Clavius Productions presents its second annual celebration of folk, psych, and improv:
Saturday, September 24
611 Florida Ave NW WDC
4pm-the witching hour
$5 suggested donation
http://www.claviusproductions.org call 202-360-9739 for info
Bring your own beer/food/chemicals!
Jack Rose (of Pelt, Eclipse/VHF Records)
Fursaxa (Eclipse/Time Lag/Ecstatic Peace)
Tono-Bungay (Twisted Village/Squealer, from NYC)
Samara Lubelski (of Hall of Fame, ex-Sonora Pine/Tower Recordings, on Social Registry)
Paul Metzger (avant-banjo from Minneapolis, Chairkicker's Union)
Forgotten Works (Erik Wivinus of Salamander playing guitar soli, from Minneapolis)
Timothy, Revelator (Tim Renner of Stone Breath, from PA)
Sunwards (members of Rake)
Facemat (DC noise improv)
Kohoutek (DC improv noise/psych)
Donny Hue & the Colors (ex-Carlsonics, solo folk-psych)
Jack Rose http://www.vhfrecords.com/jackrose/ Jack Rose is -- without exaggeration -- one of the premier fingerpickers on this revolving chunk of dirt called Earth. From delta blues and bluegrass to Hindustani raga drone and avant-garde composition, Jack's songs touch upon numerous cultures, eras, and moods, culminating in an overarching statement of personal expression. His ability and melodic sensibilities completely belie his thirty-something years.
??Drink a couple shots of neat Kentucky whiskey and see if you don??t slur raag and rock into the same guttural syllable. While I can??t comment knowledgably upon Jack Rose??s substance intake during the sessions that comprise
Raag Manifestos, his third LP of acoustic steel-stringed guitar music, he certainly managed to mash those sounds together so solidly that they bond into an entity heavy enough to exert its own gravitational pull. That he does this with neither an amplified instrument, nor any formal training in Indian classical music, only heightens his accomplishment.
With each successive record, Rose has stepped further from the Mount Rushmore-sized shadows cast by John Fahey, Robbie Basho, and Sandy Bull. Sure, you can hear their influence in his choices of instrument and material; and like them, he plays steel-stringed acoustic guitar, and blends American blues and folk styles with Eastern and Western elements.
But Rose, unlike the rest, came to fingerpicking fairly late in his personal musical evolution. He grew up listening to classic rock and graduated to punk without ever cutting ties with his old school. Pelt, the band in which he came of age as a player, used punk??s anything-goes ethic as permission to use Indian instruments, as well as minimalist forms, without going through any lengthy dues-paying process.
There??s no denying Rose??s command of the guitar. On ??Tower Of Babel,? for example, his nuanced articulation and resonant tone combine to stir the emotions. But he hasn??t lost that punk attitude. Not only does Rose make good on the record??s name, staking his claim farther into the hinterland of the Indo-blues territory any of his Takoma forebears did, he does it with unsurpassed aggression. His slashing attack on ??Black Pearls From the River? and brutal chording on ??Hart Crane??s Old Boyfriends? is pure rock and roll, and it??s the weight in his playing that makes this album stand out in a year packed with solo acoustic guitar records.? (Bill Meyer, Dusted)
Fursaxa http://www.fursaxa.net/ Tara Burke is a Farfisa chord organist and singer formerly of Clock Strikes Thirteen, Ted Casterline and his Perfectly Perfect Pieces of Fruit, and the legendary (at least in mid-'90s underground psych circles) Siltbreeze band The Un. She now performs solo as Fursaxa. Tara has an album called
Mandrake that Kawabata Makoto (from Acid Mothers Temple) produced and released, plus recordings on Time Lag and Ecstatic Peace. Burke's folk-psych is informed by early western musical concepts (Gregorian chants, Hildegard von Bingen, fugues, etc.) and Nico's The Marble Index.
"Everyone thinking of buying a Fursaxa album should be aware that Tara Burke has the ability to put listeners into a trance-like state. Her voice is somewhere between a tenor and an alto, and when she ventures in the lower ranges, she might as well be a hypnotist. Burke got my attention years ago because there weren't many women making weird, experimental, psychedelic music. There still aren't many, but Burke continues to put out excellent album after excellent album.
