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Saturday, November 22 @ Vox Populi:
Mattin + Margarida Garcia,
Barry Weisblat + Michael Evans,
Moss Forest (Zajack/Danges)
Vox Populi Gallery, 319 North 11th Street, Third Floor, Philadelphia, PA (map), $5-10, 8pm.
Sponsored by Bowerbird.
Mattin
(jump to bio)


"Mattin's music has an undeniable roughness, a lack of politeness that sets him apart from other more hi-tech,
high-concept laptoppers.   He's a contrarian, intent on going against the grain at all times, never doing what's
expected of him. His albums can dwell on hellish noise or centre on the flimsiest wisps of sound."
- Keith Moliné, The Wire

Mattin - "Broken Subject"

Mattin and Margarida Garcia - "For Permitted Consumption" excerpt

Hear more here

mattin.org
Margarida Garcia
(jump to bio)

                                                                     photo: susanna bolle/non-event

“Garcia’s electric bass is attacked with abandon, flayed with bow and hammered with fist,
creating a wide range of mysterious rumbles, hisses, groans and more.”
- Brian Olewnick, Bagatellen

Mattin and Margarida Garcia - "For Permitted Consumption" excerpt

Margarida Garcia - "Oriole"


Barry Weisblat
(jump to bio)


"His manipulation of small fluorescent tubes and (I'm guessing), their barely
controllable reaction with the surrounding devices is fascinating."
- Brian Olewnick

Barry Weisblat and Margarida Garcia - "Billowy Drowse"

Barry Weisblat- "Velatropa 24.3"
Michael Evans
(jump to bio)


“Michael Evans is a very funny mixture of serious percussionist and childlike explorer.”
- Karen Mantler

Michael Evans - "The Arrival"

Michael Evans - "Visitation"


http://www.michaelevanssounds.com/
Moss Forest


Moss Forest is an exploration in new media by artists Marc Zajack and Micah Danges. Processing both collected audio and visual information MOSS FOREST: LOOMING MIDST celebrates a dark underbelly found just beneath the surface.  An organic narrative built from elements of noise, light and image continues to grow and shift in conjunction with real-time exploration of sound and installation. Through constant experimentation MFLM presents an endless circuit of evolving parameters and possibilities inspired from nature's lush vegetation and reoccurring patterns.


Bios:

Mattin is a Basque artist working with noise and improvisation. His work seeks to address the social and economic structures of experimental music production through live performance, recordings and writing.

Using a conceptual approach, he aims to question the nature and parameters of improvisation, specifically the relationship between the idea of ''freedom''and constant innovation that it traditionally implies, and the established conventions of improvisation as a genre.

Mattin considers improvisation not only as an interaction between musicians and instruments, but as a situation involving all the elements that constitute a concert, including the audience and the social and architectural space. He tries to expose the stereotypical relation between active performer and passive audience, producing a sense of strangeness and alienation that disturbs this relationship.

Discography
Mattin has published more than 50 records on different labels all over the world, alone and in collaboration.

Labels
Mattin runs the label w.m.o/r which focuses on experimental works with a conceptual and minimalist approach. He also runs Free Software Series, a label dedicated to promote works that are realized using free software and the chaotic netlabel Desetxea ( http://www.mattin.org/desetxea.html), which has more than 150 references.

Collaborations
Mattin has collaborated with many musicians inlcuding:
Eddie Prevost (Sakada), '' '' [sic] Tim Goldie (Deflag Haemorrhage/Haien Kontra), Lucio Capece (NMM), Mark Wastell (Belaska), Rosy Parlane, Radu Malfatti, Taku Unami, Dion Workman, Junko, Billy Bao, Xabier Erkizia, Alberto Lopez, Josetxo Anitua & Inigo Eguillor (Josetxo Grieta), Tim Barnes, Matthew Bower, Oren Ambarchi, Margarida Garcia, Dean Roberts, Klaus Fillip, Bruce Russell, Matt Earle, Campbell Kneale, Werner Dafeldecker, Cremaster, DD Kern, Kouhei Matsunaga, Christof Kurzmann,  Matthew Hyland, Joel Stern, Anthony Guerra, Takehiro Nishide, Taku Sugimoto, Yasuo Totsuka, Axel Doerner, Masafumi Ezaki, Tony Conrad, Michel Henritzi and Philip Best.

Performances
Mattin has toured Europe, Japan, USA, China, Australia and New Zealand.

