THURSDAY, APRIL 27th 2017
8PM
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KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN
SEAN MCCANN
JESSIKA KENNEY
HUMAN RESOURCES
![]()
![]()
![]()
8PM
KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN
SEAN MCCANNJESSIKA KENNEY
HUMAN RESOURCES
KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN
Through more than two decades, Keith Fullerton Whitman has continuously explored and celebrated the technologies and many facets of electronic music, plumming its history and scouting its cutting edges. Assuming the role of a contemporary "Contemporary Classical" composer, Keith has also made the case that this music is a ‘popular form' by serially choosing to release on labels intent on bringing such niche music to a wider audience. Keith's discography is itself a dizzying catalogue of influence; labels that count his total-art aesthetic as part of their identity include Kranky, Editions Mego, PAN, Room40, No Fun Productions, Rare Youth, Root Strata, Amethyst Sunset, among other good companies.
The past couple of years Keith has focused on realizations of a "Live Electronic Music" that utilizes both software and hardware – improvisation with a laptop and modular rig both on stage. This activity has culminated in a piece – or perhaps a process – called "Redactions." Each instance of this work incorporates "thematically and geographically relevant Musique Concrète elements" thus rendering each iteration – as well as the manner in which it is diffused – necessarily site-specific. Sonically, the outcomes can be radically different, or even abruptly shift styles within the same performance. Subtle landscapes of magnetic snow, electro-acoustic gurgle and scrape, sustained tone play, or drifting particles of pulse.
Previous performances of Redactions have been staged in Europe, Australia, and the U.S. at various venues of note, including Boston City Hall. KFW on Redactions: "It's the most complete performance solution I've come up with to date; very much a live performance work and as of yet remains undocumented by a tangible commercial recording… please come hear it live."
This will be Keith's first L.A. appearance in over four years, and also his first since relocating from Boston to Melbourne, Austraila. The Los Angeles debut of Redactions will be presented in Quadrophonic Sound.
SEAN McCANN
Drawn to the timbres of the orchestra, Sean McCann has meshed acoustic instrumentation back into the possibilities of new sound fields, painting pastoral landscapes with voicings near and clear. Since 2013's "Music for Private Ensemble" he's drifted away from overtly electronic sonics, creating seamless studio assemblages of imaginary and – possibly impossible – ensembles. In live settings too, classical instruments come into the fold as fodder for the mix. Human voice is never far away, even if phonemes are reconfigured or processed. Indeed, McCann's work – and that of his "Recital Program" imprint – draw inspiration from an array of aesthetics: the "guttural tape work" of Fluxus artists, experimental librettos, certain margins of the New Age, and many an artist who practiced outside of the spotlight.
For this – his first local performance since his most recent release "Music for Public Ensemble" – McCann will convene an ensemble to present a mostly-acoustic chamber-based piece, augmented by live electronics, to be preceded by a sound poetry / tape music piece.
JESSIKA KENNEY
Whether singing amidst gamelan tones, classical Persian music, the heaviest metal, or the noisiest fuzz, Jessika Kenney keenly considers the play of frequencies, and how song acts as a conduit for words and meaning. Her solo works – as well as projects with her core collaborator Eyvind Kang – offer an audio syncretism that draws from established forms while conjuring new expressions. Her sense of the spectral has been heard in the ensemble of Persian ney master Hossein Omoumi, as well as at the helm of the Austrian Choir on Sunn O)))'s Monoliths and Dimensions. Though her practice includes many a studied approach, she finds a continued freedom in musics of rebellion; her brushes with the Indonesian punk scene resonate.
For this event, Kenney will perform her new work – "This Is My House" – a gritty live-electronics-affected sung-recitation of The Persian Poems of Kathy Acker. Through time-bending efforts on both the micro and macro levels – 25 years after Kenney's initial obsessive readings of Acker's writing – the fictional process of Janey learning Persian and the actual process of Jessika learning the radif collide.
