ISSUE PROJECT ROOM AND WFMU PRESENT A MONTH OF COLLABORATIVE CONCERTS
Featuring:
Fabio, host of “Strength through Failure” (http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/FR)
Michael Evans/Ken Montgomery Duo
Lary 7 - Projection/performance
Kenta Nagai - solo
Michael Evans is an improvising drummer, percussionist, thereminist and composer whose work investigates and embraces the collision of sound and theatrics. His improvisational methods combine ordered systems with arbitrary choices, creating unique, indelible experiences. He has performed with a wide range of musical talents throughout the world, including Jac Berrocal, EasSide Percussion, Fast Forward (Gobo), God is my Co-Pilot, Alexander Hacke (Einsturzende Neubauten), Gordon Monahan, Joe Morris, Evan Parker, William Parker, and the KBZ 2000. Michael Evans lives and works in the city-across-the-river: Brooklyn, but his spirit hails from somewhere in the outer reaches a distant galaxy. For this program,
Michael Evans will be performing with Ken Montgomery for this rare presentation.
Ken Montgomery is a New York-based visual artist and “noisician” whose involvement in the cassette-culture and mail-art movements of the late seventies led to the creation, in 1989, of the first and arguably still the most important sound art gallery in New York City: Generator. Located first in the East Village and later in Chelsea, Generator’s wide scope and novel approach toward audio art made it a vector-point for some of the most interesting and important artists from around the world. Ken was also the founder of A.T.M.O.T.W. — Art is Throwing Money Out The Window — and Generator Sound Art Inc., and he co-founded the seminal experimental labels
Generations Unlimited and Pogus Productions. As a composer, by the early eighties Ken was creating multi-channel sound works often performed in total darkness. More recently Ken has been focusing on visual art, collage, bookmaking, and international correspondence art. As The Minister of Lamination (a.k.a. Egnekn) he is the world’s foremost practitioner of Lamination Art. Montgomery has collaborated with a wide variety of audio and visual artists including Conrad Schnitzler, David Lee Myers (Arcane Device), Zoe Beloff and Ishtvan Kantor (a.k.a. Monty Cantsin). Currently
Ken is working on a sound installation for the artist Emily Feinstein, as well as three sound works pending release on GD Stereo, Banned Production and Pogus Productions respectively.
Lary 7 is a multimedia alchemist able to coax profane, inscrutable sounds and images from numerous and mysterious devices. His work has been described as that of a magician or scientist — one who may not always be certain of the outcome, but who is determined to see it through to its (il)logical end. Since the late seventies, Lary has been building, soldering, photographing, recording, mixing, filming, playing, collecting, re-interpreting and creating in order to make something happen. He’s the founder of the Analogue Society and co-founder of Plastikville Records and Directart Productions Ltd. Lary has released work on Touch, Diskono, Ectoplasm, Plastikville and Plastiktray records. He has performed in many countries in Europe as well as in the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Seven lives and works in Manhattan’s East Village and is one of the last remaining vestiges of a once-vibrant community. For this presentation, Lary Seven will have an extended and undefined interaction with a film projector.
Kenta Nagai is a sound and visual artist based in New York. He works with acoustic and electronic sound, visual media and live performance. Nagai has appeared on several compilations including Eugene Chadborne’s “Guitar Festival Summer 1999″ album and on two recordings by composer Laura Andel, “Somnambulist” and “In::tension:”. As a performer on the Shamisen, Nagai has appeared in numerous concerts at venues as diverse as the Sculpture Center in Long Island City and Carnegie Hall. He was composer-in-residence at The Cave Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn from 1999 until 2002. In addition to his work as a guitarist, Nagai is involved in creating multimedia, interactive performance and installations while collaborating with a variety of artists. Among these projects is the longstanding collaborative relationship with choreographer Boaz Barkan. More recently, Nagai worked on the silent film “The Water Magician” (1933, directed by Kenji Mizoguchi), working and performing on the score for the presentation at the Japan Society, NYC, and at the Hershhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Kenta will be performing solo for this event.