He has performed in many international festivals including: ad libitum (Warsaw 2007), Argos (Brussels 2007), Sonorites (Montpelier 2007), Densites (Fresnes en Woevre 2007), Jazz Festival (Mullhouse 2007), Noise Festival (Ljubljana 2007), Sonic Protest (Paris 2007), Escena contemporanea (Madrid 2007), ErstQuake
(New York 2006), No Trend (London 2006), Parthenay Festival (Parthenay 2006), LMC festival (London 2005), What is music? (Australia 2004),Improvisations (Adelaide 2004), Avanto (Helsinki 2004), Lieux Communs (Montreal 2004), Observatori (Valencia 2004), Ciberart y MEM (Bilbao 2004), LEM e Improvisa ( Barcelona 2003), Freedom of the City Festival (2003 & 2002 London), Konfrontation 2003 (Nickelsdorf), SKIF 7 ( 2003 San Petersburg & Moscow) , Wrong Festival (Barcelona 2002), MEM (Bilbao 2003, 2002, 2001), Ertz 2001 & 2002 (Bera) y Elektronikaldia (2001 Donostia/San Sebastian).

Writing
Mattin also writes about improvisation, noise, culture in more general terms and intellectual property. His texts have been published in books and magazines such as: Work the Room (b-books, Berlin), Mute magazine (London), Soliloquio (Getxo), Gara (Euskadi), Arsenal (Londres), 3t (Bergen), The Wire (Londres) y  MEM codex (Bilbao). Mattin has edited the book ''Bilbao Acabado'' dealing with role of culture in the regeneration process of Bilbao.

He is currently editing a book titeld ''Noise & Capitalism'' that explores the relationship of experimental music with the economic system that we are living in. ''Noise & Capitalism'' will be published in English and Spanish by Arteleku-Audiolab in collaboration with [un]common sounds (Donostia/San Sebastián).

Lectures & Workshops
He has given lectures and workshops about improvisation in different places such as: MAK (Vienna), Zagreb, Adeleide and Basque Country.

Exhibitions
He had exhibited his sound work in places such as Arthouse (Dublin), Arteleku (Donostia/San Sebastian), Abisal y Sala Rekalde (Bilbao), CataLyst Arts (Belfast), Cubbit Gallery (Londres), ZAIM (Yokohama), Alma (Londres).

Media
Mattin has appeared on TV and radio, including the ''mixing it'' program on BBC and Resonance FM (London).
He has received many reviews and articles in the international music press, such as Time Out (New York), Berria (Euskal Herria), The Wire (London), Reveu et Corvige, (Grenoble), Signal to Noise (Texas), Ruta 66 (Barcelona), Autsaider (Kiev), and El Correo (Bilbao). He was described as of one of the best laptop performers of the moment (Jonathon Dale, Signal To Noise USA).

Grants & Residencies
He has twice received grants from the Basque government to realize different projects (2004 & 2005). One of these projects was ''Bilbao Acabado'' (http://www.mattin.org/bilbaoacabado.html), an investigation of the role of culture in the the processes of gentrification in post-industrial cities like Bilbao. A part of the project was the publication of the book with the same name.

In the summer of 2003 Mattin had a residency in Vienna at Quartier 21, Muesums Quartier ( www.mqw.at).

Mattin is currently in New York doing the Whitney Independent Study Program.

*****

Margarida Garcia studied at the Parsons School of Design, from the New School University in New York.  By then she was very interested in Max Neuhaus and Robert Smithson's work as well as the films and sounds of Tony Conrad and Michael Snow.  She has collaborated in live/recording settings with Manuel Mota, Nöel Akchoté, Barry Weisblat, Otomo Yoshihide, Toshio Kajiwara, Oren Ambarchi, Ferran Fages, Alfredo C. Monteiro, Ruth Barberán, John Tilbury, Sean Meehan, Eddie Prevost, Rhodri Davies, Matt Valentine, Erica Elder, David Keenan, Alex Neilson and Mattin.

*****

 Barry Weisblat was born in 1975 in Brooklyn. He is a sound artist and electronic instrument builder who extensively experiments with electro-magnetic devices, solar technology, homemade and modified circuits for application in sound generation/manipulation, audio engineering and photography. Weisblat has collaborated with Margarida Garcia, Tower Recordings, Mattin, Tim Barnes and Tetuzi Akiyama, and has built instruments for Peter Kowald, Toshio Kajiwara, Manuel Mota and Matt Valentine. He has sound engineered for Erstwhile Records, Dean Roberts and Jon Gibson.

