Clavius Productions update:
Hey all, I'll be coming to town on Tuesday to collaborate with saxophonists Mike Sebastian and Aaron Martin and basscellist and scene Santa Ted Zook under the guise of Lost Civilizations. Longtime friend, phenomenal musician, and frequent 611 Florida guest Mike Tamburo is on tour for the first time in a while with his hammered dulcimer and other assorted instruments, and Layne Garrett (Cutest Puppy in the World/Weed Tree) and Brandon Moses (Laughing Man) will open with an improv duo. And I'll take this opportunity to announce that Kohoutek will be sharing a very special bill with percussionist extraordinaire Chris Corsano at Amma House on 9/11. Flaherty/Corsano was the first first show I ever booked, so bringing Chris back to DC means a ton to me. Not much else on the Clavius front for the time being, but stay tuned...
Tuesday, July 17
Dynasty Ethiopian Restaurant
2210 14th St NW WDC
8pm, donations suggested, all ages!
Lost Civilizations (w/ Aaron Martin and Scott Verrastro)
Mike Tamburo/Brother Ong (Pittsburgh)
Layne Garrett & Brandon Moses (DC)
Here's some more information about Mike Tamburo:
Music:
http://www.miketamburo.bandcamp.com/http://www.soundcloud.com/miketamburohttp://www.myspace.com/miketamburohttp://www.reverbnation.com/miketamuroBio:
Pittsburgh's Mike Tamburo is a 21st century Renaissance man who has forged his way into the consciousness of the American underground music community. For the past 17 years, Tamburo has been relentlessly releasing records (44 releases and counting) under different monikers and projects including Brother Ong, Meisha, Arco Flute Foundation, Kukeri, Psychic Frost & various imprints under his own name. He has performed over 600 shows all over the United States, traveling to every nook and cranny, searching for some kind of an understanding of what America truly is. Though always considering himself a multi-instrumentalist, he gained fame and notoriety with his hammered dulcimer and fingerstyle guitar playing and his idiosyncratic use of effects; Tamburo is a man who continues to reinvent himself, recently finding his new musical passion in the shahi baaja; building upon his own unique compositional stylings, he has developed a voice for the instrument that is very much his own. He is greatly inspired by American folk and minimalist music traditions as well as Indian classical music, but often expands outward to include influences from avant-garde to noise to modern compositional music. A Tamburo performance is always a very transportive and enveloping experience.
Tamburo is also an artist, film maker, writer, instrument builder, curator of the Fantastic Voyagers Festivals, Kundalini Yoga teacher, Sound Healer, gong enthusiast, and inner state researcher; exploring alpha and theta states, floatation tanks, ethnobotany, orgone energy, and ecstatic states of being. He also runs the Sounds Eternal and New American Folk Hero labels, which continue to release an eclectic roster of creative and experimental musics.
Reviews, interviews, etc.:
Work and Worry Magazine Interview May 2012
http://workandworry.com/?p=3838Terrascope Online
http://www.terrascope.co.uk/Reviews/Reviews_May_12.htm#BrotherOngAlso known as Mike Tamburo, The Music of Brother Ong is deeply reflective and positive in its energies. Played on the Shahi Baaja, a
type of electric Indian zither, with voices and effects, the music has a warmth of its own, the five tracks creating a soft pool of notes that it is easy to relax in, the rippling notes dancing around your vision, flecked with light. On the third track ?Sacred Pool?, the meditation seems to become much deeper, the music seemingly no longer linear as time dissolves around you, all you can do is breathe.
Regaining a sense of place, ?From Her Mighty Blade? is equally as
wonderful, seventeen minutes of shimmering psychedelic sound, played live, as were the other tracks, demonstrating complete mastery of the musical set up used, the addition of chanted vocals only enhancing the mystery and atmosphere of the piece. To close, ?Flower and Hand Ceremony? returns to the light fall of notes that characterized the earlier tracks, a gentle ripple of light and sound in perfect harmony, music for a single candle, warm and alive.
Mr Atavist
http://mratavist.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/looking-up-down-on-deep-water-acres/Pittsburgh?s Brother Ong (Mike Tamburo) exploits the shahi baaja, a 22-string electrified Indian zither, on Deep Water Creations. Exotic and hypnotic sounds are looped, tweaked and set free to lure you into a space where you can simply go for the ride and stretch out, or you can get lost in the subtle and subversive details that reveal themselves with repeated visits. It?s not a matter of how long you stay, but rather why you came in the first place?let Brother Ong do the driving, or grab the wheel and navigate your own way through the trance-y signposts.
