Grex & River Full of Fruit
Event description
Co - presented with the Asian Arts Initiative
Karl Evangelista - guitar, voice, drums, samples, misc.
Rei Scampavia - synth, voice, drums, misc.
Grex is an art rock/experimental music duo based out of Oakland, California. In biological terms, a "grex" is an entity composed of several smaller organisms. Grex (the band) explores the meeting point between surreal songcraft and the dark outer reaches of experimental music. The group has been called an "otherworldly experience" (Eugene Weekly) and "true genre warping music" (KFJC), recalling at turns the ecstatic energy of John Coltrane, the electronic squall of Death Grips, and the lilting indie rock of Mitski.
Grex has performed at Myra Melford's New Frequnices Festival, The Switchboard Music Festival, The Sonic Circuits Festival (DC), and the United States of Asian America Festival, and organized multiple online Lockdown Festivals in the midst of the 2020-2021 coronavirus outbreak. The band has worked with Fred Frith, Tony Levin, Marshall Trammell (Black Spirituals), Scott Amendola (Nels Cline, TJ Kirk), and Asian Improv aRts, and Evangelista is an active improvising guitarist alongside the likes of Andrew Cyrille, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Oliver Lake, Ben Goldberg, Alexander Hawkins, and Trevor Watts.
River Full of Fruit are Salina Kuo - guzheng & vocals and Gabriel Garcia-Leeds - guitar & vocals. "This duo of Salina Kuo on guzheng – a type of zither popular in traditional Chinese music – and Gabriel Garcia-Leeds on guitar with the two of them sharing vocal duties is some really lovely stuff. Think lo-fi folk with a touch of the weirdness of Devandra Banhart and Vashti Bunyan. The guzheng sounds so perfect for this kind of music and Leeds’ primitive guitar style goes perfectly alongside it." - Yoni Kroll Skeleton Key/WXPN The Key
venue is wheelchair accessible