Olivia Block

Saturday, February 10th, ISSUE presents an evening of site-responsive solo performances with composer Olivia Block, electronic artist Drew McDowall, and composer (and 2015 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence) Lea Bertucci. The evening observes each artist’s individual approach to presenting new work in ISSUE’s theater space, applying the room’s unique acoustics to inform their independent performative methods.

Olivia Block performs a new multiple speaker composition, continuing an ongoing investigation into the properties of wind and its related sounds and symbolic themes. Using a microphone and her breath, small fans, and other small objects on its surface, Block creates aural patterns and “currents” in the room, processing and moving sounds live on her laptop. At certain times, these currents, respond to the architecture and resonance of the space, swirling and flowing around the listeners in particular directions -- as in the cold or warm currents of air over the oceans. At other times, all evidence of space and built shapes are erased, as microphone distortion obscures, then reveals additional sounds -- voices, organ and piano -- buried underneath the wind, settling in various locations in the room. The resonance of the room colors the wind sounds over time, as more tones enter into the mix.

The evening also features stalwart industrial and experimental pioneer Drew McDowall presenting new works which will become the basis of an album to be released on Dais Records in the Fall of 2018, following his previous releases Collapse (2015) and Unnatural Channel (2017) with the label. For this performance, the pieces make use of a quadraphonic array and are informed by and respond to the acoustics of the space. This proves to be a focused opportunity to hear new work from McDowell, known for his crucial contributions to legendary British avant-pop act Coil, Psychic TV, and numerous collaborative and solo projects that have been foundational to the development of meditative drone and abstract sound.

In addition, for her return to ISSUE, Bertucci celebrates the release of Metal Aether, her second album on NNA Tapes (following 2017’s All That Is Solid Melts Into Air), by presenting recent works for alto saxophone and tape that appear on the record, as well as a new composition that is directly informed by the particular acoustic qualities of 22 Boerum Place.

As NNA describes, Metal Aether develops a language of extended technique for alto saxophone that is based on a spectral, psychoacoustic, and non-linguistic approach to the instrument. Much like the recordings of her previous NNA release, the work continues to explore Lea’s acute interest in the nature of acoustics and the harmonic accumulation of sound, with its four pieces having been recorded in Le Havre, France in a former military base, and in New York City, at ISSUE. With her horn, Lea produces pulsing minimalist patterns, overblown transcendent drones, and upper register squalls that envelop these spaces in waves of overtones, microtones, and psychoacoustic effects.

Olivia Block is a media artist and composer. She creates scores for orchestra and chamber groups, studio-based sound art compositions for releases and concerts, site-specific multi-speaker installations and sound design for cinema. Her compositions include field recordings, amplified objects, chamber and orchestral instruments, and electronic textures. Her current work reflects her interest in “utility” shortwave sounds, ethnographic sound, and listening practices. Feature articles about Block have been published in The Wire, NPR’s Morning Edition, MusicWorks, The Outdoor (Pitchfork), The Chicago Reader, Fluid Radio, and many others. Block tours internationally and resides in Chicago, IL. Her latest LP release, Dissolution, is currently published on Glistening Examples. “Finely nuanced textures of environmental material and occasional surges of sonic power blended with an elegant instrumental architecture.”-- Julian Cowley, The Wire magazine