Sick, modern, geeky, heavy and deep. Old enough to repay, but young enough to sell. The cat with the mostest, a rockalicious throwdown in the spiraling murk of musical sojourners. This here devil cello weaves African trance, improvisational beauty, er, instability and heavy metal. I'm Killick of Athens, Georgia. I doggedly chase extemporaneity. I play some quasi-guitars and my devil cello: the H'arpeggione, an upright acoustic instrument with sympathetic strings. Acoustic may be a dirty word, yeah, though that's my preferred (dirty) bag. My style blends primitive folk, beloved metal, and sacred musics from around the world into a doomy/pretty/physically exhausting voice. I've had the good fortune to play with countless amazing musicians as I hop, skip, and leap throughout this fair land of ours. I'm comin'-a getcha!

Mary Halvorson is a guitarist, composer and improviser living in Brooklyn. She grew up in Boston and studied jazz at Wesleyan University and the New School. Since 2000 she has been performing regularly in New York with various groups and has toured Europe and the U.S. with the Anthony Braxton Quintet (Live at the Royal Festival Hall, Leo Records) and Trevor Dunn’s Trio-Convulsant (Sister Phantom Owl Fish, Ipecac Recordings). She has also performed alongside Joe Morris, Nels Cline, John Tchicai, Elliott Sharp, Lee Ranaldo, Andrea Parkins, Marc Ribot, Tony Malaby, Oscar Noriega and John Hollenbeck. Current projects which Mary composes for and performs with include a chamber-music duo with violist Jessica Pavone (On and Off, Skirl Records, 2007); The Mary Halvorson Trio with John Hebert and Ches Smith; and the avant-rock band People (Misbegotten Man, I & Ear Records, 2007). She also performs regularly in ensembles led by Taylor Ho Bynum, Ted Reichman, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jason Cady, Matthew Welch, Brian Chase and Curtis Hasselbring.

Matt Weston plays percussion and electronics, and has performed throughout the US and in Europe. He has appeared on CNN, VH1, and CBS TV. He has studied and/or collaborated with Arthur Brooks, Bill Dixon, Kevin Drumm, Milford Graves, William Parker, Jack Wright and others. His work has earned critical praise from such publications as the Wire, the Village Voice, Signal To Noise, Cadence, All About Jazz, Grooves, and Bananafish. His solo album Vacuums has garnered international acclaim, as have his recordings with Barn Owl and with Tizzy. He has recorded for the Tautology, Sachimay, Breaking World Records, Imvated, Crank Satori, BoxMedia, and Drag City labels. A new label, 7272Music, is set to launch with the aim of releasing limited editions of Weston's live performances. In addition to his solo work, Weston is a member of Barn Owl (with guitarist Chris Cooper and bassist Andy Crespo); and is guitarist/vocalist with Tizzy (with drummer/vocalist Teri Morris and bassist/vocalist Jen Stavely).

The Concert Series

The Powel House
Built in 1765 by merchant and businessman Charles Stedman, this elegant Georgian brick mansion was purchased by Samuel Powel in 1769 at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Willing. Samuel Powel, a wealthy, educated man who had toured the Continent for seven years before settling down, served as the last mayor of Philadelphia under the Crown and was the first mayor of the city after the creation of the United States. Mayor Powel was later dubbed the “Patriot Mayor.” Mayor Powel and his wife were well known for their hospitality and frequently entertained such notable guests as George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, and the Marquis de Lafayette.

During the early 20th century, the house served as a warehouse and office for a business that imported and exported Russian and Siberian horse hair and bristles. The owners had sold much of the interior architectural detail to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum. Little more than a shell, the building was slated for demolition and the site to be used for a parking lot. After learning of the imminent demolition, Miss Frances Wister formed The Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks (Landmarks) and raised sufficient funds to purchase the property in 1931. Over the next decade, Miss Wister and Landmarks restored the house to its appearance during Samuel Powel’s residency, interpreting the daily lives of wealthy Philadelphians at the time of the American Revolution.

Today, the rich history of the Powel House may be seen in its decorative arts collection, its portraits of Powels and Willings, and its formal, walled garden so typical of Colonial Philadelphia. Its beautiful entryway, ballroom with bas-relief plasterwork, and mahogany wainscoting give the house its reputation as perhaps America’s finest existing Georgian Colonial townhouse.

Joe Foster came to Seoul in 2002 from Portland, Oregon, where he had been playing for a million years with JP Jenkins, Bryan Eubanks, Peevish, Super Unity and everybody else in that bubbling musical underbelly. In Seoul he has played and recorded with Choi Sun-Bae, Alfred 23 Harth, Choi Joonyong, Hong Chulki, sOo-jung kAe, and Bonnie Jones, as well as visiting players. Like Bonnie, Joe has a background in writing. Joe's played in Portland, Olympia, Seattle, Astoria, Ukiah, San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Pacific Grove, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, San Diego, Spokane, Boise, Boulder, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, Boston, New York City, Seoul, Tokyo, Wellington, and Aukland, with and against people from those fucking places and others. He has put out music on rasbliutto, urantia, jyrk, balloon and needle, O Back CD, and 1000CD. Joe toured the west coast last year with Bryan Eubanks and Leif Sundstrom, as well as some Super Unity and Ferret/Javelina/Ewe Trio dates. He owes his music to others; there is so much work to be done; he plans to continue playing until death. joefoster.blogspot.com/

