Formed in NYC in 1993, the improvising collective No-Neck Blues Band (NNCK) favors anonymity, autonomy, and obfuscation. Alongside founding member Keith Connolly (2016 AIR), they return to open ISSUE’s Fall season at First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn.
ISSUE presents the first commission from Eden Girma (2026 AIR). Part dreamscape and part summoning circle, an intimate diasporic familial archive is pieced together through the eyes of a five-year-old child.
In partnership with Franklin Furnace as part of their 50th anniversary commemoration and November release of "Back to the Present: 50 Years of Free Expression with Franklin Furnace" ISSUE presents an evening of performance and conversation.
Incorporating elements of noise, trance and minimalism, Sergei Tcherepnin (2012 AIR) presents new work for Serge Modular synthesizer.
Catherine Christer Hennix appears alongside her Berlin-based just intonation ensemble Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage as part of Ultima. In their first-ever US performance the group premieres Blues Alif Lam MimM, intended to reveal the blues' origins in the eastern musical traditions of raga and maqam musics.
ISSUE and WSB100 present a celebration of the legacy of William S. Burroughs during the 100th anniversary of the writer's birth. Actor, director, and writer Steve Buscemi and composer/multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp collaborate, creating a collage of sound and words from texts by William Burroughs.
The US Premiere of Evan Calder Williams' film "Violent X" features a live improvised soundtrack by Tokyo-based Taku Unami with Williams, joining a work of pulp and radical history to early instances of cinema narration and accompaniment. In a second set, Unami collaborates with Eugene Thacker and Jarrod Fowler.
ISSUE & Antholgy team up for an eclectic/electric evening with Jason Lescalleet, one of America’s most dedicated sound artists. Lescalleet commissioned 13 artists to create videos for the 13 tracks on the first disc of "Songs About Nothing", tonight features the audio-visual album plus shorts by collaborators.
Leftfield British electronics producer Mark Fell presents a tonal mix of extended duration including new and unreleased works by himself as well as references to the various traditions that have informed his practice, establishing a dialogue between techno, the American minimalists and tonal spectralism.
Tomutonttu AKA Finnish sound artist Jan Anderzén (Kemialliset Ystävät) returns to ISSUE for a rare US show— an ecstatic combination of reed streams, mutilated voices, groovy animal noises. Italian free jazz combo Jooklo Duo collaborate with guitarist Bill Nace, best known as half of Body/Head.
David Grubbs reads from "Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording", his long-awaited study of the role of sound recordings in representing experimental music of the 1960s. Grubbs is joined in discussion by a "jukebox jury" including Branden W. Joseph, Lisa Kahlden, and Marina Rosenfeld.
