Rangda does Nashville, Monday September 13th

Rangda is an incredible psych and rock trio consisting of Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls, Eddy Detroit, Alvarius B), Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance, Comets On Fire), and Chris Corsano (Flower Corsano Duo, Jailbreak). They have released their only record so far on Drag City records, and goddamn it is beautiful! The trance elements and rough, swelling compositions are hypnotic and enchanting.

Rangda is coming to Nashville to play Open Lot fresh off of this year's Boomslang Fest courtesy, I hear, of the ever hard-working Chris Davis.

Rangda was Reviewed this year by the BBC in May, and Here is a whole slew of video of their live performances.

The performance is to start promptly at 9 and the suggested price is $15, $10 if you can't. Though, you are way welcome to pay more than that. 

It is incredibly important for Nashville to be able to get shows like this, so come out and if you're not in the area, spread the word. This is gonna be big!

Rounding out the evening we have many great sonic treats!

John Allingham (Cherry Blossoms) will be playing. John is one of my top guitar players locally and otherwise! His style is so real and uninhbited, a pure and free guitar sound certainly folky and pretty surfy to boot!

Leslie Keffer (Laundromat Squelchers) and Scott Martin (Hands Off Cuba, Forrest Bride) will also be duo'ing it up! Two great minds and busy busy hard-working artists coming together! Together, they're going to fry your mind, or what's left of it, just as separately they never fail to impress.

Diminished Men on Abduction records will be sharing the bill with them all. Their lp Shadow Instrumentals is sold out on Forced Exposure (they only pressed 500), so you gotta come and see if you can get one! They're on their way down on a tour that will be putting them back up in Brooklyn here shortly. I am very excited to see what they're showing around the East Coast these days.....

Among this constituency of John, Leslie, Scott, and Chris, one has an irreplaceable production unit generating some of the best music programming in the city currently. Thank you guys for all you do -- officially! Thanks!

Third Live Projection 2010, Little Hamilton, July 26th

Film Projection for, and in-between, live music performances by:
Sugar Skulls (Ben Marcantel)
Kelli Shay Hix (w/ Amy Marcantel & Kyle Xavier)
Sons of an Illustrious Father (New York)

Kelli Shay gave me a call over the weekend to ask if we would be interested in projecting for these live bands she had booked at the Nashville art space, Little Hamilton. Of course I said yes, and as usual with no consulting my partner. To be asked by such talented artists to assist in augmenting an artistic performance is  a very gratifying sensation which, if taken seriously, can completely alter the performance and elevate the propensity for full effect. The audience is also often engaging and stimulated and vocal, as was the case this evening. The reception was incredible, again....
The previous screenings, albeit successful, culminated on this showing. It was the most last-minute one yet, but one for which my partner and I were well prepared. On this occasion, Alcamy played the initial set of composite film images for both Ben and Kelli's sets, while perpendicular to those images, I screened segments of more known films and some rare Chris Marker early VHS projects. I also played a really psychedelic Wim Wenders short, "Ten Miles to Trona," off of the very interesting project reproached from the 1978 original in 2002 in two 10-film projects titled "Trumpet: Ten Minutes Older," the other film set simultaneously released was "Cello: Ten Minutes Older." Incredible short films there.
It was a great success. Some great hosting was done, particularly by those at Little Hamilton, Dave I believe it was. But, we had a ton of fun, got some great film in front of some great people, and all the while, got some projects out there of ours while instigating new collaborations.
The folks of Sons of an Illustrious Father were very talented and open young people, loving their travels and playing music that seems to me to have been very emotionally cathartic. Best of luck to them, as I hope they've had a safe return, and thanks to everyone for the wonderful comments and questions, namely Scott Zeman of Vanderbilt University and Holly, whose comments are never taken lightly. Lastly, thanks to the great performers Marcantels and Kyle and Kelli Shay, thanks for the invite!!!!
Below are some stills from Chris Marker's "2084," which insitigated a lot of questions and comments...a great work of Marker's VHS output!

