Bassoonist Dafne Vicente-Sandoval and cellist Charles Curtis perform live-in-concert at Human Resources premiering a new version of Tashi Wada’s 2017 Witness, originally written for Vicente-Sandoval on bassoon and now including accompaniment by Curtis on cello. In Witness, a series of microtonally inflected scales and tetrachords are explored through repetition, variation, and improvisation. At this intimate concert, Curtis will also present brief solo cello pieces, possibly including music by Tashi Wada, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, Alvin Lucier, and/or other works in progress. Vicente-Sandoval’s own Minos Circuit Rewired, for microphone feedback, voice, and disassembled bassoon, will close the evening.

Dafne Vicente-Sandoval (b. 1979, Paris) works at the intersection of bassoon acoustics, resonant spaces, and amplification; Charles Curtis (b. 1960, Laguna Beach) explores classical cello performance, precise tuning, and sustained sound. Together, they have marked out a distinctive perspective on contemporary experimental music. Working collectively with composers Alvin Lucier, Tashi Wada, and Éliane Radigue, and individually with Jakob Ullmann, Phill Niblock, Peter Ablinger, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, and Christian Wolff, Vicente-Sandoval and Curtis present a shared concert of works made for them, along with original sound pieces.

It’s true. On Tuesday June 2nd, The Red Krayola – the long-venerated and ever-evolving band that coalesces around Mayo Thompson – plays live in Los Angeles, their only show on the books, near or far.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the project, and – if anything is intact – it is certainly the refusal to repeat itself. The Red Krayola – and all of us that sail with it – must only move forward.

Still, amidst new songs and inventions, there are audible throughlines to various eras past: this is a new band that sounds like The Red Krayola.

Playing in this famously “nonmembership” organization are collaborators Mayo Thompson – now 82 – and Emmett Kelly on guitars, Connor Gallaher on pedal steel, and Marc Riordan on drums and keyboards, with all contributing vocals.

Having steered the craft deftly, Thompson’s crews have pioneered various styles: Texas psych, avant-garde soundmaking, capitalist critique songcraft, groovy proto-post-punk, and idiosyncratic indie rock. You don’t have to imagine what comes next; you can just come to the gig.

The Red Krayola are Drag City recording artists