Library Experimental with [star] and Pastel Fractal – June 10, 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 Saturday, June from 2-4pm, and features [star] and Pastel Fractal!

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

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

[star] pronounced Hypothetical Star, was conceived by an Artist and a Satellite Engineer in New Mexico during Covid-19 lockdown.

They perform at venues with their original music, video projections, & lecture performance. In person [star] brings a touchable archive of lesser-known Space artifacts, musical instruments, and Space themed ephemera creating a Space peace jamm.

*Audience members are invited to cruise in an oral/drawn speculative future for Space exploration and related concerns and affinities. (e.g. Do you want to go to Mars?)

https://hypotheticalstar.bandcamp.com/

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While Pastel Fractal is CAREfully rolling out the soft-hued data patterns (of Chicagoans, by bicycle, on floppy disks, and inspired by seashells), Pastel is just the keystone of a poly-disciplinary trifecta. This trifecta incessantly re-commissions obsolete creative tools, re-presents Chicagoans’ public-service rhetoric, and re-cursively unfolds a self-critical lifestyle dynamic punctuated by live multimedia performances, intricate M.I.D.I. compositions, and heavily branded objects + apparati. The persons known as “data_DISK jockey ȺƉǤ” and “Conch Shell” complete this trifecta.

www.PastelFractal.com/

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/

Jefferson Park EXP with tay_ploops and Jenna Junk – December 12, 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 December 12 at 2pm (CST/UTC-06), join us!

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffersonparkexp

Jessica Gabriel is a multidisciplinary artist, puppeteer, life model, permaculturalist, poet, clown, currently based in Vancouver, Canada. Her project tay_ploops is based on tape loops and other textures.

https://jessicagabriel.ca/

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Jenna Boyles aka Jenna Junk is an interdisciplinary artist and magnet for things no one else wants. Joyfully defying landfills, she gleans sound from objects labeled “trash” and “obsolete.” Rewiring old electronics and embedding conductive textiles into trash instruments, she articulates the ubiquity and resonance of unwanted things. Touching upon the resilience and power of memory held within material, her performances play between the sensitivity and unpredictability of squishy-bodies and hard-wired machines. She received her MFA in Art and Technology Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018 and BFA in Painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012. Her costumes and illuminated objects have appeared in parades and forests, on rivers and beaches. Jenna has performed at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago IL and was a recent New Media Artist in residence at Mana Contemporary Chicago.

https://jennaboyles.com/

IG: @jennajunk

Jefferson Park EXP with Visda Goudarzi/Anna Xambó and Gerard Roma – November 21, 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 21 at 2pm (CST/UTC-06), join us!

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffersonparkexp

‘immerse in the lake’ is a remote live coding performance for two laptop performers distributed on two different continents. The performance is based on processing sound generated by crowdsourced and personal site-specific field recordings from Chicago throughout the year. The piece is a real-time improvisation and a free interpretation of John Cage’s ‘A Dip in the Lake’.

Visda Goudarzi and Anna Xambó started this collaboration in summer 2021 for the performance “Livesourcing: Audience Participation in a Live Coding Performance” premiered at Ear Taxi Festival, Chicago, IL, USA. https://youtu.be/FQXAOBvSZBk

Visda Goudarzi is a computer musician working at the intersection of audio and human-computer interaction. Her research interests include sound and music computing, live coding, and data sonification, sound synthesis, and the application of new media in art. She designs and performs using interactive and participatory sonic interfaces. Her sonic works include live electronic performances, live coding and data driven sound. She is an Assistant Professor of Audio Arts and Acoustics at Columbia College Chicago.

https://www.colum.edu/academics/faculty/detail/visda-goudarzi.html

Anna Xambó is an experimental electronic music producer and researcher. Her research and practice focus on sound and music computing systems looking at novel approaches to collaborative, participatory, and live coding experiences. To date, she has released three solo recordings: “init” (2010, Carpal Tunnel), “On the Go” (2013, Carpal Tunnel) and “H2RI” (2018, pan y rosas). Her solo and group performances have been presented internationally in Denmark, Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, UK and USA. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in music and audio technology at De Montfort University (Leicester, UK) and a member of the Music, Technology and Innovation – Institute of Sonic Creativity (MTI^2).

http://annaxambo.me

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Gerard Roma investigates the inner life of sounds by poking at computers and other electronic circuits. His work often involves digital transformation of recorded sound textures coerced into algorithmic forms via live coding and self-made audio-visual instruments.

https://g-roma.github.io

Jefferson Park EXP with Becky Grajeda/Beth McDonald and Oblivious Newton Jon – November 13, 2pm

In lieu of free live shows at the neighborhood library, we’re doing free live shows via twitch! The next show is on Saturday November 13 at 2pm (CST/UTC-06), join us!

