DeForrest Brown, Jr. & HxH (Chris Williams and Lester St. Louis) + Glitch Proverbs

DeForrest Brown, Jr. is an Alabama-raised, Ex-American rhythmanalyst, writer and was the representative of the 'Make Techno Black Again' campaign. As Speaker Music, he channels the African American modernist tradition of rhythm and soul music as an intellectual site and sound of techno-vernacular expression. He has released three albums on Planet Mu; 'Of Desire, Longing' (2019), 'Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry' (2020) and 'Techxodus' on Planet Mu. With a background writing for a decade in the music press, his written work explores the links between the Black experience in industrialized labor systems and Black innovation in electronic music, and has appeared in Artforum, Triple Canopy, NPR, CTM Festival, Mixmag, among many others. He has performed and presented work at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Paris+ par Art Basel, Paris; Camden Arts Centre, London; Unsound Festival, Krakow; Sónar, Barcelona; Roulette Intermedium, New York; and elsewhere. He has also taught courses on the history and new media uses of Afrofuturism in music at Parsons School of Design at New School and Princeton University. Brown's debut book 'Assembling a Black Counter Culture' was released on Primary Information in 2022.

The improvisatory electro-acoustic duo of Lester St. Louis and Chris Williams (HxH) utilizes a mix of trumpet, cello and electronics to build worlds traversing through acoustic sound, grainy textures, expansive pools of sounds, breaks, cuts and beats. The approach is conceived as an expansiveness that holds a personal intimacy. HxH wants to bring the listeners in, tune them to the experience and take a long trip. HxH functions as a vehicle to bring together the mass of references and influences Chris and Lester share and create ways to crystalize those ideas in real, expanded time to an experience over minutes or hours. Along with creating their own body of original music, the duo also work as sound and installation designers; collaborating with other artists and institutions. HxH has performed on series and venues such as Pioneer Works, The Kitchen, Public Records, Roulette Intermedium, Musik Installationen Nürnberg, T- Space Rhinebeck, The Lot Radio and Abasement among others. In June 2023, HxH was awarded a music residency at Pioneer Works. The duo has also collaborated with artists and organizations such as Torkwase Dyson, Fields Harrington, Black Science Fiction, Found Sound Nation, TAK Ensemble, and The International Contemporary Ensemble to name a few.

Glitch Proverbs:

Glitch Proverbs spontaneously formed in February 2024 at Studio 34 in West Philly when Ravish Momin, aka Sunken Cages joined a trio of Dan Blacksberg, Alex Smith, and Leah Basarab, catalyzing the music into a ultra-vibing, unforgettable set. Each member of this quartet brings together a whole spectrum of overlapping and independent musical worlds, enabling a multi-dimensional sound that freely draws on avant-garde improvisation, sci-fi radical storytelling, punk-infused drone, and live-looped global rhythms, and more.

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