Madrigals in Duos was recorded over two years ago but has finally been properly released by the Time Lag imprint. After one listen, I'm even more convinced that Tara Burke is a mystic. There are dozens of familiar sounds all over this record. From her trademark Farfisa to that opiate voice, this is the territory I have grown accustomed to when playing a new Fursaxa record. This music is often formless, drifting in and out of structure like one fades in and out of consciousness during lazy summer afternoons. It's this last aspect of
Madrigals in Duos, though, that most resonates with me. It's weird to think of this as any sort of "feel good" music, but during these first weeks of summer, this is my perfect accompaniment to days spent lounging in my pajamas, doing little but writing emails and watching TV. There's something under the surface here that lends itself to the transition into the full ascent of the hottest season, a time when I am generally more productive." -- Brad Rose (Foxy Digitalis)
Tono-Bungay http://www.tensionheadache.org/tonobungay.htm Bob Bannister - guitar, violin, synth
Tony Cenicola - drums, electronic percussion
Robert Dennis - guitar, bass, records & tapes
Tony and Robert have a long history of improvisation, from the earliest days of Tension Headache. Usually flopped out on one living room floor or another, they'd put on headphones, hook up every piece of gear they could find and just cut loose. In the late ??80s, Robert met Bob when he joined the indie rock mirage called Fire in the Kitchen. Sooner or later, it would have to come to this...
At some point in 1992, Robert and Tony decided to get off the living room floor and make use of room 705, the FITK rehearsal space. Bob joined them on that occasion, and now it's today. Tono-Bungay have not as yet recorded at Tension Headache as a group, but we hope that studio improvements will allow for such a session to take place.
??Over the past few years, their intermittent releases have seemingly attempted to touch all bases of format possibility ?? starting with a 7? single, they released an LP, a 10?, a split 10? (with the Tower Recordings), and most recently a compact disc; all are worth hearing, excerpts from extended instrumental jams arranged for maximum damage. They also show up on the recent Pearls Before Swine tribute LP, in a moody melodic vein (a la Bob and Tony??s work with Fire in the Kitchen back in the late ??80s/early ??90s). And while I??m listing, Bob occasionally can be found going the solo route with abstract guitar and subtle vocal melodies, all highly engrossing.
But it??s the live setting where the three come into their own, extemporizing ever-expanding soundscapes of great beauty and depth, psychedelic as all get-out but tied to few genre conventions, sailing through improvisational prog-space in a fashion pretty much unmatched these days. In fact, it??s occasionally possible to believe that the last 30 years of experimental ??rock?? were but a prelude to these guys, loosening the world up for their unbound charting of the inner and outer spaceways.? (Deep Water)
Samara Lubelski http://www.thesocialregistry.com/ Samara Lubelski steps outside the context of long time collaborators Hall Of Fame, Metabolismus, The Sonora Pine, The Tower Recordings, & Jackie-O Motherfucker to deliver a solo vision from an alternate psychedelic folk universe.
Samara is a native New Yorker who grew up in the haze of artist infestation of Soho. She has been involved with various projects ever since she was allowed to cross the street on her own for an egg cream and spilled it on John Cage. Through the time of playing in various groups, she has compiled an impressive resume that covers a myriad of genres, such as her work with the avant/psych/folk outfit Hall Of Fame, into the lair of those bohemian German musos Metabolismus, and onto the indie rock interpretations of The Sonora Pine, with some serious treks into the world of The Tower Recordings and off-world with Jackie-O Motherfucker, to name just a few.
This album is a new level where Samara controls all aspects of the sound, started at the compound of Metabolismus in the forests outside of Stuttgart, Germany with the help of Moritz Finkbeiner and David Mueller. She returned to the U.S. and to her part-time place of work to complete her album at the Rare Book Room. Joining her were two of her old chums from the Tower Recordings, PG Six, and Tim Barnes. Add to the mix the guitar aficionado Marc Moore, who has had his hand in Cat Power and the Lynnfield Pioneers and various other projects' cookie jars. Cynthia Nelson, who has played from one coast to the next performing solo material and collaborating with others, showed her verve on the flute.
What all these elements have added up to on Samara??s album is a cycle of songs that are almost deceptive in their catchiness. Layers of sound that are delicate without being fragile. There is a resilience that makes this album balance on the edge of being the type of LP that is perfect on both rainy mornings and breezy spring days. With all of her experience and skill, Samara has learned how to create atmospheres of depth within her pieces. They do not rely on the virtuosity of the players, but on them unifying with each other and the words to create an ambience that is gentle and pulls you deeper into its folds. When it ends you are carried along on its last currents. You will be looking forward to the return of
The Fleeting Skies as it settles into your memory.
Paul Metzger http://www.paulmetzger.net/ In a time where an increasing deluge of acoustically-oriented recordings are being pumped up with words like ??iconoclastic? or ??transcendental,? it can sometimes be difficult for the adventurous listener to have any clue as to how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Hype and hyperbole be damned; this is the real deal.