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffersonparkexp

Becky Grajeda and Beth McDonald first started collaborating in the mid-2010’s, performing several pieces with a variety of musicians, speakers, and actors. After the social and artistic isolation of 2020, they were eager to collaborate on a new project, but didn’t feel safe to resume in-person performance in front of audiences. This facilitated a rare opportunity to explore sound worlds both new and old, without the deadline of a particular performance date or artistic goal. This recording is one waypoint on this exploration, and is the result of several months of improvisation, research, and drinking seltzer.

http://www.beckygrajeda.com/
https://bethtuba.com/

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Jon Strasheim’s project Oblivious Newton Jon began in 2018 as an outlet for Jon to explore the relationships between sound, noise, and music through a set of lenses different than he had previously used in his music career. Using electrical power noise as the source sound, Jon processes this noise through multiple series of effects pedals that operate as a sort of makeshift synthesizer. Accompany Jon as he attempts to navigate his way home from his explorations of noises interacting with each other in their overlapping circles of harmony and chaos.

https://obliviousnewtonjon.bandcamp.com/

Jefferson Park EXP with Reid Karris and Janna Lee – November 7, 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 7 at 2pm (CST/UTC-06), join us!

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffersonparkexp

Reid Karris is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound enthusiast and improviser hailing from Chicago, Illinois trying very hard to get all the music stuck in his head out for all the world to hear. After spending years as an odd guitarist trying to fit in with the world of rock music Reid shifted his focus towards improvisation, noise, drone and avant-garde. His primary instruments for doing so are prepared guitar and drum kit sent through electronics.

https://reidkarris.bandcamp.com/

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Janna Lee is a Chicago-based noise artist and dancer. Her current projects include Snek Trio with Reid Karris and Erik Sowa, and Obsequies with Corey Lyons. She also performs and records solo as Mother Wound.

https://jannaleemusic.bandcamp.com/

Jefferson Park EXP with the Portland State University Laptop Ensemble – May 30, 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 May 30 at 2pm (CST/UTC-05), join us!

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffersonparkexp

Portland State University’s Sonic Arts and Music Production’s Laptop Ensemble will be streaming several new compositions created in collaboration with PSU’s School of Film production students. The Laptop Ensemble is an ensemble of humans, laptops, controllers, and speakers. Ensemble members both compose and perform in the ensemble, exploring computer-mediated instrument design, sound synthesis, programming, and live interactive performance.

In addition, several pieces will be presented by the university’s Advanced Laptop Ensemble. The Advanced Laptop Ensemble is a unique ensemble experience, one that encourages each student to explore intricate production and collaborative techniques with other dedicated artists. The curriculum is centered around artistic collaboration and creative leadership. Rather than specific rubrics and strict guidelines, Advanced Laptop Ensemble pushes students not only to develop their own ideas and concepts—but to deliver upon those concepts in creative and experimental means.

https://sites.google.com/pdx.edu/sample/

Jefferson Park EXP with Christi Denton and Francisco Botello – May 16, 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 May 16 at 2pm (CST/UTC-05), join us!

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffersonparkexp

Christi Denton is a composer and sound installation artist who works with found sounds, electronics, and homemade and modified instruments. She enjoys breaking things, multi-channel speaker configurations, and building instruments where other things control sound; for example, where the audience can influence the composition with their phones or their drinks, or where light, weather, or a microorganism modifies musical parameters.

http://www.christidenton.com
https://christidenton.bandcamp.com

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Francisco Botello is an intermedia artist born and raised in Chula Vista, California. Growing up a dual citizen on the dividing line between the United States and Mexico, his work reflects on the nature of place and belonging. Gathering and composing with field recordings, alongside electronics he explores questions of identity, ancestry, geography, change, and loss. Recently, he has been experimenting with gestural control and working with immersive, multi-channel sound systems as ways to connect his art more intimately with his body and audience.

Francisco Botello is presently based in Portland, OR, USA.

http://franciscobotello.com/

Jefferson Park EXP with Impulsive Hearts and cinchel – May 2 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 May 2 at 2pm (CST/UTC-05), join us!

