YATTA, the performative guise of Sierra Leonean-American musician Yatta Zoker, performs at ISSUE's 2017 fall season opening. Her recently released debut EP Spirit Said Yes!, reissued on NYC imprint PTP, mixes sounds inspired by shamanism, jazz, and drone toward meditative and unsettling ends.
Media
ISSUE has a significant archive of performance documentation that represents both an important link to the past, and a future resource for artists and audiences. ISSUE’s public media archive is a consistently updated and freely accessible collection of video and audio documentation from recent and past ISSUE performances. Currently, ISSUE is in the process of digitizing historical documentation from its former homes at The Old American Can Factory and silo space in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Regular updates feature newly published materials within ISSUE’s constantly expanding performance history.
Bergsonist at First Unitarian
Brooklyn-based, Moroccan-born Selwa Abd uses the fictional character Bergsonist (derived from Gilles Deleuze’s Bergsonism) as her musical guise. For this performance, she has written a sonic ode to the decaying Internet.
World Listening Day 2017: Listening To The Ground with Stephan Moore, Scott Smallwood & Suzanne Thorpe
Stephan Moore, Scott Smallwood and Suzanne Thorpe present new work as a part of World Listening Day, which pays homage to the experimental legacy of Pauline Oliveros. Together, these artists “sound out” the sonic qualities of ISSUE’s historic McKim, Mead and White Theater at 22 Boerum Place using Paul Geluso’s 3D Sound Object invention.
Sadaf
Sadaf H Nava draws on global influences such as traditional middle eastern instrumentation and vocal technique, free jazz noise violin, deconstructed Dembow and Reggaeton beats, and digital hardcore tendencies, to develop and unconventional palette unraveling within a "post-dj era soap opera."
Toxic City Music: Evan Caminiti & Paul Clipson
New York artist Evan Caminiti and San-Francisco-based filmmaker Paul Clipson present an audiovisual collaboration drawing from Caminiti’s most recent album Toxic City Music (Dust Editions 2017) as well as Clipson’s recent 16mm impressions of the “charged metabolism” of city life.
James Fei, Kato Hideki, Sean Meehan
Thursday, June 15th, ISSUE presents the debut trio performance between Fei, Kato and and veteran NYC percussionist Sean Meehan.. Their practice is described by The Wire as “no casual knob twiddling -- [with] Kato’s sense of timing as dramatic as it was with Ikue Mori and Fred Frith in their storied trio group Death Ambient, and Fei approaching the business of making music with deadly earnestness.”
Peter Brötzmann & Heather Leigh Duo
ISSUE presents Peter Brötzmann and Heather Leigh -- two fearless musicians capable of extreme dynamics and subtleties. Together they bring countless decades of experience at the cutting edge of speed-of-thought improvisation and deep lyrical soul, furthering their work into an "unrelenting, caterwauling hate-bomb."
Ken Vandermark & Nate Wooley
ISSUE presents jazz leaders Ken Vandermark & Nate Wooley in duo performance, returning together to 22 Boerum for the first time since ISSUE’s 10 Years Alive On The Infinite Plane in 2013.
Ka Baird: Espylacopa (A Reversal in Three Acts)
For her ISSUE debut, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ka Baird presents Espylacopa (A Reversal In Three Acts), an interdisciplinary collaborative work that incorporates organic and processed sounds, human voice, projected and ambient lighting with performance art, sculpture and movement.
Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste & LaMont Hamilton: Evil Nigger Part IV for Julius Eastman
Artist, designer and composer Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste opens his ISSUE residency with a collaboration with LaMont Hamilton on Saturday, May 6, 2017. The performance is the collaborative duo’s fourth performance around Julius Eastman’s 1979 composition, “Evil Nigger."
Dan Conrad: Keening Tony
On Friday, April 7th, 2017 ISSUE gathered a group of artists who all shared a friendship with Tony Conrad, and a deep devotion to his music and art. In honor of Tony, who passed away on April 9th, 2016, Dan Conrad performs "Keening Tony" alongside his visual work "Edge."
Tony Conrad’s Three Loops for Performers and Tape Recorders (1961) by Lary 7 & Ensemble
On Friday, April 7th, 2017 ISSUE gathered a group of artists who all shared a friendship with Tony Conrad, and a deep devotion to his music and art. In honor of Tony, who passed away on April 9th, 2016, Lary 7 stages a performance of Tony’s Three Loops for Performers and Tape Recorders (1961).
Henry Flynt: Solo Electric Boogie (1979/2017) - LIVE at ISSUE / April 7th, 2017
Philosopher, artist, and avant-garde composer Henry Flynt performs Solo Electric Boogie (1979/2017) at Spectral Density: An Evening of Performances Dedicated to Tony Conrad.
Kabir Carter: Feelings Are Rooms
Kabir Carter opens his 2017 Residency with a solo performance introducing his practice to the historic architecture of ISSUE’s 22 Boerum Theater. Recently, Carter has reduced his performances to include little to no external signal processing and effects. Instead, he uses his own physical movements and gestures to produce and modulate sound in space.