October 17, 2008Back Room
The Bunker
Description
MIDNIGHT SPECTRAL SOUND SHOWCASE
Lee Curtiss (Spectral, Dumb Unit | Detroit)
Ryan Elliott (Spectral | Detroit)
Derek Plaslaiko (Spectral, The Bunker | NYC)
8PM DEEP LISTENING SESSION
Klimek (Kompakt, Anticipate, Mille Plateaux | Berlin) live
Daniel Menche (MEGO, Ash Int., Soleilmoon, Important, Asphodel | Portland) live
Keith Fullerton Whitman (Kranky, Planet Mu | Boston) live
DJ Olive (The Agriculture, Room 40 | Brooklyn)
Tonight's event was originally going to be the opening night of the Gestalt Festival. However, the Gestalt Festival was postponed to 2009. Since we had such a strong and interesting lineup confirmed, we decided to go ahead and just do a massive Bunker party instead. We are starting the night off at 8pm with a Deep Listening Session of drones, ambient, noise, and other uncatagorizable sounds. At midnight, we present a Spectral Sound showcase with the 1,2,3 punch of Curtiss, Elliott, and Plaslaiko!
A Western Michigan native and long-time Detroit resident, Lee Curtiss has been forging his uniquely backwoods, yet avant-garde and primal brand of deep and twisted dance music since the late 1990’s. A constantly changing and ever-eager student to his craft, Lee’s finger has been pressed upon, if not thrust into, the throbbing aorta of underground dance music for quite some time – even if his production skills and brain-demolishing live PA have only recently begun to garner the attention of techno and house music’s elite.
Growing up between the two poles of Chicago and Detroit organized Lee’s approach to production squarely between the grooving, deep house sounds of artists like Derrick Carter, and the mindfreaking work of techno producers such as Ricardo Villalobos, Zip (aka Dimbiman), Matthew Dear and Richie Hawtin. Over the past year Lee has begun to tour extensively in America and Europe, notoriously adhering to a 'fuck trends, fuck dance music, and fuck me' approach to producing and performing that only the strongest of stomachs and most iron-clad of minds can withstand. His music’s dark, sexy, and uncompromising singularity have earned him coveted performance slots at the 2007 DEMF and Mutek festivals, preludes to his upcoming summer move to Europe and a new commitment to touring and producing. Curtiss was recently named by Matthew Dear as one of they key figures of emerging talent in URB magazine’s next 100, but Lee would rather you quit reading this bio and either book him, buy his record, or come see him melt you and your friends faces at a club near you.
Detroit DJ Ryan Elliott has gained notoriety over the past few years by programming sets that are as well crafted and sophisticated as they are danceable. From ice cold minimal techno to summery house beats, Elliott has played both big rooms and martini bars with equal success. As a DJ, Ryan is adept in the late night hours, finding the balance between heavy floor tracks and elegant crowdpleasers. Utilizing three decks, multiple audio sources, and outboard effects are par for the course, and Elliott employs them with the utmost skill to keep crowds engaged.
With a fervent interest in the emerging international techno scene, he is a walking dictionary of artists, labels, and releases. Elliott held his Tuesday night events at Ann Arbor's Goodnight Gracie with Matthew Dear from 2002 to 2004, bringing back energy to the city's nightlife. Ryan Elliott was also asked to be a resident at Detroit's weekly Untitled alongside Dear, Tadd Mullinix, Mike Servito, and Derek Plaslaiko. In 2005 he began a new residency at Detroit's Oslo, and created a stellar 33-track mix for the 2xCD edition of the Spectral Sound Vol. 1 compilation. In 2006, he continued to tour the world, playing big festivals like DEMF and Sonar, and was voted one of the 10 best DJs in the world by Resident Advisor. In the past two years, Elliott has produced re-edits of Osborne, Matthew Dear, and Kate Simko for Spectral, and continued to travel the world.
Sebastian Meissner aka Klimek works as a media artist using sound, video and photography. Employing multiple artistic personas (Autokontrast, Autopoieses, Bizz Circuits, Klimek, Open Source, Random Industries, Random Inc), his works deal with and negotiate urban/cultural/social scenarios, randomness, historical music archives and strategies of networking. He works with computer music sources, sampling and moving photography assembling their interrelation within geographic/historical/political discourses. Over the years his works have been widely presented at festivals such as Sonar (ES), Mutek (CA), DEMF (US), Transmediale (D), and many more. He worked for the Deleuze/Guattari influenced media label Mille Plateaux. He established the network platform Intifada Offspring that is looking for new perspectives on the middle-east region. His work has been released by labels such as Mille Plateaux, Kompakt, and Sub Rosa. Tonight marks his first ever appearance in NYC.