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffersonparkexp

Impulsive Hearts is Danielle Sines. She sings, shouts, plays guitar and synth, and records noises on tape recorders. She likes melodies that remind her of summertime. Impulsive Hearts pick up where recent revivalist acts like Dum Dum Girls and Best Coast have left off, adding just a hint of indelible Midwestern sadness to the neo-girl group garage rock sound. On Cry All The Time, the band’s second LP, the surf-rock group delves into darker themes of love and loss, while maintaining bright, fierce and catchy-as-hell songwriting. Danielle is joined by Fallon McDermott on saxophone, keys and vocals; and Amanda Kraus on percussion. For fans of Best Coast, The Pretenders, Beach House, Alvvays, The Beach Boys, The Smiths, Dum Dum Girls, Bully and you.

https://impulsivehearts.bandcamp.com

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cinchel is a Chicago based musician working with guitar, effects and laptop to create abstract ambient music that is both minimal and dense. His main focus has been the interaction of sounds/notes with themselves. With only the use of delay, layering and distortion he attempts to make a lot of guitars no longer sound like guitars. For that reason, he likes to call this – minimal dense music.

https://cinchel.bandcamp.com

Jefferson Park EXP with Bleak House and Poleukhina, Fariello, Chernyshkov, Gorlinsky – February 7, 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 February 7 at 2pm (CST/UTC-06), join us!

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffersonparkexp

Bleak House produce crumbly, autumnal library music; flickering guitars, stumbling piano, mournful horns, and pattering percussion. Formed in 2001 by British musicians Luke Sample, Andy Brain, and Caroline Vile, who are also involved in other bands (e.g. Keshco, Vile Brain Samples), the Bleak House palette is distinctly sepia-tinged.

Their first album, Music From The Middle Room was released by Silent Flow in 2011; a follow-up, Outwardly was released by Pan y Rosas Discos in 2019. They are working on a new EP, and also a retrospective of unreleased early recordings.

For this performance recorded earlier in the week, they tried collaborating via a telephone link-up, and also recording separately, in their Bleak Houses.

http://keshco.co.uk/bleakhouse/

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Dario Fariello is a multi-instrumentalist improviser based in Oslo. Born in Naples in 1987, plays saxophones, viola, harps and electronics. He cofounded Multiversal, a nomad festival series featuring a wide international network of improv and noise musicians. With Norbert Stammberger he organizes the yearly improvised music meeting “Tubax Super Session”, in Munich, dedicated to the tubax saxophone and other special instruments.

https://soundcloud.com/dariofariello

Marina Poleukhina is a composer, improviser, and performer. Born in St. Petersburg in 1989. Graduated at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with V. Tarnopolski; Kunstuniversität Graz with C. Gadenstätter. Her music is published on the labels Pan y Rosas, Topot and “da_sein_rec.” Her albums Puinen Neon Itku, Songs about trees and Partly Cloudy are fruits of these collaborations, as much as the concert series “real time music,” which she organized.

https://vimeo.com/user15458156

Alexander Chernyshkov is a composer, performer and improviser. Studies composition at the Vienna University with Chaya Czernowin, Karlheinz Essl and Clemens Gadenstätter. He experiments actively in building unique new instruments of strictly acoustical and mechanical origin using long tubes to transform the wind instruments or using motors, relays and electromagnets as vibrating sources. His main focus is the composition and practice of the performative, musical theatre, which is being referred as Error Theatre.

https://vimeo.com/user9855744

Vladimir Gorlinsky (1984, Moscow) is a composer, an improviser, an author of spatial compositions and sound installations. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory (prof. Vladimir Tarnopolski), after graduation he taught at the department of contemporary music. Vladimir is the author of lectures on the history and practice of composition and improvisation (Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod Conservatories, NCCA Moscow, SOTA, Meyerhold Center; Pro Arte and the Sound Museum in St. Petersburg; University of Haifa).

http://gorlinsky.com

The group will present their piece drive in 4 trees. About which they write: WHAT is the space? WHERE is the space? HOW does the music language transforms and expresses itself?

Being far away from each other in a totally different environment, sitting between the corners or imagining corners inside, we began to explore the space below and above the things that surround us. We found out that the distance does not exist and the space constantly breathes, changing the shape.

In each of our conversations we were bringing something new to the piece, that came out of the absorption of the occurred situation. We were exploring the „environment“ of each other and expanding the borders of the music language. The video as well as the audio issues are turned into inspiration and become part of the „game“. What you see and hear is a very complex piece, where improvisation and composition are going strongly together.