Thursday, September 9th at 7:30pm ET, ISSUE is thrilled to open its 2021 Fall season and welcome audiences for the first in-person program after nearly eighteen months of supporting artists through online commissioned projects. Returning to the First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn Heights, ISSUE presents an expansive gathering of alumni from across the organization’s history. Featuring both a “remote” presentation of international artists, as well as an intergenerational cohort of NYC’s underground improvisational community, the program is a celebration of New York’s insurgent, experimental spirit as well as ISSUE reopening in-person concerts in 2021. Join as an ISSUE Project Room Member at any level and receive a free ticket to the performance.
Half of all ticket sales for this performance will be donated to The Cultural Solidarity Fund. In the spirit of coalition and resource sharing, NYC arts and cultural organizations of all sizes and structures continue to come together to grow the joint Cultural Solidarity Fund that provides $500 relief microgrants to NYC artists and cultural workers. For more information please visit culturalsolidarityfund.org.
The program features an installed remote recording of a new never-before-heard piece by the legendary trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke & Oren Ambarchi. While many of the trio’s recent works have seen them focusing primarily on their core guitar/bass/drums power trio format, their recent release on Ambarchi’s Black Truffle imprint shows the three multi-instrumentalists striking into new territory, utilizing an almost entirely electronic set-up, with Haino on electronics, drum machine, and suona (a Chinese double-reed horn), O’Rourke on synth, and Ambarchi on pedal steel and electronics. Still in development, this new piece will feature Haino and Ambarchi on percussion, and O’Rourke on electronics.
The evening also presents saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi—who was a member of the original lineup of Haino’s band Fushitsusha—collaborating with multidisciplinary artist, experimental musician, and 2018 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Julia Santoli. Shiraishi and Santoli have been improvising together over the past 5 years, developing a relationship of attunement through extremes of sound. Most recently at ISSUE, the duo collaborated on Santoli’s commissioned residency work “spirit is matter.”
Santoli will also perform a second piece with sound/visual artist, improviser, performer, and 2021 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Austin Sley Julian. Both Julian and Santoli share a fascination with systematic chaos—grinding through space, welding dense atmospheres of sound and material. This will be their first time playing as a duo.
The lineup also sees a collaborative performance between bagpiper and guitarist David Watson and legendary drummer and electronic percussionist Ikue Mori. Both artists have made significant contributions to the practice of improvised music. In Watson’s words, “This last year I had a lot of time on my hands and so I learnt the classic Pibroch composition, Too Long in This Condition. (Certainly an apt title!). That led to doing a performance of it by the Newtown Creek, nearby where I live. And that led to more thinking again about performing indoors and outdoors, and how to translate between the two. Something that this instrument [bagpipes] is so well suited to.” Watson first recorded with Ikue on the Downtown collective classic “Exquisite Corpses” back in 1989. In the ‘90’s he performed in her group Hex Kitchen. Similarly, she was a frequent guest in his band The Wax, a project with a particularly stellar cast of musicians where he explored how bagpipes might work in an improvisatory context.
ISSUE also presents metal band Manāt, featuring Roxy Farman on vocals with Patrick Pastor (Guitar), Dennis Marcial (Guitar), Talia Curtis (Bass), and Calder Kollmorgen (Drums).
Keiji Haino was born in Chiba, Japan on May 3rd, 1952. Inspired by Antonin Artaud, he aimed to participate in theatre, but an encounter with The Doors stimulated him to pursue music, where he has examined and absorbed a wide range of music—from the early blues (especially Blind Lemon Jefferson), to European medieval music, to popular songs across the world. In 1970 he joined a group “Lost Aaraaf” as a vocalist, named after Edgar Allan Poe’s poem. Meanwhile, he started to work on home recordings and self-taught the guitar and percussion. In 1978 he formed a rock band “Fushitsusha,” and since 1988, after a recuperation period from 1983 to 1987, he has been internationally active in various forms including solo, groups such as Fushitsusha, Nijiumu, Aihiyo, Vajra, Sanhedrin, Seijaku, Nazoranai or The Hardy Rocks and DJ as “experimental mixture,” as well as collaborations with artists from different backgrounds, drawing the performance of the guitar, percussions, the hurdy gurdy, diverse wind and string instruments, local instruments from across the world and DJ gears to the extreme through unique techniques. He has released more than 200 recordings and performed live at least 1,800 times.