Daniel Menche has established himself as a musician with a sense of focus and determination uncharacteristic in a genre known for its randomness and chaotic structure. Rather than creating "noise," he strives for order and cohesiveness. His presentation of sonic structures is similar to the way a writer depicts a story, an allegory seems to arise, which uses confusion as a symbol for the imaginative process of total sound purity; aural intensity is not a representation of confusion or the chaotic, but a concerted effort to provoke and stimulate the listeners imagination by generating intensely powerful sounds and music.
Daniel Menche's work originates from the idea that there is no restriction to the potential sound sources and especially sonic energy. Any sounds - all sounds are used and exploited to create the music. There are absolutely no barriers or biases in what can be used and have been used. Self made and recorded sound sources, percussion and instruments are the main emphasis in creating a living and emotional feeling to Daniel Menche's form of contemporary music. Subtle and patient compositions rely on long, dense layers of droning sounds, while abrasive pieces rely on sounds amplified and processed to extreme levels, pushing the full spectrum of frequencies to the most threshold of limits. Other explorations are intense percussion work that resonates primal chaos displayed gracefully without ever being just "noise". While avoiding the theoretical aspects of music-this is sound work that follows the path to explore new emotions for music to obtain a one on one personal impact with pure sound.
Daniel Menche's craft straddles many hard-to-define boundaries and genres; it is an effort to provoke confusion in order to enhance the mystery of it; an effort to establish each release as a sonic identity. This is not the music of the masses; rather, it is the music of individuals who are adventurous in experiencing challenging music. Indeed, Menche has amassed a sizable discography on some the most discerning independent labels in the world. Constantly performing live extensively throughout North America, Europe and Japan with performances that are intense and powerful. Characterized as both extremely loud and patiently subtle, Daniel Menche's live performances define its own sonic presence, an entity that gives form to an emotional rawness with highly textural and dominating sounds.
This is dedicated music that expresses the undisciplined purity of emotion. Characterized by forcefulness of sound, music that strives for one goal: vehement beauty.
Keith Fullerton Whitman has recorded and released music under a number of pseudonyms, most notably Hrvatski. Hrvatski has appeared on more compilations than you can shake a stick at and criss-crossed the globe laying down breakbeat concret for the kids. He has worked at the Forced Exposure distribution center, written about music, lectured at Ivy League universities and is a graduate of the Berklee School of Music. And Keith Fullerton Whitman runs an excellent record label and mail order service, Mimaroglu Music Sales. For the past 5 years or so, he has laid the Hrvatski project to rest and released many droney hypnotic albums under his own name on Kranky and other fine labels. We've known Keith for a very long time, but this will be his very first appearance at a Bunker event.
DJ Olive was raised in Boston, Nova Scotia, Trinidad, Rhode Island and Australia. He was an active member of the infamous Brooklyn Williamsburg scene ('90-'93). In '91 he co-founded Lalalandia Entertainment Research Corporation. Lalalandia made many of the most memorable Brooklyn warehouse afterhours environments of that period.
In 1994, he started up Multipolyomni and We. We's '97 release "as is" can be considered a classic. We opened for the Orb that spring. Their 3rd release, "decentertainment" landed them at Barcelona's Sonar '99. Multipolyomni's '97 New York production of the Solar Drama from their opera Quark Soup, projected a massive live view of the sun perpetually rising for 24 hours, broadcast LIVE from 127 consecutive locations as the world turned around once. It hosted 77 live performers and artists on two floors. And The Early Aquatic Episode, '96 at the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, also from Quark Soup, was hailed by the New York Times art critic Roberta Smith as "the only work in scale with the Anchorage".
In 1999, he and Toshio Kajiwara founded Phonomena Audio Arts & Multiples (www.phonomena.org), a weekly event as well as a record label. also In '99, he and James Healy started the Agriculture. In 2003, after many years of collaborating with musicians, live and on recordings, Olive finally released his debut solo CD, "Bodega," an ass shaking continuous mix tape of rough down home dance party beats. In 2004, Room40, from Brisbane put out his "Buoy" composition. A 60-min voyage of beat-less warmth Olive call's "a sleeping pill".
He has also been included in many art exhibitions including: Treble, Brooklyn Sculpture Center 2004, City Sonics 2004, Mons, Venice Biennale 2003, Whitney Biennial 2002, Bit Streams and Whitney 2001. He continues to compose in his Brooklyn studio, Skin Tone Riddles when he's not playing somewhere like Tasmania.
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