Monday, September 21st 8:00 PM
Aux Performance Space at Vox Populi
$7-10 sliding scale donation
Rafael Toral (Portugal) :
Rafael Toral plays electronic music today as a jazz musician would play his instrument, applying jazz discipline and working practices to his abstract electronics. The result is truly evolutionary music, once described as “a brand of electronic music far more visceral and emotive than that of his cerebral peers”. Melodic without notes, rhythmic without a beat, familiar but strange, meticulous but radically free, it is riddled with interesting paradox. Toral has developed a musical system to physically play experimental electronic instruments and puts it to practice with large-scale project Space Program – a complex network of recordings and performances to deliver music that is full of clarity and space, articulating silence and
sound in a thoughtful, yet physical way.
Formerly known for his drone/ ambient work with guitar and electronics and acclaimed records such as Wave Field (1994) or Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance (2000), he has radically renewed his approach to music, launching the jazz-inspired and alien-sounding Space Program in 2004, using experimental electronic instruments.
Toral’s long time connection with Sei Miguel is central to the development of the Space Program. Other collaborations include Jim O’Rourke, Evan Parker, John Edwards, Joe Morris, Tatsuya Nakatani, Chris Corsano, Manuel Mota, David Toop, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Phill Niblock, Christian Marclay, Sonic Youth, Joao Paulo Feliciano, Rhys Chatham, Lee Ranaldo, C Spencer Yeh, Dean Roberts… In 1998 he became a member of MIMEO electronic orchestra. Its other members are Keith Rowe, Thomas Lehn, Kaffe Matthews, Marcus Schmickler, Jerome Noetinger, Christian Fennesz, Peter Rehberg, Gert-Jan Prins, Cor Fuhler and Phil Durrant. Since 2008 he directs the Space Collective, a slowly developing orchestral group.
Rosie Langabeer (Philadelphia) :
Rosie Langabeer is an award wining composer, experimental musician and instigator with a taste for things that teeter on the intersection of the serious and the absurd. Langabeer composes regularly for theatre, dance and musical ensembles of various sizes and has performed extensively in NZ and internationally throughout the USA (2010 & 2013), the UK (2013), Mexico City (2010) and France (2005).
Highly sought after for interdisciplinary creative arts projects, Langabeer’s compositional approach approach is responsive to the unique skills and qualities of her collaborators. Her methods are experimental with a large focus on social dynamics and improvisation; catalyzing local music communities and enhancing the development of new work. Langabeer has received numerous commissions including the Bowerbird Sound Sculpture Commission for Design Philadelphia (2012) and Wilma Theatre/Ballet X Commission for the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (2011).
Unguent (Philadelphia):
“Philadelphia’s Lance Simmons, previously of the Dick Neff and Mirror Men projects, brings us his newest solo endeavor, Unguent. “Dust Desk” is a long confounding journey through a parched audio desert ripe with mental illness. Queasy squiggling synth lines float in front of a mirage of mellow and soothing loops, briefly suggesting melodies before collapsing back into a pool of demented buffoonery.” –
Tomentosa