Metzger??s title ??modified banjo? could tend to confuse even the most discerning among us. While it is indeed true that a visual inspection will reveal an instrument so mutated that it bears little resemblance to that simultaneously venerated and reviled backwoods icon that it once was (he has added more than a dozen strings, a sitar bridge, and otherwise mutated a traditionally limiting instrument into something entirely unique), it is ultimately one??s ears that will yield the most incredulous reactions and ask the hardest questions after being fed their particular set of stimuli, as it is ultimately Metzger??s approach to the instrument and the sounds and melodies he wrenches from it that are the greatest and most significant modifications being made here. Metzger??s singular, irreverent approach and fluid dexterity in attack are made evident in his seamless hybrids of North Indian and Asian influences, jazz and folk forms through a vehicle that typically ruts its wheels in Americana hill country and are truly unprecedented. Recorded within the acoustically resonant confines of Duluth??s Sacred Heart studio (itself once a church), his three lengthy improvisations venture into the meditative sublime, a deeply cognitive set of compositions that exit miles beyond what one normally expects from the banjo.
"The music Metzger makes -- whether he??s strumming, fingerpicking, plucking, or bowing -- is unlike any Americana you??ve ever heard. From one moment to the next, Metzger??s banjo can sound like a violin, koto, flute, oud, or sarod, and though these three solo improvisations are listed separately, each one flows seamlessly into the next, like one long raga that takes the album??s full 58 minutes to build, climax, and fade into silence." (Magnet)
"Metzger has located a quivering space between the raga open-string drone and the ear-warping harmonic meditations of Tony Conrad, and the combined logic puts us both out of time and right in the body of the misshapen instrument." (Pitchfork)
Forgotten Works http://www.cameraobscura.com.au/Bios/cambios_salamander.htm Explorations for six- and twelve-string guitar by Erik Wivinus of Salamander
Minneapolis outfit Salamander began as a duo in the summer of 1992 featuring Erik Wivinus and Sean Connaughty on guitars and vocals. They played mostly mellow drone-based instrumentals that in retrospect sounded much like contemporaries Labradford or Low. Doug Morman joined on bass in early 1993. They recorded and played gigs as a drummer-less trio until Bryce Kastning joined on drums and keyboards in early 1994. Then followed a period of heavy psychedelic improvisation and four-track recording, leading to a trip to POD studios in 94/95 to lay down some material on 16-track. The first stage of these sessions was released as
Red Ampersand by Camera Obscura in 1997. By the time of this release, Salamander had become a part-time entity, as members pursued studies and various side projects.
Red Ampersand created great interest as it showed a band that was clearly very early out of the blocks with a heavy droning improvisation psych style that stood comparisons to the early work of Bardo Pond and Cul De Sac, but also was capable of fine songcraft.
Forgotten Works is the moniker of Erik Wivinus when working in a largely solo and predominantly acoustic capacity. These performances tend towards long-form, raga-tinged mystical improvisations for 6- and 12-string guitars, with occasional forays into vocal territory. Erik currently plays or has played with such groups as Salamander, Skye Klad, Gotterdammerung, Thunderbolt Pagoda, Gentle Tasaday, Barlow/Petersen/Wivinus, and Stone Breath, releasing over a dozen full-length recordings since 1997 to good critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.
Timothy, Revelator http://www.somedarkholler.com/pathway.html http://www.lostgospel.org/ Timothy was born on a small farm, on Dark Hollow Road, in the rural north of Maryland, USA. He believed the house, and indeed the entire hollow, was haunted. From a young age, he was fascinated by the folktales of ghosts, giant black cats, and witch-trees, which formed the fabric of this rural community.
Timothy plays and sings music with Prydwyn, Sarada, and RA Campbell in the bands Stone Breath, Breathe Stone, and The Spectral Light & Moonshine Firefly Snakeoil Jamboree. He also performs and records as a solo artist, draws, paints, constructs/modifies musical instruments, writes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and quite often prays.
Timothy lives in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, USA. He is father to twins, Gideon David and Ursula Rose. He extends all love and praise to the Holy Trinity, Blessed Virgin Mary, all of the saints and angels in Heaven, and the Poor Brothers and Sisters of the Holy MLV.
Sunwards http://www.rake.info/ http://www.vhfrecords.com/ BK and VVGG of Rake dueling it out in any way they see fit
Kohoutek http://claviusproductions.alkem.org/kohoutek.html Improvised psych with noise tendencies and abstraction. Sonic explorations in any combination of drums, percussion, guitar, bass, laptop, homemade electronics, field recordings, contact mics, chord organ, and household appliances. Have been described as "if Can were a 4AD band" and been compared to Jessamine, Acid Mothers Temple, and Skullflower, for what that's worth.
plus special guests
Facemat and
Donny Hue & The Colors
