Rene Hell
As part of the June PAN_ACT festival, ISSUE Project Room and Goethe-Institut New York present Rene Hell, Jeff Witscher’s alter-ego synthesizer project, Chicago-based electroacoustic composer Kevin Drumm, and a duo set by multi-instrumentalist/composers Eli Keszler and Ashley Paul.
Rene Hell is the alter-ego synthesizer-based project of Jeff Witscher, residing temporarily in California. Focused on writing complex patches in digital and analog modes that reference avant-garde electronic forms and classical minimalism, he paints multi-dimensional portraits with a palate both abrasive and soothing. Recent works have seen a shift towards clinical and classical arrangements, maximalist treatments, rather than "kosmische" or retro-sounding mediums. Intent on producing for live experience multi-dimensional, juxtapositions between rapid piano melody, and multi-timberal synthesizer accompaniment; short-lived pieces designed for an almost automated-seeming sensation that hinge between intentionally intelligent and passingly ignorant.
Chicago-based Kevin Drumm emerged from the city’s improvised music scene in the 1990s, becoming one the world’s pre-eminent prepared guitar players. Since 1991 Drumm’s work has expanded to include electroacoustic compositions and live electronic music made with laptop computers and analog modular synthesizers. He has collaborated with many artists working in similar fields, including Japanese guitarist Taku Sugimoto, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jim O’Rourke, and many European improvisers such as Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and German trumpeter Axel Dörner. He has also worked with the artist group Simparch, composing a piece for their installation Spec, shown at Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany and at the Renaissance Society in Chicago. Drumm has also worked with saxophonist Ken Vandermark’s Territory Band, which brings together American and Eurpoean players who work in both jazz and free improvisation. Drumm’s work draws upon musique concrete, electronic sound, improvisation, heavy metal, and noise music, and has proved difficult to categorize. His solo and collaborative work ranges from challenging improvisations, ambient textures, and blistering walls of sound.
Eli Keszler is a composer, artist and multi-instrumentalist based in New York City. In performance, he often plays drums, bowed crotales and guitar in conjunction with his installations. In his ensemble compositions, he uses extended strings, motors, crotales, horns, and mechanical devices to create his sound, balancing intense harmonic formations with acoustic sustain, fast jarring rhythm, mechanical propulsion, dense textures and detailed visual presentations.
Ashley Paul is a performer and composer based in Brooklyn, New York. She uses an array of instruments including saxophone, clarinet, voice, guitar, bells and percussion, mixing disparate elements to create a colorful pallate of sound that works its way into her intuitive songs; free forming, introverted melodies. This blend manifests beautiful and simple musical forms against acoustic experimentation. Her solo albums have received high praise being chosen “Album of the Column” in The Wire, number one on Byron Coley and Thurston Moore’s “Tongue Top Ten” in Arthur Magazine and included on NPR’s All Songs Considered “Best of 2010”. Paul has performed or recorded with Phill Niblock, Loren Connors, Aki Onda, C. Spencer Yeh, Anthony Coleman, Joe Maneri, Joe Morris, Seijiro Murayama, Greg Kelley, Bill Nace and Eli Keszler appearing on such labels as PAN, ESP-DISK’ and Tzadik. She received a Masters of Music from New England Conservatory in 2007.
