RVA Noise presents: International Noise Conference - Richmond Virginia - 2016
Rat Bastard and the Laundryroom Squelchers bring the International Noise Conference tour to Richmond VA!
Featuring:
Laundryroom Squelchers, Head Molt, Stabbed In The Face, Brown Piss, Broadcastatic,
Flesh Control, Yoga Demon, Muzak City, Blue Nine, Crack Bytch, Lacanthrope, R-Complex, Taciturnal, Dyrt, Predation, Fake Object, 10-56, Coteries, Yohimbe and Stone Garden Jam Temple.
Doors open at 7PM - Sounds start at 8PM sharp 18+ $5.00 admission *Performance schedule posted below*
"In 2004, cult
South Florida producer, Frank “Rat Bastard” Falestra, hosted the
inaugural International Noise Conference (INC) at Churchill’s Pub in
Miami, Florida. Around 40 acts - all from the United Sates - performed
over the course of three days.
12 years later, the conference
proper has expanded to a full week, every major city in Florida hosts
pre- and post-shows, and the total number of bands is but one of myriad
statistics that confirms INC is a consistent institution in the often
chaotically transient world of do-it-yourself underground experimental
music. In the course of its expansion, Falestra has justified the global
scope of his festival’s once seemingly ironic namesake by featuring
provocative avant-garde performers from all over the world, and by
expanding into annual touring editions that have traveled through five
continents..."
08:00 - Head Molt 08:15 - Stabbed In The Face 08:30 - Brown Piss 08:45 - Broadcastatic 09:00 - Flesh Control 09:15 - Yoga Demon 09:30 - Muzak City 09:45 - Blue Nine 10:00 - Crack Bytch 10:15 - Lacanthrope 10:30 - R-Complex 10:45 - Taciturnal 11:00 - Dyrt 11:15 - Predation 11:30 - Fake Object 11:45 - 10-56 12:00 - Coteries 12:15 - Yohimbe 12:30 - Stone Garden Jam Temple 12:45 - Laundryroom Squelchers
Over the next couple of weeks, Sediment Arts Gallery
will be partnering with RVA Noise to bring two different performances
featuring some of the leading creators of experimental noise currently
working in the scene today. This will begin on Friday, August 29 with a
performance from Providence, RI's Container, followed by an evening with
Jason Lescalleet on Sunday, September 7.
Container has
origins the basement noise ghetto, playing raw bare bones pulsing techno
through a drum machine “groovebox” with spacefuckery feedback coming
from a Tascam cassette 4-track recorder--the basement noise ghetto’s
omnipresent consumer electronic home studio. Since his first 12”,
Container tracks have resembled early Chicago acid house and Detroit
techno dance cuts; think Ca$hmere’s “The Percolator”, melted down to
Black Dice level.
Container’s “Acclimator” and “Perforate”
are totally in the acid house zone, almost fitting into that Psychic TV
fantasy--the “Jack the Tab” mirage, where warehouse industrial zone
drowns in psychedelic techno repetition. Basic is brutal. Relentless
disco drum machine beats, constant simple bass groove, and live
feedback. Container is actually super danceable, much moreso than most
of what circulates in the noise crowd these days. This is why Container
has been able to transcend the warehouse/basement noise ghetto and make
the festival circuit, playing actual European danceclubs, sealed with
the approval of a set at Boiler Room, the UK based barometer of DJs
worth partying with.
Last time he was in town, Container played the cramped Auxiliary
basement space. This time, he’s getting the special event treatment in
the clean, white-walled, high-ceilinged Sediment Gallery space at 208 E.
Grace St in the Arts District. How many other downtown galleries will
host Boiler Room-approved raw noise techno gigs?
