March 25 – IMOO #174: Accordion Conspiracy/Elka Bong + Dei Xhrist

Accordion Conspiracy (7pm)
Bernard Stepien – accordion
David Broscoe – woodwinds
Scott Warren – percussion/sounds

Elka Bong + Dei Xhrist (8pm)
Al Margolis – clarinet, violin, objects, contact mics
Walter Wright – AVSynth
Dei Xhrist – voice and electronics

Accordion Conspiracy
Bernard Stepien: Accordion happened to be Bernard Stepien’s first musical instrument, initially in a classical and folkloric music context. Back in the ‘60s, Stepien heard Ornette Coleman and started to play accordion in his then proto-harmolodic style. Stepien’s accordion, a Hohner Morino model from the late ‘50s, has a keyboard on the left hand that is identical to the one for the right hand but with smaller more compact buttons. This feature enables to play harmonies in a similar way as on a piano. But these harmonies are not the traditional ones. Instead and thanks to the fact that Stepien had the immense privilege to study with the great master Cecil Taylor in 2001 in New York City, the harmonies are more of an in-depth exploration of sounds rather than chords but giving this overall sinuous sense of harmony, like harmonies without traditional harmonies?

David Broscoe: He has been nurturing the art of multiphonics, first on alto saxophone but then on the baritone saxophone for quite some time.

Scott Warren: is a drummer that sees rhythmic patterns in any sound sequences and overlapping surrounding us. He develops what he hears using samplers or tapes. He has an extensive collection of found objects that ensure the best of sound texture experiences.

Elka Bong + Dei Xhrist
AL MARGOLIS aka If, Bwana
a recent review of Margolis’s work says: “Let it be declared that Al Margolis/If, Bwana is some sort of evil genius working with raw materials which are never adapted to a genre or a context, because they create one in that very moment. Those sources are radically altered up to an utterly unrecognizable state, anarchic manifestations moving in compact determination.” (Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes).

Margolis has been an activist in the 1980s American cassette underground through his cassette label Sound of Pig Music; was co-founder of experimental music label Pogus Productions, which he continues to run. Active under the name If, Bwana since 1984, making music that has swung between fairly spontaneous studio constructions and more process-oriented composition.
Margolis is a musician who straddles the rock and experimental worlds: When he’s not clicking away at the programs and processors that collate and mash up the samples used for his If, Bwana guise, he plays bass for long-running art-punks the Styrenes, a band rooted in the same 1970s Northeast Ohio avant scene that birthed Pere Ubu and Devo.

He has recorded and/or performed with Pauline Oliveros, Ione, Joan Osborne, Monique Buzzarté, Katherine Liberovskaya, Adam Bohman, Ellen Christi, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jane Scarpantoni, Ulrich Krieger, David First, and Dave Prescott, among others.
http://www.ifbwana.com/


WALTER WRIGHT
is an interdisciplinary artist, his practice includes computer programming, electro-acoustic music, and video performance. His focus is on “improvisation as a way of being present in the world.”
Wright was one of the first video animators. At Computer Image Corp he animated letters, words, and titles for Children’s Television Workshop. He was a video animator for Ed Emshwiller’s Thermogenesis and Scapemates, aired by WNET’s Artists Television Workshop. Scapemates was the first computer graphics video nominated for an Emmy Award (1971). He showed his work at the first computer art conference at the Kitchen (NYC, 1973). In 1973-76, as artist-in-residence at the Experimental Television Center, he pioneered video performance touring public access centers, colleges, and galleries with the Paik/Abe Video Synthesizer.

Wright has developed software and hardware for artists including the Video Shredder, a desktop video processor for the TARGA2K. Currently he works with Max/MSP, softVNS, and Processing. His programs and sketches are available on his blog.

Wright performs with several groups including Egregoros, ensemble inédit ?!, and Tough Day Tubing. He plays a Bugbrand Board Weevil, contact mics by Crank Sturgeon, drums and percussion, and audio visual synthesizer.

Wright is a co-founder of 119 Gallery, the first digital art gallery on the World Wide Web, located in Lowell MA.
https://nohtv.wordpress.com/

DEI XHRIST
is a multidisciplinary artist using sound, performance, and sculpture.

She began performing music in 2006, spinning loops and lock grooves on multiple record players. Voice was added initially as a background element supporting Theremin and less conventional sound sources to create audio cut-ups and soundscapes. Xhrist’s voice, now her dominanting instrument, has been compared favorably to Diamanda Galas. She uses glossolalia, jazz, lounge, and belle voce with a graceful stage presence that has been known to evolve into a physical assault past the fourth wall.

Xhrist has performed at XFest (here and in the UK), Frantasia Festival of Out Music and Arts, Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, and the International Society for Improvised Music. She performed also in Machine5 Theatre Works at Fringe NYC and Port Fringe. 
https://about.me/dei.xhrist