Second Live Projection 2010, Betty’s Nashville, July 22nd

Live set that evening at Betty’s Grill, 49th & Charlotte:
Sugar Skulls [Ben Marcantel]
Black Patch [John Adams, Joe Garcia, Nathan Vasquez, Adam Bednarik]
Doberman [Scott Martin, Ryan Norris]

Scott Martin and I had talked one evening after a set of his at Betty’s about doing some video projection during one of his shows. He asked me if we could work that out because he wanted to play with some images really going on around him.
I lucked into it really. Only one other time has Scott called me accidentally, but one Sunday morning, Scott called and woke me up, asking if he could get in my liquor cabinet on a dry, eventful Sunday. I had to refuse because I currently don’t have a liquor cabinet, and was not who he thought he was talking to. I got the opportunity to ask him if he had any shows coming up though, and right then and there we made arrangements for Alcamy Henriksen and I to provide video for his show that following Thursday. I agreed immediately on our behalf.
The next few days were set-up for Alcamy Henriksen and I to get together to view, shoot, compile, and edit something for the occasion. With two laptops, two projectors, and two screens, we shot many films on top of and beside one another. Some of these films being paired had already gone through various multiple exposure, performance, and re-filming processes.
The images we worked with were both commercial and generated by working artists we know, a lot of which was work of Alcamy’s. My awareness of the film work being done among Ben Marcantel, Dustin Zemel, and Alcamy Henriksen is that upon which my enthusiasm and ability to create such a live video environment are contingent.

Stills from film;
Compiled by ABA & ASPHH; edited by ASPHH, 2010.

The show was a great success. The music, all around, was yet another incredible showing of just some of Nashville’s immense pool of dedicated and extremely talented artists and musicians. I am amazed, as usual, and dually honored to have been a part of it. Having heard and seen the progression of these musicians over the past ten years, there is hardly any effort left to lacking. The opportunity to collaborate with these artists to create a more succinct environment in which their work can be experienced is an opportunity not to be turned down.

Alcamy worked crazy hours and by her determination we were well over prepared with footage for the show. My heartfelt out to she and Scott for the great work, initial invite, and the desire for collaboration. Let’s fucking do it again!

First live projection 2010, Georgia Copeland's housewarming, June 13th

A very eventful night. Met a Nashville painter Richard Heinsohn, grandson of Miguel Fleta. I was assisted in part by Joseph Hudson’s bringing some Kuchar and Hollis Frampton discs. I used two screens, one smaller, folding up from its case on the ground; the other a standard tripod projector screen. I used two projectors, one much larger than the other. Larger screen and projector showed just a segment of “Weird Faction – Grand Detour – Portland, Oregon – 6/25/10,” mailed to me by Dustin Zemel, a filmmaker and curator currently working in Portland. The smaller screen showed “Goodiepal Presentation – MPH – May 2010 – Portland, Oregon” in its entirety. This too was mailed to me by Dustin Zemel.
These showed simultaneously as the sun finally began to sink. Beforehand, when visibility was hindered, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Fando y Lis,” and, off of the McSweeney’s Wholphin No. 9, Jörg Wagner’s “Motodrom” were shown on the clapboards of the back of Georgia’s house.
The third and final projection was Jodorowski’s “El Topo” shown on the dense, lush vegetation of the back yard. The contrasts of rider, horse and desert, sky were the goals, and they affected brilliantly! Faces emerged - whole characters disappeared when the wind blew. It was a huge image as well, maybe twenty or more feet wide.
During this, the smaller screen with smaller projector was showing very colorful text-based film by Hollis Frampton.
The contrasts and qualities of the films of this final part of the screening paired perfectly and stunned individually. We ended with Spenser Susser’s “I Love Sara Jane,” a highly entertaining short film made last year in Australia also introduced to me by the contemporary film quarterly Wholphin.

Art Sabotage: Break In/Out - May 7th, 2010

After mentioning it twice between us, ASPHH and I decided to take over an unoccupied apartment in her building for a couple of hours on Friday, the 7th of May. We sent out close to twenty-five emails at three pm, followed by another dozen or so text messages, giving eveyone five hours to react. The exhibition was therein scheduled that evening from seven until nine, followed by a film screening across the hall at a properly occupied apartment.