Bonnie Jones was born in South Korea in 1977 and works with text, performance and sound. A recent trip to Korea introduced her to expat Joe Foster and the Korean experimental music scene including the duo Astronoise. She has performed with many wonderful musicians and is a frequent collaborator with Andy Hayleck in Baltimore, MD.
www.chelagallery.org/bonnie

photo: yuko zama

Andrea Neumann: Born 1968 in Freiburg, grew up in Hamburg. Since 1996 primarily active as improviser and composer in the areas of experimental and new music. In the process of exploring the piano for new sound possibilities, she has reduced the instrument to strings, resonance board and metal frame. With the help of electronics to manipulate and amplify the sounds (sometimes to make parts of the sound audible which are inaudible without amplification), she has developed numerous new playing techniques, sounds, and ways of preparing the dismantled instrument. Because the original inside piano is very heavy, a piano builder (Bernd Bittmann, Berlin) constructed a new and lighter one for her. She has worked intensively in the crossover area between composition and improvisation, and in the field between electronic and handmade sounds, with Berlin musicians such as Annette Krebs, Ignaz Schick, Axel Dörner, Robin Hayward and Burkhard Beins.

Stephane Rives: “The mechanism of the saxophone permits a concrete-acoustic approach to the instrument. The possiblilities of acting directly on the pads and the flexibility of the reed offer subtle means of altering the sonic wave generated by breath. Once one adopts a way of thinking based on the sort of filtering any electronic musician does, one’s attention is drawn to the tiny micro-events that are barely audible in a traditional approach. The sonic planes twist and acoustic distortion emerges, revealing the subtle grains and textures lying “inside” the acoustic sound. New materials arise as though they had always been right there, hidden behind the immediately perceptible. In order to gain control of them, one reduces any idea of willful intervention to an absolute minimum, leaving only the flow of air through the metal cone, an action that is discrete in certain parameters.
My playing is not about arriving at something; instead, it is an instant that answers to that logic. My musical reflection focuses on questions of praxis. I am not driven by musical intention in the strict sense of the term, but the experience of sound I propose represents a means of “exciting” the listener, a way of questioning, of shaking up his feeling of psycological security and transforming his relationship to listening.”

Slought Foundation and Soundfield NFP are pleased to announce an evening of new and experimental music featuring Vienna/London-based ensemble Polwechsel on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 from 8:00-9:30pm. Polwechsel features Werner Dafeldecker (double bass), Martin Brandylmayr (percussion), John Butcher (saxophones), Michael Moser (cello, electronics), and Burkhard Beins (percussion). They will be performing new compositions as well as selections from their recent HatArt CD release Archives of the North. This concert is part of the 2007-2008 Soundfield @ Slought series.

Over the past two decades Polwechsel’s output has thrived on a democratic process of specifically composing for the abilities and techniques of its cast with each member possessing a unique and developed voice in instrumental performance. During this period Polwechsel has produced divisive compositions, structured improvisation and electro-acoustic works which have all spoken intricately and explicitly on the organization of noise, the locus of technique, and the dynamism of the ensemble. -- Dean M. Roberts (December 2005)

Slought Foundation and Soundfield NFP are pleased to announce an evening of new and experimental music featuring Rome-based ensemble Ossatura and Philadelphia-based Ensemble Noamnesia on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 from 8:00-9:30pm. Ossatura features Elio Martusciello (electronics), Fabrizio Spera (percussion and electronics), and Luca Venitucci (accordion and electronics). They will realize graphic scores by Anthony Braxton, Franco Evangelisti, and others, in collaboration with Ensemble Noamnesia. This concert is part of the 2007-2008 Soundfield @ Slought series.

Improvisation represents the backbone of the music played by Ossatura. The practice of improvising is integrated by discussion, research and critical analysis, all of which contribute to the elaboration of structures, information and organizational modes. Their music is marked by a sequence of sound blocks and diversified interlocking timbres and shapes, where detailed textural work alternates with rhythmic accelerations and highly dense sound events. Standard instrumental techniques are explored, together with heterodox practices such as manipulation, treatment, electrification and amplification of various objects, assuming noise as a structural element. Their improvisational work develops through electro acoustical elaboration in real time and the use of tapes, which both expand and define the space where sound is manipulated. Ossatura tends towards a combination of non-musical languages through a creative process where music is but one of the components in a complex and extended project.

Elio Martusciello is a self-taught musician and composer and teaches electronic music and electro acoustics at the Conservatory of Cagliari, Italy.

Fabrizio Spera has actively contributed as a percussionist to the contemporary and improvised music scene since the late eighties. His current projects and groups involve "Ossatura", "Trio" with John Butcher and John Edwards, "RARA ensemble," and a trio with Alberto Braida and Lisle Ellis.

Luca Venitucci attended musical studies at the scuola popolare di musica in Roma and studied composition with Boris Porena and Luca Venitucci. In the late eighties he began to participate in the activities of the improvised music scene in Italy and Europe, and during the next decade performed with musicians including Mike Cooper, Peter Kowald, Otomo Yoshihide, Thomas Lehn, Axel Dorner and others. From 1996 to 2002 he has been part of zeitkratzer ensemble, with whom he performed and recorded contemporary music scores by Cage, Glass, Stockhausen, La Monte Young and James Tenney. He has undertaken original projects and collaborations with several experimental musicians and composers such as Christian Marclay, Butch Morris, Francisco Lopez, Keith Rowe, Phil Niblock, Lee Renaldo, and Nicolas Collins.