen
E.        sta                                                      Fantasie
rriba                                                                                      guey
rr rack mound
xit                             waygone_______________________                               racial(ling) (tings)

D.                                                                 O.                                                         D.
E                                                                          same________        all                                                     out            now
A                                                                                           ways                                            no
D                                                                                                                     ay
YOU?                                  once                                                    only                ____________________
————————————————–>  \
I’m Sorry. Applied By sorry : __________

ISSUE PROJECT ROOM ANNOUNCES ITS FIRST PUBLIC CONCERT @ 110 LIVINGSTON

11AM Welcome Reception
11:30AM-5:30PM Concert
FREE

Pre-Renovation Candlelit Performance
of Morton Feldman’s Second String Quartet by Ne(x)tworks

On Sunday, April 11 the public will have a chance to attend a rare performance of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2 in its entirety when ISSUE Project Room opens its doors at 110 Livingston St. for a pre-renovation, inaugural Open House event. Performed by Ne(x)tworks, the six hour-long contemporary masterpiece will be free to the public, commemorating ISSUE’s first concert in their future Downtown Brooklyn home.

String Quartet No. 2 has been performed in its entirety only a few times, the first being in 1999 by the FLUX Quartet at Greenwich Village’s Cooper Union. The Ne(x)tworks quartet (which includes Cornelius Dufallo and Kenji Bunch, formerly of FLUX) will play the entire piece by candlelight in the cloistered hall while audience members are invited to stay for as long as little as they like. The beauty of candlelight is also a necessity as the space is still raw, in need of renovation and lighting.

“Ne(x)tworks is thrilled to present Feldman’s masterful Second String Quartet at ISSUE Project Room as our artistic endorsement of their fabulous new concert venue [at 110 Livingston],” says Ne(x)tworks’ Director, Cornelius Dufallo. “The musical community of New York City has been eagerly awaiting the opening of this performance space.”

Called his “most extreme” composition, Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2 (1983) is a collective paragon encompassing Feldman’s signature free rhythms, muted pitches, quiet and slowly unfolding music, and his experiments with duration.

“The focus at the time [of the premiere in 1999] seemed to be on how we were going to play for six hours without stopping,” Dufallo reflects. “As we immersed ourselves in the music, however, this began to change: we found that duration is by no means the most interesting aspect of this work. The ‘athleticism’ became more of a secondary concern to us. In this work, duration acts as a canvas, on which Feldman paints a stunningly beautiful encomium to the eternal marriage of sound and time. The piece must exist on a large scale in order to portray this relationship.”

In 2008 ISSUE Project Room won the bid for a 20-year, rent-free lease to occupy the landmark theatre at 110 Livingston St., an architecturally significant (McKim, Mead & White, 1926) and stunningly beautiful 4800 square foot performance space located in the former New York City Dept. of Education headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn. Once renovated, this space will offer opportunities to increase ISSUE’s audience, implement new programs and advance Brooklyn’s place as a cultural epicenter.

While this is an extraordinary opportunity, it is also an enormous challenge. ISSUE must still raise well over half a million dollars towards the $2.5 M needed for basic renovations. We hope that the community will join ISSUE on this amazing journey toward building a world-class center for experimental culture.

ISSUE Project Room’s Inaugural Concert @ 110 Livingston
Ne(x)tworks Performs Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2
April 11, 2010
FREE
Reception: 11 am
Performance: 11:30 am – 5:30 pm
110 Livingston St. (Entrance on Boerum Place)
Brooklyn, NY  11201

Suzanne Fiol, May 9, 1960 – October 5, 2009

Dear friends,

It is with great heartbreak and sorrow that ISSUE Project Room announces the passing of our founder, artistic director, and driving force, Suzanne Fiol. Born on May 9, 1960, Suzanne died at 1:05 pm on Monday, October 5, 2009, after fighting a courageous and inspiring battle against cancer. Suzanne passed peacefully surrounded by loved ones at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Our hearts go out to her daughter Sarah, her sister Nancy, and her parents Lawrence and Arlene Perlstein and her partner Anthony Coleman.

Anyone who has met Suzanne knows that she devoted her life to creating and sustaining a space where artists — acclaimed and emerging, local and international — could develop and perform new, challenging, and exciting works. Regardless of the different venues we’ve inhabited since our inception in 2003, ISSUE has always been Suzanne’s labor of love, a space that housed and reflected her restless intellect, fiery spirit, and great heart. She would often jokingly refer to herself as “Mama Issue,” a fitting moniker considering the unconditional love she unabashedly showed her friends, family, artists and the steadily growing audiences that have been coming to ISSUE over the years.

We are grief-stricken by Suzanne’s passing, yet inspired by her vision and strength, and will devote ourselves to fulfilling her vision with the strength we draw from our memories of her. Programming will continue this week in honor of Suzanne, and we welcome you all to come to ISSUE and share your memories.

A memorial is currently being planned.
Please stay tuned for information on its time, date and location.

(photos by Joe Holmes)

07/12/2009 02:37 PM