Photos by Andrew Hall
Sean McCann Ensemble performers (L-R): Celia Hollander, Piano; Justin Johnson, Keyboard; Alex Twomey, Laptop, Electronics; Sean McCann, Keyboard, Electronics; Tom Krell, Voice; Jason Bannon, Cello; Nour Mobarak, Voice; Eric Vallely, Voice; James Rushford, Violin; Pauline Lay, Violin; Sarah Davachi, Harmonium; David McPeters, Lap-steel Guitar; Geneva Skeen, Voice; Rob Magill, Bass Clarinet; Patrick Shiroshi, Baritone Saxophone
Flyer and descriptions by Tim Leanse
Last sentence of Jessika Kenney description provided by the artist
show pulled prior to UPEND
Through more than two decades, Keith Fullerton Whitman has continuously explored and celebrated the technologies and many facets of electronic music, plumming its history and scouting its cutting edges. Assuming the role of a contemporary "Contemporary Classical" composer, Keith has also made the case that this music is a ‘popular form' by serially choosing to release on labels intent on bringing such niche music to a wider audience. Keith's discography is itself a dizzying catalogue of influence; labels that count his total-art aesthetic as part of their identity include Kranky, Editions Mego, PAN, Room40, No Fun Productions, Rare Youth, Root Strata, Amethyst Sunset, among other good companies.
The past couple of years Keith has focused on realizations of a "Live Electronic Music" that utilizes both software and hardware – improvisation with a laptop and modular rig both on stage. This activity has culminated in a piece – or perhaps a process – called "Redactions." Each instance of this work incorporates "thematically and geographically relevant Musique Concrète elements" thus rendering each iteration – as well as the manner in which it is diffused – necessarily site-specific. Sonically, the outcomes can be radically different, or even abruptly shift styles within the same performance. Subtle landscapes of magnetic snow, electro-acoustic gurgle and scrape, sustained tone play, or drifting particles of pulse.
Previous performances of Redactions have been staged in Europe, Australia, and the U.S. at various venues of note, including Boston City Hall. KFW on Redactions: "It's the most complete performance solution I've come up with to date; very much a live performance work and as of yet remains undocumented by a tangible commercial recording… please come hear it live."
This will be Keith's first L.A. appearance in over four years, and also his first since relocating from Boston to Melbourne, Austraila. The Los Angeles debut of Redactions will be presented in Quadrophonic Sound.
SEAN McCANN
Drawn to the timbres of the orchestra, Sean McCann has meshed acoustic instrumentation back into the possibilities of new sound fields, painting pastoral landscapes with voicings near and clear. Since 2013's "Music for Private Ensemble" he's drifted away from overtly electronic sonics, creating seamless studio assemblages of imaginary and – possibly impossible – ensembles. In live settings too, classical instruments come into the fold as fodder for the mix. Human voice is never far away, even if phonemes are reconfigured or processed. Indeed, McCann's work – and that of his "Recital Program" imprint – draw inspiration from an array of aesthetics: the "guttural tape work" of Fluxus artists, experimental librettos, certain margins of the New Age, and many an artist who practiced outside of the spotlight.
For this – his first local performance since his most recent release "Music for Public Ensemble" – McCann will convene an ensemble to present a mostly-acoustic chamber-based piece, augmented by live electronics, to be preceded by a sound poetry / tape music piece.
JESSIKA KENNEY
Whether singing amidst gamelan tones, classical Persian music, the heaviest metal, or the noisiest fuzz, Jessika Kenney keenly considers the play of frequencies, and how song acts as a conduit for words and meaning. Her solo works – as well as projects with her core collaborator Eyvind Kang – offer an audio syncretism that draws from established forms while conjuring new expressions. Her sense of the spectral has been heard in the ensemble of Persian ney master Hossein Omoumi, as well as at the helm of the Austrian Choir on Sunn O)))'s Monoliths and Dimensions. Though her practice includes many a studied approach, she finds a continued freedom in musics of rebellion; her brushes with the Indonesian punk scene resonate.
For this event, Kenney will perform her new work – "This Is My House" – a gritty live-electronics-affected sung-recitation of The Persian Poems of Kathy Acker. Through time-bending efforts on both the micro and macro levels – 25 years after Kenney's initial obsessive readings of Acker's writing – the fictional process of Janey learning Persian and the actual process of Jessika learning the radif collide.
Photos by Andrew Hall
Sean McCann Ensemble performers (L-R): Celia Hollander, Piano; Justin Johnson, Keyboard; Alex Twomey, Laptop, Electronics; Sean McCann, Keyboard, Electronics; Tom Krell, Voice; Jason Bannon, Cello; Nour Mobarak, Voice; Eric Vallely, Voice; James Rushford, Violin; Pauline Lay, Violin; Sarah Davachi, Harmonium; David McPeters, Lap-steel Guitar; Geneva Skeen, Voice; Rob Magill, Bass Clarinet; Patrick Shiroshi, Baritone Saxophone
Flyer and descriptions by Tim Leanse
Last sentence of Jessika Kenney description provided by the artist
show pulled prior to UPEND