Gabi Losconcy

Friday, January 26th, ISSUE is pleased to present Canadian composer Sarah Davachi and Philadelphia-based artist Gabi Losoncy performing new work. Their varying practices span Davachi’s disclosure of the delicate psychoacoustics of intimate aural space to Losoncy’s unlayered, utilitarian audio experiments -- both charting critical new contexts for experimental composition and sound art.

Davachi presents work for reed organ, violin, viola da gamba, and electronics that was first premiered in Los Angeles at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in October, 2017. Based upon displaced melodic movements that were originally developed through a series of improvisations for pipe organ, this piece attempts to balance instances of consonance and dissonance, both in frequency content and physical gesture between its three players.

The open strings of the violin and viola da gamba – a Renaissance-Baroque instrument with seven strings tuned in a manner similar to the lute and modern guitar – are often isolated in order to fully emphasize the natural harmonics of the instrument. The electronic component, created using an EMS Synthi synthesizer, reinforces many of these pitches but occupies a subtle and unstable presence in the mix, slightly blurring the source of the effect.

Applying various performative strategies on a case-by-case basis, Gabi Losoncy presents either a small, unamplified "playing" of something, or, possibly, a presentation of something from her phone. In either case, the behaviors of the performance are minimal and pliant. Losoncy’s recent works include HH (the final release on Graham Lambkin’s KYE imprint), an LP described as “two sides of psychologically dense nothingness,” and Security Besides Love released on Recital, an account voyeuristically documenting the artist’s life, work, and habitats.

Gabi Losoncy is a young woman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who makes various decisions with outer consequences based on how she feels, and to the end of expressing how she feels. Generally working in unlayered, linear audio since her time as a member of Good Area, she expands her practice on a case-by-case basis, making great effort not to do anything unnecessary. She has released and has relationships with Alien Passengers, c a d u c., Impulsive Habitat, Recital, and Kye, and has recently released a book, Second Person, with Philip and Sarah Best's Amphetamine Sulphate imprint.