The works displayed were paintings, drawings, photographs, plaster molds, and other works on paper, glass, and chalkboard. During the exhibition, Aleksandr Medvedkin's Happiness played on a wall while the sound art disc, part of Stockholm-based Styx Forlag's Autistisk Skilskrift publication provided the soundtrack. This audio addition was originally released in 2006 as supplement to the book of the same title, and features, among other artists, works by Leif Elggren, Sten Hanson, CM Lundberg.

Due to the process of presenting these works, and the place in which it was executed, there were many unexpected, unforeseeable, and palpable though intangible authors and attendees, in the curatorial and viewing processes. The time constraint certainly had great effect on the exhibition as a majority of the work shown did not arrive until just ten before seven. The space constraint of hauling the audio/visual equipment and art work in a compact sedan; the effect of viewing art for a short window of time in an unoccupied apartment in which none had permission to be, all had significant authorship and presence in the show. These presences, these constraints, were of immense help, across the board.
The constraints mentioned in getting the work to the apartment are self-descriptive. It's hand was apparent in the selection process of the curation. The time constraint followed a similar trajectory, but to a lesser extent as the two respective collections from which we culled the exhibit, containing original works by artists, almost all still living and working in San Francisco, Nashville, New York, Stockholm, and Los Angeles, are housed in three locations central to the room we temporarily inhabited for the exhibit. Of course, with further planning, plenty of other works could have been requested, reclaimed, or created for the show, but the required intentionality for this exhibit to have happened did not extend to that possible function, it is out of scope. The need and desire met, were equal, and as the progenative wave, the monad made another equal, another palpable, intangible third whose presence was of substantial breadth to provide the necessary force to assert itself.

photo: Ben Marcantel; image: Alcamy Henriksen, “10012009-11202009, TN/CA/TX/AZ" 2009, [42 Polaroids]

photo: Ben Marcantel; image: Marc Byndas, "Universitá (immobile)," 2005 [ink, paper]

Local Music Sent To My Mailbox, I

I just received Helen Southall's cdr in the mail from Melbourne.

I was suprised when I heard it. Something worked on me after a few tracks and I moved closer in to the music, took my time to hear it, more of it.

The recordings are personal. The guitar is audible in a way secondary to the voice, strumming with a loose wrist bard's chords; picking sparse notes. Her voice has all the natural folk feeling imbedded into it, the English accent subtle.

The record I received, a self-titled and released disc came with recommendations from a friend and a record store owner in Melbourne just recently.

Having played regular sessions at Brisbane's Audiopollen, she often felt seperate from the other artists. Likely the impetus of making her type of music would provide that, saying that she goes for ther guitar when feeling melancholic. Being from Birmingham originally, she claims strong and initial influences of British folk music on her singing and playing.

Helen Southall listens to Charalambides, Christina Carter, and Spires That in the Sunset Rise among many other things of course. Her music is very original in its personality, and informed as well, in the best ways.

I have an outright affinity for psychedelic music and was pleased to hear these recordings. They come to me after a few years or so of being cognizant of Pip Proud, The Cherry Blossoms, Linda Perhacs, and These Trails. This ethereal music is some of the most creative I have heard, being so by being personal music, experimental music.

Here you can see Helen Southall's internet presence, and I am sure contact her should you have any further questions about obtaining her recordings:

Myspace

LastFM

Oh My Ben

I don't know if you all have had the pleasure yet of having seen any short films by Ben Marcantel, but I will give the great news that he has a channel up now on YouTube.

Ben's videos harken back to some real masters, and he does them justice. Stop-motion magic is his game, and his fervent productivity attracts many wonderful collaborators.

In his most recent upload, "Waltz of the Circassian Beauties", he is telling a tale over the always beautiful music of William Tyler, founder of Sebastian Speaks record label and collaborator with Ben Marcantel's music projects Forest Bride. William is also a fellow member of Hands Off Cuba, and both of these groups are just now releasing new records. So much going on to be excited about.

Love is Magick! indeed!!

Another of Ben's films is available on the Forest Bride link above.

The short "Face Continuum" is also available on YouTube currently.

Keep up with his channel, and hopefully some of his ongoing projects will be made available to us soon!