Avant-garde beasts: Jason Kahn & Dave Brown tour +

October the 21st Gig

SoundOut presents

Avant garde Beasts 

7:15pm @ Drill Hall Gallery

Biomorph:

Rhys Butler Alto Sax, Canberra

Richard Johnson tenor sax , Canberra

Break

8pm

Jason Kahn : electronics , Switzerland

Dave Brown: Guitar Melb

Artist Bios

Jason Kahn: electronics, Switzerland

Born 1960 in New York, Jason Kahn is a artist, musician and writer. He lives and works in Zürich.  Though having played in Australia numerous times since the mid-1990's, this will be Kahn's first visit back to the country since 2018. In the past he has worked with many Australian artists, including Dave Brown, Tony Buck, Mike Majowski, Rishin Singh, Adam Sussmann, Clayton Thomas, Aemon Webb, Ben Byrne, Tim Catlin, Jim Denley, Rob Curgenven, Carolyn Connors, Monika Brooks, Richard Johnson, Chris Abrahams, Nick Ashwood and Matt Earle. Kahn has also appeared at many Australian music festivals over the years, including Liquid Architecture, Avantwhatever, Sound Out, now NOW, Electrofringe, Open Frame and the Adelaide Festival.

On this tour Kahn will be working with electronics, using a chaotic feedback system that places his body in the circuit flow. Grabbing the open leads of a modular synthesizer with his hands makes and breaks circuits, causing the synthesizer to overload or momentarily collapse. Various contact microphones, electromagnetic inductors and the synthesizer's own output via a mixing board are used to modulate the parameters of the synthesizer. This results in a very dynamic system, often difficult to control, but allowing great expressivity—much like any acoustic instrument, but electronic.

Live radio captures during the concert and field recordings made beforehand in the performance space and its environs provide further working material for each concert. In the end, these performances are essentially site-specific works, improvising with the space at hand, both in the sense of its physicality and the sounds found there. Every performance is different, not only because the music is improvised but also because the source material used pertains directly to each space being played in. 

Homepage: http://jasonkahn.net

Newest CD: https://awavepress.bandcamp.com/album/lacunae

Concert video: https://vimeo.com/779873019

Bandcamp: https://jasonkahn.bandcamp.com

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/jasonkahn

Dave Brown: guitarist, Melbourne

Dave has been involved in the Melbourne avant-garde, art scene since the mid-seventies with such groups as "False Start", "Signals" and "Dumb and the Ugly". The first two of these groups began from associations made around the time he was completing a diploma of fine arts in the mid-1970s.  Subsequent projects include punk jazz band "bucketrider", "lazy" an improvising duo with percussionist Sean Baxter, improv/sound art group "Western Grey" with Baxter and Philip Samartzis, psychedelic electronic group "Terminal Hz" with KK Null from Japan, prepared improvisational group "Pateras/Baxter/Brown, electric free jazz group "Embers", the duo "culture of un" with Sydney pianist Chris Abrahams, the prepared instrument duo "Hakea" with saxophonist Rosalind Hall, the duo "Helium Clench" with Melbourne guitarist and microtonal instrument builder Tim Catlin as well as more occasional groups "The Greg Kingston Big Band" and "The Crowded Foxhole", the latter with son Louis Peake. The focus of the solo project "candlesnuffer" has increasingly centred on the development of composing techniques which meld opposing streams like conventional electro-acoustic methods with noise and rock and also the development of a vocabulary of tiny acoustic sounds enlarged outside their normal context for performance and composition.  David Brown has performed regularly at the What Is Music? Festival since 1996, the Melbourne and Wangaratta Jazz festivals, the Articulating Space festival, the Nownow Festival in Sydney, Liquid Architecture Festival plus featured performances at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 2002, the Podewil Centre in Berlin in 2003 and extensive tours of numerous European cities with Pateras/Baxter/Brown in October 2004, November 2006 and May 2007. In October/November 2008 Pateras/Baxter/Brown again toured Europe, this time performances in France and Switzerland were undertaken with their compatriots 'The Necks.' In February 2011 Terminal Hz toured Europe.