Terrascope Online
http://terrascope.co.uk/Reviews/Rumbles_April_2010.htmMike Tamburo is one of these multi-talented hard working underground artists who over the years has released more than 30 albums using monikers as Meisha, Arco Flute Foundation as well as his own name, a lot of them on his New American Folk Hero label and a lot of them reviewed in earlier Rumbles sections. He has also performed an uncountable amount of shows, and became an unheralded foundation stone of the most recent Terrastock festival. He?s a brilliantly talented multi-instrumentalist, but mainly used to playing an amplified acoustic guitar using a lot of effects. He has a very personal music language partly inspired by American folk and minimalist music as well as Indian classic music, drone and noise. Even though Mike Tamburo belongs to a much younger generation I find similarities to Peter Walker and his developing of finger-picking guitar playing using inspiration from Indian classic music and flamenco, especially nowadays when Peter has re-entered the stage after a very long intermission. There are a lot of paths to walk and a lot of them are very interesting. Anyway, one day Mike felt great need of reinventing himself and set fire to his acoustic guitar and soon also got rid of the effects. Instead his focus was pointing at the hammer dulcimer ?In The District of Noise? covers a solo performance from august 2008.
Even though it?s set to a single track it?s actually two pieces, an amplified intro of 7 minutes giving the feeling of an electrified
tambura followed by 38 minutes of acoustic hammer dulcimer music. Like in ragas (even though not following the strict raga order) there are intense moments as well as slow and soft. There?s a huge variety in Mike?s playing and his expressions that follows. For me his approach to the instrument and improvisation is pure beauty.
Foxy Digitalis
http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/reviews.php?which=5274The Tenth Gate and Other Revelations
This is the most overwhelming release I've been sent to review, namely because it's a 6 disc box set by an artist I'd previously been only vaguely familiar with (I'd heard Arco Flute Foundation on WFMU once almost a decade ago but that was it). This thing is monstrous: very exquisite packaging, booklets with glyphs on them and full liner notes... such an extraordinary amount of work was put into this thing, I just hope the music lives up to it!
As soon as I pressed play on the disc entitled "The Tenth Gate" (the discs aren't numbered, but this was the first one in the box), I knew that it was totally worth it. The disc is a single 32 minute piece for hammered dulcimer, an instrument that is featured on most of the discs here. Tamburo truly is a master of the instrument, creating intricate patterns and textures and generally just sounding incredible. Tamburo says in the liner notes that this is his favorite hammered dulcimer piece of all time, and I think I might have to agree. Which is not to discredit the other hammered dulcimer pieces contained in this box. "Vitvivatora", as the liners explain, is dedicated to a friend of Tamburo's while he was going through a pain of extreme pain and loss. On the contrary, another disc, "Alchemical Marriage", was composed for a wedding. Both discs are extremely heartfelt, revelatory pieces of music.
While most of the discs on this album consist of music for one
instrument, two of the discs find Tamburo using effects, other instruments, and minimal overdubs in order to produce a bit more varied sounds and atmospheres. "The Ballad Of One Hung Glove", as the booklet explains, is about when a psychic gave Tamburo a glove supposedly worn by Michael Jackson, which ended up curing him of a curse. The piece combines hammered dulcimer with guitar, vocals, and effects, and the way the instruments are looped and layered make them sound like they could be the work of a full group. It says the guitars are acoustic, but there's plenty of use of feedback, so that must be the effects transforming the sounds. Through two acts, the piece goes from quiet melancholy to a climax of droning layered guitars, and then stripping back to minimal guitar or dulcimer. "Screwing Six Bolts Into Last Tuesday" also makes use of multiple instruments and effects, including piano, keyboard, e-bow and string. This piece actually dates back to 1999 and has been released in small editions a few times since then. This is the most schizophrenic piece
on the disc, making much use of multi-play and echo pedals, and
manipulating acoustic instruments. Some of it reminds me of some of Terry Riley's electroacoustic experiments. Piano takes center stage around the fifteen minute mark and tries to straighten things out, but ends up getting lost among the delay chaos.
The only disc of the 6 here that I'm not crazy about is "Teachings Of The Crowned Eternal". The liner notes don't explain what instrument is being used here; instead it includes instructions for meditating to the pieces. The instrument makes a very sharp buzzing sound, and while it does sound cool, there doesn't seem to be as much range of sounds and moods created from it, so it gets pretty irritating listening to a whole disc of it.
Other than that, this whole box is just a marvelous accomplishment. It's obvious that a ton of labor was put into the creation of this, and it really shouldn't go unnoticed. 8/10 -- Paul Simpson (10 February, 2010)
Vision Quest Cover Of Pittsburgh CIty Paper May 2009
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/pittsburgh/vision-quest/Content?oid=1342082Videos
shahi baaja
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p7yWFbwMjg&feature=relmfuhammered dulcimer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE1trrukgQY&feature=relmfubells and gong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftxlEroGQGc&feature=relmfuFor more information:
t_a_zook@hotmail.comTicket Info: Donations for traveling musicians would be greatly appreciated!
