Clavius Productions proudly presents the Z'EV/Sikhara "Ex-Patriot Tour", the first extensive US tour by the legendary innovative percussionist in over 20 years:
Thursday, May 24
Warehouse Next Door
1021 7th St NW WDC
http://www.warehousenextdoor.com $8, all ages!
doors at 8:30, show at 9
Z'EV (legendary experimental percussionist/sound artist)
Sikhara (Radon Collective tribal percussionists)
Violet (DC sound sculptor)
Kohoutek: Dashin Gassoudan (special all-percussion/electronics set!)
Z'EV http://www.radoncollective.org/artists/zev/home.html Since the 1970's, the currently UK-based text/sound artist Z'EV has been at the forefront of the movement that became known as "industrial". A precursor even to Neubauten, his brand of scrap-metal/found-object percussion originates in intense musical training and background. Beginning with his days at the California Institute of the Arts, Z'EV has studied techniques such as Balinese Gamelan, EWE (Ghana), Tala (south India), and Vou Dun (Hati).
Incorporating these traditional methods into his distinctly personal musical vision of sound, Z'EV has consistently produced vital examples of his craft for a host of noted labels including Soleilmoon, C.I.P, Touch and Die Stadt and a commissioned piece for John Zorn's "Radical Jewish Music" series on Tzadik. His record Bust This was chosen in 1988 by The Wire as one of the greatest 50 percussion albums of all time.
Z'EV has graced the stage and created installations for an immense variety of venues in Europe, the US and Japan. The list of his collaborators over the years includes such luminaries as Keiji Haino, David Jackman, Francisco Lopez, KK Null, Stephen O'Malley, Charlemagne Palestine, Genesis P 'Orridge and Chris Watson.
In 2007, Radon presents 'Bust This', the premiere full-on American tour by Z'EV. These appearances will be his first state-side performances (excluding NYC and LA) in well over 20 years. The concerts will occur in a mixture of conventional venues as well as delving into underground contexts which few artists of Z'EV's history and stature have explored. The return of Z'EV to the United States is highly anticipated in the wake of his recent activity. A new generation of listeners have come to the realization that much of what they consider to be the original wave of avant-garde music owes a huge debt to the creative pathways forged by Z'EV.
from Brainswashed by Lucas Schleicher:
"The instrument used on this side is incredibly beautiful and at times sounds like an incredibly low steel drum that emits the lost powerful of sounds. At times it seems as if the rhythm is weaving like a snake through Z'EV and his hands. This is undeniably a kind of work that I have never heard from anyone else. Z'EV's music is unique beyond compare and his complete mastery of texture and sound only adds to the unique character of his drumming."
from The Wire:
"Who else calls up Gods? Z'EV uses his array of hanging metal objects to invoke moods which are more than just moods: to charge the airspace he's working in with the spirit he's saluting. This is an old idea, maybe the oldest in drum-lore, but almost everyone else has lost sight or sound of it, behind a tradition of art-directed technique. A torrent, a clatter, a tulmult, a vast, endless ringing."
from Music Sound Output by Norman Weinstein:
"Z'EV is a one-man percussion orchestra. Using a battery of industrial discards, Z'EV makes perhaps the only thoroughly literal heavy metal music on earth. By creating 'drums' out of materials like stainless steel, he creates stunningly fresh and emotionally uncategorizable mini-symphonies."
from East Village Eye by Louis Morra:
"In being so exemplary modern, Z'EV is as primitive a performer as possible. His instrument literally is his body, and the percussion instruments he plays with all parts of it. Z'EV is a dancer, always in perfect control of his muscular body's movements."
from LA Weekly by Greg Burke:
"This isn't trance music. It's like a vise screwed onto your skull. You don't let your mind wander. You have no mind. You're sucked into a very ancient, lightless place where only hunger and power exist."
from Rev. Mathers:
"I would highly recommend this album to every creature that walks the Earth. The first time I threw it on was in the wee hours of the morning as I did some writing. I had it on really low. Every once in a while, I would stop working, lean back with the calming throbs of clattering metal and say, 'Wow!' It was ambient music at its highest quality."
from Willamette Week by John Graham:
"The career of cult artist Z'EV (Stefan Weisser) first bloomed in the early '80s, rising alongside the dawn of avant-garde industrial music, though his style was grounded more in flesh and steel than the intellectual spaces created by electronic musicians. To watch the bald man pound out abstract, percussive vignettes on materials such as titanium rods, iron springs or empty water jugs was a bizarre, entrancing affair."
from Murry Hope:
"An original approach to the healing potential of correctly structured rhythms and their possible value as access codes to these frequencies, unbound by the space-time continuum. Dare one suggest that this could be the precursor to the long-forgotten science of sonics, which many believe will resurface in the next millennium?"
Sikhara http://www.radoncollective.org http://www.myspace.com/Sikhara mp3s:
www.letsgotowar.com The tribal percussion project of Scott Nydegger has performed over 300 concerts in 26 countries. The project has always existed in a constant state of motion, touring and living in a nomadic way that has come to define it.
In 2003, Sikhara began a self-imposed exile in Europe and fortified the line-up with French drummer Yann Geoffriaud most know for his work with the famed French power-violence unit George Bitch Jr.
During this period Sikhara became a mainstay in the European underground with constant touring, often known to choose extraordinary locales for their performances, such as Istanbulâ??s Taxim district, a 1400 year old Buddhist temple in Japan and deep within the tunnels of a Polish coal mine.
With the release of their new CD
Bardos State (URCK Records, Los Angeles), Sikhara has turned its sights back upon America. Sikhara also has many sattelite projects including backing and producing Iggy and the Stooges sax-man Steve Mackay and regularly appearing with ex-Can frontman Damo Suzuki. They are a core band in The Radon Collective. An international community of touring experimental artists.
Violet http://www.zeromoon.com Jeff Surak (aka Violet) is a veteran experimenter from Washington, DC. Since the early 1980s, he has explored the netherworld between improvisation and composition to create something between the two auditory realms of experimental music. Found objects, microcassettes, damaged cds, prepared acoustic instruments, and old record players outfitted with foil are the tools of choice.
Kohoutek: Dashin Gassoudan http://www.claviusproductions.org/kohoutek/index.html Improvised psychedelia ranging from harsh noise to delicate melodies, inspired by the likes of Can/Amon Duul 2/Krautrock, Acid Mothers Temple/Ghost/Japanese psych, Bardo Pond, Dead C, Skullflower, Trad Gras Och Stenar, Sun Ra/Art Ensemble/free jazz, Sonic Youth, MBV/shoegaze, drone, doom/sludge metal, etc. Textures and mood over technical proficiency.
For this set, Kohoutek will be strictly percussion-based, with all sounds electronically manipulated via contact mics, filters, and pedals, somewhat akin to the solo percussion experiments of Henry Cow's Chris Cutler.