In 2005, 2006 and 2008 respectively Brown made contributions to the soundtracks of the motion pictures 'Wolf Creek', 'Rogue' and 'The Square' composed by Franc Tetaz. Brown has also contributed performances and live accompaniment to the soundtrack 'Au Revalateur', composed by Philip Brophy.

http://www.candlesnuffer.org/

Rhys Butler: saxophonist, Canberra

Rhys has come to know the cities he has lived in through improvised and noise music. The trio Dinner Sock (Stephen Roach (drums), David Keyton (feedback), and Rhys Butler (saxophones)) formed from the weekly Fugue State Sessions in Guanzhou. The group performed with local experimenters such as Yan Jun, Feng Hao and Li Zenghui and collaborated with musicians transiting China such as Uwe Bastiansen (Faust) and Lucas Abela. Despite living in different corners of the world, Dinner Sock has continued to participate in China's experimental music scene and played Beijing's Sally Can't Dance festival and NOIShanghai in 2012. In Santiago, Chile, Rhys participated in events run by Productura Mutante and played in the free-for-all Collective Improvisation NO. Now residing in Canberra, Rhys has been working in a duo with Reuben Ingall (live processing). More recently he has been part of the Psithurism trio with John Porter and Richard Johnson, which have a new release called Lure out with French clarinetist Xavier Charles. See the SoundOut bandcamp and Francois Houle site in the following links: https://soundoutrecordings.bandcamp.com/

Richard Johnson: wind multi-instrumentalist , Canberra

Richard performs with the texture of sound on soprano/baritone saxophone and bass clarinet and is experimenting with use of a bass drum with soprano saxophone to create a language of microtonal textural resonance. Also he has been making instruments from conical gourds from PNG, which allow the stripping back of the wind instruments to their most visceral and most sensuous form and allow for the exploration of extended techniques. He has performed at the SoundOut 2010 – 2022 festivals; What is Music Festival, Nownow Festival; the Make it Now performances; also performances with the Brice Glace Ensemble and the 102 Club Orkestra in Grenoble France; “Whip it“ series in Sydney; various Precipice annual Improv workshops hosted by Tony Osbourne as well as hosting local, interstate, and international improvisation nights in Canberra. He has also been a member and performed with Ngesti Budoyo Gamelan Orchestra of the Indonesian Embassy for 18 years untill recently. He is the Director, Curator, Producer and Administrator at SoundOut festivals. As a sound artist he worked with renowned visual Artist Savanhdary Vongpoothorn for the Australia Exhibition at The Casula Power House as well collaborated with conceptual-visual artist Denise Higgins on soundscapes. He has performed with the likes of Jaap Blonk, Jon Rose, Hans Koch, Guylaine Cosseron, Jim Denley, Kim Myhr, Annette Giesreigl, Rodrigo Motoya, Antonio Panda Gianfratti, Thomas Rohrer, Luc Houtkamp, Clayton Thomas, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Yan Jun, Laura Altman, Michael Norris, Evan Dorian, etc. Currently performs with Noise Floor Qrt [Jamie Gifford, Rhys Butler and Rory Villegas]. Has a wind trio with John Porter and Rhys Butler called Psithurism, which has a digital release with the renowned Canadian clarinetist Francois Houle and a new Cd release called Lure on the SoundOut label with Xavier Charles in 2017 SO-003. Also in June 2016 released Cd with Rhys Butler; Guylaine Cosseron and Stephen Roach called Swarm on SoundOut Cd’s SO-001. Lure CD Review. He also has a number of field recording releases available from the SoundOut label catalogue bandcamp site.

https://citynews.com.au/2023/experimental-music-festival-hits-new-heights/

https://citynews.com.au/2023/experimental-music-festivals-quiet-but-sensational-finale

 http://www.freejazzblog.org/2018/06/recent-releases-of-french-clarinetist.html

https://soundoutrecordings.bandcamp.com/

http://apraamcos.com.au/news/2015/august/art-music-award-winners/ http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-life/canberra-experimental-music-wins-apra-award-20150826-gj80c3.html

Jason Kahn : electronics

Dave Brown

Rhys Butler and Richard Johnson : Biomorph