In conjunction with Erstwhile Records, Fridman Gallery and Shared Shapes, ISSUE Project Room presents AMPLIFY 2015: exploratory. Spanning three evenings Oct 30-Nov 1, the ninth edition of this international series features three duo combinations each night. This second installment sees first time duo performances by Michael Pisaro with Ben Owen, and Graham Lambkin with Taku Unami. Olivia Block and Jason Lescalleet present a collaborative composition for inside grand piano, amplified objects and real-time processing.
Michael Pisaro (born 1961 in Buffalo, New York) is a guitarist and composer. A member of the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble, he has composed works for a great variety of instrumental combinations. Since 2010 portrait concerts of his music have been given in London, Paris, New York, Santiago, Tel Aviv, St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Oxford, Glasgow, Moscow, Chicago, Munich, Huddersfield, Madrid, Brussels, Montpelier, Boston, Berlin, Houston, Düsseldorf, Trondheim, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Nantes, Mexico City, Seattle, Linz, San Diego and elsewhere. Recordings of his work (solo and collaborative) have been released by Edition Wandelweiser Records, erstwhile records, New World Records, another timbre, slubmusic, Cathnor, Senufo Editions, winds measure, HEM Berlin and on Pisaro's own imprint, Gravity Wave. Before joining the composition faculty at the California Institute of the Arts (where he is located presently), he taught music composition and theory at Northwestern University from 1986 to 2000. In 2005/6 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. He was Fromm Foundation Visiting Professor of Music Composition in the Department of Music at Harvard in the fall of 2014.
Ben Owen works with sound, recording, light, projections and print. Early sound experiments began with cassettes and live radio, in tandem with stone lithography printmaking and photographic slide projections. His process of lithographic printing is balanced by the intended preservation and natural degradation of marks. He finds complimentary inherent similarities between the cycles of inking, mark making through drawing on printing stones and amplified auditory marks. He is interested in the relationship between the spacial aspects of existing sound fields, intervened environments and the projection and reflection of light. Locations are an active and physical palette, much like an improvisational setting where control is relinquished. Through mark making, and an attention to instability he continues the practice of listening and response.
Graham Lambkin (b. 1973 in Dover, England) is a multidisciplinary artist, currently based in Upstate New York, who first came to prominence in the early 90’s through the formation of his music group The Shadow Ring. Combining a D.I.Y. postpunk ethic with folk music, cracked electronics, and surreal wordplay, The Shadow Ring created a unique hybrid sound that set them apart from their peers and continues to show as an influence today.
Following the dissolution of The Shadow Ring Lambkin embarked on a series of striking and highly original solo releases, including ‘Salmon Run’ (2007) and ‘Amateur Doubles’ (2012), a critically acclaimed trilogy with experimental tape musician Jason Lescalleet: ’The Breadwinner’ (2007), ‘Air Supply’ (2010) and ‘Photographs’ (2013), and ‘Making A’ (2013) a collaboration with legendary tabletop guitarist and founding member of AMM, Keith Rowe. His latest release, 'Schwarze Riesenfalter' sees Lambkin paired with renowed Wandelweiser composer Michael Pisaro in a musical reimagining for the texts of Georg Trakl.
Taku Unami: Performer of multi-instrumental, improvised, or unclassifiable (non-)music. Composer of film scores for directors including Isao Okishima and Takeshi Furusawa. Founder of hibari music, an experimental music record label and distributor. Work influenced by cosmic-pessimism, science-fiction, supernatural-horror, and weird-fiction. Proficient in string instruments, piano, synthesizers, recording hardware and software, and “obfuscated everyday, non-musical objects”. Collaborators include Evan Calder Williams, Rhodri Davies, Masafumi Ezaki, Klaus Filip, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Kazushige Kinoshita, Radu Malfatti, Masahiko Okura, Keith Rowe, Eugene Thacker, Nikos Veliotis, Taku Sugimoto … Recorded or mastered numerous records for labels such as Erstwhile Records, skiti, slub music … Published more than 30 solo or collaborative records and performed in Asia, Europe, Middle East, and United States.
Olivia Block creates original sound compositions for concerts, site-specific multi-speaker installations, live cinema, and performance. Her compositions include field recordings, chamber instruments and electronic textures. In addition to her recorded and solo performance pieces, she creates scores for large ensemble, string quartet, and orchestra. Her solo performances include partially improvised pieces for inside piano, electronics, and amplified objects. Block has performed, premiered and exhibited her work throughout Europe, America, and Japan in tours in festivals including Incubate (Tilburg), Festival del Bosque Germinal (Mexico City), Sonic Light (Amsterdam), Kontraste (Krems), Dissonanze (Rome), Archipel (Geneva) Angelica (Bologna), Sunoni per il Popolo (Montreal), and many others. Additionally, she has presented work at the ICA (London), MCA (Chicago), La Biennale di Venezia 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music, and The Kitchen, Experimental Intermedia and ISSUE Project Room (NYC).
Since establishing himself as a preeminent voice in contemporary electro-acoustic study, Jason Lescalleet has, through his solo work and in collaboration, exploded the notion of what is possible within the realm of tape-based music. His recorded catalog acknowledges a diversity of application, from lo-fi reel-to-reel soundscaping and work for hand-held cassette machines, on through to digital sampling and computer generated composition. Lescalleet's live actions further expand his ouevre to include work with video, dance, performance art and multi-media concerns.