Also coming down from Container’s hometown will be the freaky performance art/dark analog techno of Timeghost. Reason for anticipation of Timeghost’s performance aesthetic can be found in his quote to the Boston Hassle site:
“I have new devices to run electrical current through my body and
synthesizers. I had my face pierced to create port holes for a
mouth-controlled voltage attenuator I built.” Container plays with the
most appropriate local support, Mutwawa,
who jam an even more melted down, bad-acid-trip, Chrome-ish take on
noise dudes playing techno. Their recent Balliceaux gig included
stretches of horror-movie-soundtrack synth lines and the metal-on-metal
abuse of some sort of Stargate-y copper cymbal sphere. The show will
have a proper sound system for sure; the vibe will be good. The whole
thing starts on Friday, August 29 at 7 PM. There is a suggested donation
of $10-15. For more info, click here.
Then, on September 7, Jason Lescalleet
returns to Richmond for another performance of meticulous loops and
electronic manipulation. This longtime New England experimental musician
(his remix/collage skills were even on the closing track of Bane's 1999 LP It All Comes Down To This,
for those who always need some reference to 90s hardcore) plays long,
seemingly endless sets of ambient drone and field recordings. The sets
also feature moments of harsh noise, and usually incorporate a joke
where the maestro subtly (or not so subtly) sinks a pop song or hip hop
hook into the layers.
Alongside vintage Walkmans and a laptop, the awesome centerpieces of
Lescalleet’s sprawling table of gear are two reel-to-reel tape machines
stretched across the table, with what looks like almost twenty feet of
recording tape stretched into one loop between the machines. You’ll see
Lescalleet expertly stretch and manipulate the tape’s length and speed,
and hear it--not always instantly--play into the set’s loops and drones.
Sometimes the magnetic tape abuse is like a loose thunderclap. At other
times its an abrupt switch to DJ Screw tempo. Lescalleet is seriously
into tape loops--his email address is tapeloops@hotmail and his Facebook name is Tape Loops.
Lescalleet even goes so far as to destroy parts of the tape, causing
the sounds to deteriorate moreso with each cycle of the reel-to-reel
machines. This gives the performance the same taste of unique
impermanence that you might also get from a loose Christian Marclay
record or a less tragic version of Disintegration Loops by
William Basinski. Lescalleet’s last two performances in Richmond were
seated shows, definitely not for those who lack patience, given the
sprawl and often glacial pace of Lescalleet’s material. A seated
audience can definitely meditate in the drifts of low-end drone and
masterful layers of looping and heady primitive analog phasing.
Lescalleet will precede his performance with a screening of his film Trophy Tape, a collection of videos for songs from his 2012 album, Songs About Nothing.
The film is curated by Lescalleet and includes contributions from a
stable of Midwest noise big names like former Wolf Eyes madman Aaron
Dilloway, Hair Police’s Robert Beatty, and No Fun Fest star C. Spencer
Yeh, along with modern video artists Ellen Frances (NYC) and Heidi
Alasuvanto (Finland).
The sole local support for Lescalleet’s acts will be Photoblaster,
aka Broadcastatic, the multimedia/noise performance handle for Tommy
Birchett, wherein audio and video inputs feedback into another, and
walls of harsh tones interact with stacks of televisions and
surveillance video monitors. The result is a meeting of no-input noise
manipulation/confusion with the high concept cathode ray patterns Nam
June Paik’s video installations. This event will start at 7 PM on
Sunday, September 7. Suggested donation is $7-15. For more info, click here.
If you like your music dissonant and cacophonous, sound artist John
Wiese will be performing live at Richmond’s Sediment Arts gallery this
Friday April 11th, in conjunction with RVA Noise.
While noise may not be the most accessible genre, Wiese seems to have
made a name for himself within the scene, boasting an impressive resume
with his grind/noisecore band Sissy Spacek
and his work with bands like No Age, Wolf Eyes, and Sunn O))). Although
Wiese has an extensive list of collaborations, his performance at
Sediment will consist of his solo work.
