Library Experimental with Amanda Kraus and Helena Ford – April 23, 2023

Library Experimental is an ongoing series focusing on Chicago’s experimental musicians. It is happening at the Chicago Public Library in Jefferson Park on Sunday, April 23 from 2-4pm.

Early! Free! Kid friendly! If the kids are patient!

The first show after a pandemically long hiatus features Amanda Kraus and Helena Ford.

Jefferson Park library is located at 5363 W Lawrence. Convenient to both bus and blue line. https://www.chipublib.org/locations/38/

Amanda Kraus photo by Daniel Kraus.

photo by Daniel Kraus

Amanda Kraus is a local educator/percussionist. She can be found online at amandakraus.org/music.

Previous work in various ensembles:
Arc Pair (ongoing)
March 25, 2020 ESS Quarantine Concert
Previous Jefferson Park EXP performance Nov 1, 2020
Boob Sweat (2017)
PLAN Quartet (2019)

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Helena Ford (Chicago, IL) is a Chicago experimental musician. Her practice focuses on drone and durational performances, incorporating elements of musique concrete, minimalism, and free improvisation. Her primary instruments include no-input mixing board, baritone guitar, and synthesizers.

https://helenaford.bandcamp.com/

pan y rosas release Wir brauchen angst. und schade by Helena Ford!

Helena Ford is a transgender artist from Chicago, IL that specializes in semimodular synthesis and feedback works; her work exists in the same lineage of Eliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros, and Mira Martin-Grey in the sense of navigating avant-garde and experimental electronic music away from the Academy and to the people. Her most recent series, including her album Wir Brauchen Angst. Und Schade, explores transness in the form of no-input feedback mixing; she deftly produces sonic sculptures and art from the same principles of musique concrete and minimalism and uses them to showcase the experience of being a transgender woman in today’s society. Her common album themes include gender dysphoria, anxiety, passing, and other such topics and the length of her solo releases are meant to invoke the immense span of time that it takes to transition. Aside from her musical endeavors, Helena loves long walks, collecting field recordings, and playing with her cat.

Wir Brauchen Angst. Und Schade explores transness in the form of no-input feedback mixing; she deftly produces sonic sculptures and art from the same principles of musique concrete and minimalism and uses them to showcase the experience of being a transgender woman in today’s society.

Get the album here!

Jefferson Park EXP with Amanda Kraus + P.M. Tummala and Helena Ford – November 1, 2pm

In lieu of free live shows at the neighborhood library, we’re doing free live shows via twitch! The next show is on Sunday November 1 at 2pm (CST/UTC-05), join us!

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffersonparkexp

Amanda Kraus is a drummer in Chicago. She improvising and plays composed songs. Her drumming is sensitive, responsive, consistent, and informed by decades of listening. She is a human jukebox and a good dancer.

https://www.amandakraus.org/music/

P.M. Tummala’s solo works explore identity and memory to create an aural companion to Indian Modernism and Indo-Futurism. With his debut album, Brindavan Mon Amour, he presents a collage of Indian film music from an alternate history. Drawing inspiration from some of the more atmospheric incidental music and cues from 60s and 70s Tollywood and Bollywood films, he layers synth-heavy Hindustani and Carnatic-influenced melodies and drones over a foundation of hazy textures and loops informed by the ghosts of 90s ambient and shoegaze. The resulting work attempts to form a bridge between contradictions: distant and intimate, nostalgic and looking ahead, lost-in-time and contemporary.

https://pmtummala.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQdP7bjGk8M

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Helena Ford is a transgender artist from Chicago, IL that specializes in semimodular synthesis and feedback works; her work exists in the same lineage of Eliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros, and Mira Martin-Grey in the sense of navigating avant-garde and experimental electronic music away from the Academy and to the people. Her most recent series, including her album Wir Brauchen Angst. Und Schade, explores transness in the form of no-input feedback mixing; she deftly produces sonic sculptures and art from the same principles of musique concrete and minimalism and uses them to showcase the experience of being a transgender woman in today’s society. Her common album themes include gender dysphoria, anxiety, passing, and other such topics and the length of her solo releases are meant to invoke the immense span of time that it takes to transition. Aside from her musical endeavors, Helena loves long walks, collecting field recordings, and playing with her cat.

https://helenaford.bandcamp.com/