Thursday 4/25 @AUX
8:00pm, $10 suggested donation
PSF
Philadelphia premiere of this special trans-Pacific collaboration!
Formed in 2007, Philadelphia and New York-based Many Arms are a power trio in the truest sense of the term. The band’s music is a loud, aggressive blend of punk and free jazz, tied together with compositions that twist and turn through angular unison melodies and complex rhythmic vamps.
Many Arms’ punk rock touring ethos has taken their music across the US and Canada numerous times, where they’ve shared bills with many bands, including Marnie Stern, Nat Baldwin, Tera Melos, Dysrhythmia, Extra Life, Schnaak, Bardo Pond, Normal Love, Inzinzac, Eric Carbonara, Yowie, Les Rhinoceros, Mario Diaz De Leon, and Pitom.
To date, Many Arms have released three full-length albums and one EP. In 2012, the not-for-proft cooperative record label Tzadik Records (owned and operated by composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist John Zorn) released the band’s third full-length, simply titled Many Arms. Following the release, Many Arms has toured the US and performed at Suoni Per Il Popolo in Montreal.
Many Arms are:
Guitarist Nick Millevoi
Electric Bassist John DeBlase
Drummer Ricardo Lagomasino
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To fans of free improvisation and the Japanese onkyo, or noise scene, Toshimaru Nakamura needs no introduction; to newcomers, the name of his instrument – the no-input mixing board – may sound forbidding, as if its output would sound more machine than music. But for over a decade, Nakamura has cultivated a world of tones from this unlikely instrument, both harsh and mesmerizing, humanist and expansive – with something to lure in music fans of any stripe.
Nakamura discovered the no-input mixing board while searching for a better balance between himself and his tools. After many “unhappy years” playing guitar in rock bands, he set that instrument aside. “I think I was not moving away from the guitar itself, but from my own attitude when I played the guitar. I had a problem with the idea that I have to be the one who starts the music. You have to play the guitar first, otherwise the music can’t exist. … Then at some point around 1997, I discovered that internal feedback within the mixing desk fit me very well. I think I was seeking an equal relationship with my instrument, instead of putting myself above my instrument. The instrument could lead me.”
As Nakamura explains, “The instrument still surprises me. I work with analogue audio feedback, utilising inexpensive gears, so it is very difficult or impossible to control perfectly. But technique is not the most important matter. I care more about my relationship with the instrument than how to control it.” Nakamura is modest and generous in his collaborations.