If you’re looking for melody in John Wiese’s work, you will be
disappointed. Throw away harmony and rhythm; this music is all about
sound manipulation, experimentation, and processed sounds. This is noise
music by definition, and Wiese’s work is a mainstay in the genre.
Luckily, we were able to speak with Wiese about his music and his
upcoming show at Sediment.
Wiese says he doesn’t really think of himself as a musician in the
traditional sense. Instead of writing notated music, Wiese works with
manipulating, cutting and arranging sounds. The end product is more like
a collage but nothing short of meticulous. Wiese’s music is dense, with
a variety of sounds ranging from minimal and mysterious to abrupt and
abrasive.
Wiese’s sees shows as being a momentary experience, and uses them as
an opportunity for further experimentation. He doesn’t plan on playing
anything previously recorded. He lets his music evolve and change over
time. Through this approach, every one of his shows are different. “Even
if I did try to play the same thing every night, I couldn’t,” Wiese
said.
As far as his live setup, Wiese said, “Equipment has dwindled to
barely anything.” However, he says he prefers a minimal setup because it
give more focus to the ideas of the sound, and not the logistics. Wiese
elaborated, saying, “I think it's important to be super-free, and can
experiment and do anything that you want. I have very little interest in
making material that’s recreated accurately [live].”
Although Wiese’s approach may seem unmethodical, there is a level of
cohesion. Instead of arranged performances, Wiese relates his live show
to a form of improvisation. “I’m using a palette of source material and
sounds; but what comes out is based on in-the-moment decisions,” he
said. As far as his sound palette, Wiese's sound is still in the realm
of his last album, Seven of Wands. It’s an album full of dark eerie atmospheres, with moments of chaos but also bleak minimalism.
This is interesting, especially considering Wiese’s early influences.
Wiese said, “As a 14-year-old in 1992, Deicide’s first album was the
most insane thing I’d ever heard.” He dropped names of other metal bands
as well, such as Obituary and Suffocation. Looking at his various music
projects, it's no surprise Wiese is super into death metal.
Wiese also remembers his early memories of making sound collages and
noise tapes. He recalls recording on his friend’s four track what turned
out sounding like noise-core. It was something he had never heard
before. “I was living in the Midwest; I had no concept of a noise scene.
I had no idea that other people did this.” He started out just making
noise music for himself and his friends.
Wiese explained that his solo work is inspired by his solo shows, and
that his style is constantly and gradually changing over time. His solo
records serve as a way to track his progress and the development of his
sound. Wiese says, “I think of recorded music as an object, and live
music as much more ephemeral.”
In light of all of this, there's no doubt his performance at Sediment
Arts will be a unique experience. The show takes place this Friday,
April 11, beginning at 8 PM. Local support will be provided by
Broadcastatic and IGM. A suggested donation of $5-10 is requested. Sediment Arts is located at 208 E. Grace St. For more info, click here.
"John Wiese is an artist and composer living in Los Angeles,
California. He works primarily in recorded and performed sound with a
focus on installation and multi-channel diffusions, as well as scoring
for large ensembles. He has toured extensively throughout the world,
covering the US, UK, Europe, Scandinavia, Japan, Australia, and New
Zealand. He is also a founding member of the concrète grindcore band
Sissy Spacek."
Broadcastatic is the work of Tommy Birchett a long standing figure in the local experimental music community.
Broadcastatic, originally a local richmond collaborative radio show, is
an audio/video project focused on active manipulation of input/output
routing using a combination of improvisation, mechanical manipulation,
feedback loops, and randomization.
I.G.M. is the work of Ian
McColm, a multi-instrumentalist and composer based out of Richmond,
Virginia. A drummer since the age of 8, he was admitted to Oberlin
Conservatory of Music, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Jazz
Studies under the tutelage of master drummer Billy Hart. McColm has
performed nationally and internationally in a variety of ensembles
including the drone/ambient duo, Nagual, as well as under his solo
moniker, I.G.M.