Jim O’Rourke has been involved in music and film since the late 80’s, as composer, producer, engineer, and collaborator . He has produced records for Stereolab, Sonic Youth, Wilco, John Fahey, amongst others. His own music has been released by Drag City, Tzadik, Editions Mego, and others. He has scored films for Werner Herzog, Koji Wakamatsu and others. Since 2013 he has released the bulk of his own work on Steamroom.Bandcamp.com
Hailing from Australia, Oren Ambarchi has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists such as Fennesz, Charlemagne Palestine, Sunn 0)), Thomas Brinkmann, Keiji Haino, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Annea Lockwood, Alvin Curran, Loren Connors, Manuel Gottsching/Ash Ra, Merzbow, Jim O'Rourke, Keith Rowe, David Rosenboom, Akio Suzuki, Phill Niblock, John Tilbury, Richard Pinhas, Evan Parker, crys cole, Fire! and many more. He has released numerous recordings for labels such as Touch, Editions Mego, Drag City, PAN, Southern Lord, Kranky and Tzadik. His acclaimed trio with Keiji Haino and Jim O'Rourke performs in Tokyo annually with many of their concerts documented on Ambarchi's Black Truffle label. Ambarchi's latest release is Simian Angel (Editions Mego) and it features the legendary Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista.
A founding member of the legendary noise unit Fushitsusha, saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi has had a storied career performing alongside some of the most significant contemporary musicians. In the USA, he has performed with Crash Worship, No Neck Blues Band and many more. He currently performs in subway stations at night.
Julia Santoli is a multi-disciplinary artist and experimental musician. Creating immersive and precarious environments with voice, feedback, electronics, psycho-acoustics, and installation, her work melds collaborative, site-specific sonic approaches with song structures. Her approach to vocalization integrates embodied practice with an attention to close listening and empathetic response, in compositions and structured improvisations often tipping the scales between resonant clarity and extreme sonic states. She was a 2019 Music Resident at Pioneer Works, 2019 Asian Cultural Council grantee to Japan researching sound art and spatial practices, and a 2018 Artist in Residence at ISSUE Project Room. Solo works and collaborations have been presented at many institutions, DIY spaces, and guerilla performances. She is one half of liil, alongside cellist Leila Bordreuil.
Austin Sley Julian is a visual and sound artist, improviser, and performer born in Brooklyn, NY. Julian has worked in many visual and aural media, making countless pieces through the years, touring nationally with several music projects that he has founded, namely Sediment club, Sunk Heaven, and Signal Break. Using prepared guitar, handmade instruments, discarded artifacts and debris, Austin Sley Julian creates moving, physically jagged, harsh gestures that hurl at their audiences. Through these kinetic sounds and sculptures Julian strives to convey a physically unstable energy in his work that reflects the technological society in which it was created. In Julian’s work, structures are constructing and deconstructing in the same gesture. Sounds float and sink in the same note. Image is viscerally close and encompassing, all in the same moment. Julian’s work shows an attraction to the aesthetic that is created by this dichotomy between rhythm, structure, and total collapse. His work strives to keep the audience in a constant conflict between these polar extremes. Austin Sley Julian as an artist is aiming to evoke feelings of anguish, frustration, and inherent conflict to confront the ugly instability of this condition with realism and “pessimistic optimism.”
David Watson has been an integral figure in New York’s downtown scene since the 1980’s as a guitarist, an experimental bagpiper and as a music series organizer. He has scored films, made dance scores, created experimental works for traditional pipe bands, and started a record label (Braille Records). He has worked with Chris Abrahams, Robert Ashley, Tony Buck, Che Chen, Tom Chiu, Alastair Galbraith, Frode Gjerstad, Shelley Hirsch, Samara Lubelski, Chris Mann, Christian Marclay, Ikue Mori, Phill Niblock, Andrea Parkins, Zeena Parkins, Lee Ranaldo (in the trio Glacial), Talibam!, Yoshi Wada, Alex Waterman, Matthew Welch, John Zorn, and many others.
Ikue Mori began playing drums and joined the band DNA soon after arriving in New York in 1977. By the mid 80’s she started playing drum machines and became involved in the downtown improvisational community. Since then she has collaborated with numerous musicians and artists throughout the US, Europe, and Asia, while continuing to produce and record her own music. Ikue won the Distinctive Award for Prix Arts Electronics Digital Music category in 1999. Shortly after, she started using a laptop computer to expand her vocabulary - not only to play sounds but to create and control visual works as well. Various collaborations include work with John Zorn, Craig Taborn, Joan Jonas, Zeena Parkins, Sylvie Courvoisier, and Kim Gordon.
Manāt is an extreme metal band from New York City.
