Earshot: Splashgirl

Presented by Earshot Jazz. Splashgirl is three creative young Norwegian musicians – Andreas Stensland Løwe (piano/lofi electronics), Jo Berger Myhre (double bass/ zither/tone generator) and Andreas Lønmo Knudsrød (drums/percussion/sounds) – playing their own music inspired by any number of musical genres.

read more → Earshot: Splashgirl

Cat Lamb + Bryan Eubanks

Presented by Nonsequitur. Composer/performers Cat Lamb and Bryan Eubanks present solo compositions as part of a North American tour. Lamb will perform Shade/Gradations (2012) for viola and filtered oscillators and Eubanks will perform (test)Spectral Pattern (2012) for soprano saxophone, feedback, and digital synthesis.

read more → Cat Lamb + Bryan Eubanks

Nick Nihil + Cameron Sharif

St. Annie is the debut album of Nick Nihil. Featuring Chris Icasiano and Neil Welch (who comprise the acclaimed experimental jazz behemoth Bad Luck) and Tim Mendonsa (with whom Nihil plays in alt-rock up and comers Sad Face), the album unfolds a dreamscape narrative about the destructive nature of ego. The band weaves modern jazz, spoken word, noise, lounge crooner, and rock into an alternately terrifying and beautiful whole. Pianist Cameron Sharif has been an active participant in Seattle's improvised music scene for the past five years. Blending an angular compositional approach with sonorous piano textures, Sharif will be performing an original piece that uses both composed and improvised material as a template for expression.

read more → Nick Nihil + Cameron Sharif

Jonah Parzen-Johnson + The Westerlies

The Westerlies are a NYC-based brass quartet comprised of four friends from Seattle. They stretch the limits of conventional chamber music by emphasizing original composition and improvisation, to create music that resides in the ever-narrowing gap between contemporary classical composition, jazz influenced improvisation, and North American folk music.

Jonah Parzen-Johnson is a baritone saxophonist living in Brooklyn. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, he was surrounded and inspired by the AACM and South Side music community. Before graduating from high school Jonah had studied under former AACM chairman Mwata Bowden and AACM member Matana Roberts. Under their tutelage he developed a dedicated focus on the essential role of composition in the life of a musician. Parzen-Johnson moved to New York in 2006.

read more → Jonah Parzen-Johnson + The Westerlies

Christian Pincock + Ivan Arteaga

Saxophonist Ivan Arteaga presents Bark for solo saxophone and electronics and Kromer, his trio with Evan Woodle (drums) and Cameron Sharif (piano). Albuquerque-based composer and trombonist Christian Pincock performs his energetic original compositions with trumpeter Chad McCullough, keyboardist Aaron Otheim, bassist Luke Bergman and drummer Chris Icasiano.

read more → Christian Pincock + Ivan Arteaga

Neal Meyer: Cage's 2nd Time through the Wake

Neal Meyer performs John Cage's text piece Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegan's Wake (drawn from James Joyce's novel) in observance of the 20th Anniversary of Cage's passing (August 12), and of the hundredth anniversary of his birth (September 5). Cage's hour-long composition will be performed from memory, with sound engineering by Jake Thompson.

read more → Neal Meyer: Cage's 2nd Time through the Wake

ILLUHA + En + Marcus Fischer

Tomoyoshi Date and Corey Fuller, both currently residing in Tokyo, began collaborating as ILLUHA in 2008. Recorded in a historic 100+ year old church in Bellingham, WA, Shizuku is their debut album for 12k.

San Francisco duo En is Maxwell August Croy and James Devane. Using various instruments fed through an array of complex systems and software, En create resplendently textured, carefully crafted waves of dream-inducing sound evoking the unplaceable nostalgia associated with the imaginary landscapes of memory.

Marcus Fischer is a musician & multimedia artist with early roots in the LA independent music scene, now living in Portland. Field recordings, chance, and DIY instruments, coupled with acoustic instrumentation and visual art, define what has become his minimal signature.

read more → ILLUHA + En + Marcus Fischer

Mouth of Gravity

Mouth of Gravity is a trio of modern improvisation acousticians, featuring renowned saxophonist and music guru Denney Goodhew performing on piano (and various accoutrement), globe-trotting, multi-faceted guitarist Mark Oi, and dimensional drum ace Adam Kessler.

read more → Mouth of Gravity

Substrata: Widesky + Loscil + Hecker + Pan•American

Substrata 1.2 continues: Widesky (New Mexico); Loscil (Vancouver); Tim Hecker (Montreal); Pan•American (Chicago)

read more → Substrata: Widesky + Loscil + Hecker + Pan•American

Substrata: English + Scanner + Menche

Substrata 1.2 is the second edition of Seattle’s intimate weekend festival exploring varying perspectives of scale though the use of sound, composition and visuals. The first night explores the breadth of the spectrum of amplified sound, from the acoustic and environmental, the synthetic and processed, to the timbres hidden in radio signals and the distortion of electricity itself. Expect an evening of both extreme dynamics and subtle susurration, of immersion in nuanced tonalities and the lashing of dissonant cascades. Lawrence English (Australia); Robin Rimbaud, aka Scanner (London); Daniel Menche (Portland)

read more → Substrata: English + Scanner + Menche

Free Form Flute

With deep roots in free improvisation, new jazz and classical music old and new, Robert Dick (NYC) has established himself as an artist who has redefined the flute, his music going wherever his imagination and boundless chops flow to at any moment. Clifford Dunn (Seattle) has premiered nearly 100 new works for flute, and has received commissions by dozens of ensembles and individual performers. John C. Savage (Portland) has been compared to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Herbie Mann, Noah Howard, and Ian Anderson. Paul Taub (Seattle) is a founding member of the world famous Seattle Chamber Players.

read more → Free Form Flute