*****

Michael Evans is an improvising drummer/percussionist/thereminist/composer whose work investigates and embraces the collision of sound and theatrics. As well as being a drumset player, his work with unusual sound sources includes found objects, homemade instruments, the theremin and various digital and homemade analog electronics. His work with the theremin varies the quality of its sound through set-up and technique. On the theremin he has performed with dancers and in group settings playing experimental, jazz, rock, ersatz lounge and chamber music. In 2000, he was photographed playing a Moog ether wave theremin for the front of Bob Moog’s Big Briar catalog. He has performed in multiple performances of the NYC Theremin Society’s Issue Project Room concerts during 2005, 2006 and 2007. He has studied movement/sparring/drumming with Professor Milford Graves, drum technique with Joe Morello, tabla with Misha Masud, kanjira with Ganesh Kumar and Haitian/Afro-Cuban hand drumming with John Amira. He has studied musicianship with Helen Hobbs Jordan, composition with Richard Cameron Wolf, Blue Gene Tyranny and the theremin with Pamelia Kurstin.

He was selected for a composers fellowship to Music/Omi 2001. Music/Omi is part of the International Music Colony @ the Art Omi International Arts Center, in the upstate city of Ghent, N.Y..

During the summer of 2003, he participated in Baltimore’s High Zero Festival. An ongoing, yearly improvisational festival featuring musicians from the USA and abroad.

In Berlin, Germany he participated in an impromptu performance series entitled “Purgatory”, presented by Alexander Hacke(Einsturzende Neubauten).

During the spring of 2004 he participated, along with his partner, the dancer/choreographer Susan Hefner, in Birmingham, Alabama’s ImprovFestival produced by LaDonna Smith.
He and Susan debuted their “Fulminate Moon” duo performance as a part of the Roulette series, at Location One Gallery in Soho, NYC on April 22nd, 2005.
Susan and Michael, along with LaDonna Smith took part in performing in Brooklyn’s Improvised And Otherwise Festival: A Festival of Sound And Form on May 6th, 2005.

During August of 2005, the duo of percussionist Samm Bennett/Michael Evans toured Japan.

In August of 2006 (he also will be teaching/performing during the summer of this year, August 2007) he taught a week long drummer’s workshop to children and performed at the Electric Eclectics festival (Festival Of Modern Music And Irritainment) in Meaford, Canada.

During December of 2006, he and Susan Hefner presented their duo of movement and sound, Cymbalic Logicians during the Chocolate Factory’s Fresh Meat Festival in Long Island City, NY.

Recently on May 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 2008, he and Susan Hefner yet again presented their new duo performance of movement and sound, Domestic Noise at the Chocolate Factory Theatre in Long Island City, NY.

He has worked with a wide variety of actors, comedians, film makers, musicians, performance artists, and dancers including Ron Anderson, Jeff Arnal, Audio Artists, Claire Barratt, Samm Bennett, Jac Berrocal, Carla Bley, Naval Cassidy, James Chance, Martha Colburn, Combustible Edison, Lol Coxhill, EasSide Percussion(ESP), Roger Ely(the Devil’s Chaueffeur), Nicolas Dumit Estevez, Ken Filiano, Fast Forward(Gobo), Chris Ferris, Michael Gira (Angels of Light, Swans), Gisburg, Gilbert Godfried, God is my Co-Pilot, Alexander Hacke(Einsturzende Neubauten), Susan Hefner, Steve Horowitz’s Code Ensemble, Jarboe (Swans), Pamelia Kurstin, Skip LaPlante’s Music for Homemade Instruments, Gen Ken Montgomery, Neil Leonard, Aimee Mann, Karen Mantler, Sean G. Meehan, Donald Miller, Eric Mingus, Gordon Monahan, Joe Morris, Anders Nilsson, Evan Parker, Andrea Parkins, Maxime De La Rochefoucauld, William Parker, Yvette Perez’s Birdbrain, Gino Robair, Lary Seven, Elliot Sharp, Moe! Staiano, LaDonna Smith, David Simons, Toronto Dance Theatre, Stephen Vitiello, Christopher Walken, Jason Willet, Peter Zummo’s Noisy Meditation Band and John Zorn.

He continues his ongoing collaborations with: Jeff Arnal(MEJA duo), Anders Nilsson & Ken Filiano(Fulminate Trio), Peter Zummo’s Noisy Meditation Band, EasSide Percussion(ESP), Lary Seven and composes music for and performs with Susan Hefner and Dancers.

Recorded examples of his work can be found on EasSide Percussion’s ESP release on Avant records, MESuperstar on A.T.M.O.T.W. records, Karen Mantler’s Farewell and Pet Project releases on XtraWatt records, Just Drums 2 - The Project(a compilation of 35 drummers) on Fever Pitch records and MEJA(Michael Evans/Jeff Arnal) on C3R records.