psychedelic maximal minimalism
8:30pm
$7
Religious Knives (NY) - ecastatic drone from members of Double Leopards and Mouthus
Zodiac Mountain (KY/WI) - volatile free blues and psychedelic folk weirdness
Religious Knives is Maya Miller, Michael Bernstein and Nate Nelson, from Brooklyn NY. They spend a lot of their time playing in bands like Double Leopards, White Rock and Mouthus, and running labels like Heavy Tapes and Our Mouth, all of which have found loving cult audiences in the land of record collectors and in-the-know noise cogniscetti. Previous RK recordings have consisted of free-floating noise and lysergic homemade-synthesizer drift. This recent incarnation of Religious Knives has been compared to progressive-rock heavies Goblin and Popul Vuh (mostly by the band themselves), but who knows what they have in store for tonight. Come see them (or close your eyes and nod off, that's fine too) in the wonderfully intimate setting of Axiom Gallery...
Zodiac Mountain is Wooden Wand & Clay Ruby (from Knoxville and Madison, respectively), known for fronting Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice and The Davenport Family, respectively. For this tour, the duo (plus occasional special guests like Tovah Olson of Dead Machines and Maya Miller of Double
Leopards and Religious Knives) come together to shake the demons out and let the blues muse cruise wild weekend style. In other words, anything goes. No requests for certain songs will be honored and may very well get you shoved around. The boys have been listening to tons of Hawkwind and Velvet
Underground bootlegs, to give you an idea of their current mindstate (hedonism / reverence / heaviosity), and they hope maybe you can pick up what they're putting down this time around.
folk
8pm
Lewis & Clarke (Pennsylvania's Neo-Baroque Songsmiths. Recording with members of MAN-MAN and Rachel's)
Tigersaw (New England's finest Indie-Folkesters)
Strand of Oaks (Pennsylvania Indie-Folk, toured with Kimya Dawson)
soltero
"Soltero's Tim Howard writes songs that possess the mortal weight of old folk ballads, but are delivered with the regal melodies and vocal style of Ray Davies... a quiet, beautiful, and sometimes self-deprecating collection of songs that could be described as fear and loathing in love." - PopMatters
8:00 – 11:30
$12 or b/o
rob chalfen & subconsciouscafe new chamber music presents
AARON ALI AHAIKH / LELAND SCOTT DAVIS + BERT-BRZYTWA DUO
AARON ALI AHAIKH / LELAND SCOTT DAVIS
Aaron Ali Shaikh - saxophones
Leland Scott Davis - drums
This duo utilizes the Jazz tradition and improvisation traditions from South Asian, Africa and South America. They are primarily concerned with improvisational composition and using care to place the right notes in the right spots, getting a universal music that everyone can feel and understand on some level.
BERT-BRZYTWA DUO
Maryclare Brzytwa – flute & electronics
Antone Berthiaume - flute & electronics
The Bert-Brzytwa duo was formed in the fall of 2004 where guitarist Tony Bert and flutist MaryClare Brzytwa first played together in an improvisation class of Joelle Leandre and have been partners in crime ever since. Brzytwa's exploration of the microtonal sound structure of the flute, while combined with vocalization and electronics lends itself stunningly to the refined sonorities of Bert's guitar. The two have performed together in San Francisco, Oakland, New York City, and Tokyo. Separately, they have played with the likes of Joelle Leandre, William Winant, Vinnie Golia, Fred Frith, Derek Bailey and many others.
www.myspace.com/maryclarebrzytwa
www.antoineberthiaume.com
AARON ALI SHAIKH (03.31.1982) is moving towards the realization of the saxophone as a true microtonal instrument. This style deepens the tradition of early American saxophone players of the 1900s. Microtonalilty itself is
among the most ancient perceptions of sound organization and is found in most traditional music as well as being in line with the ancient voice (Qawaali singers). The move towards a saxophone -derived compositional process has been developing.
In the past decade he has moved on to solo and ensemble music that realize his autobiographical continuum through sound (Improvisational Form, C.M.E. compositional system, Fifth Dimensional Music , Hope Arch Unitary Meditational Reality Poetry ). And more recently he has moved into the direction of a personality-based improvisational music style to get closer to what Jazz music really was and is: an interpretation of a tradition or traditions and "swing" via the point of view an individual's emotional memory and life inside and outside of an ensemble and then transmitting that to some sort of audience; a performance music.
The son of a Pakistani (Sindhi) immigrant Shaikh was born and raised in Cleveland, OH where he began studying music by way of the piano at the age of three. After a decade he began the saxophone studies that have carried
out until the present day. In 2000, Shaikh moved to New York City to study Jazz and Psychology at the New School University. Since then he has had the opportunity to perform and record with many including: Cecil Taylor, Jackson
Moore, Brandon Evans, Jackson Krall, Mat Maneri, Randy Peterson, Matt Moran, Nasheet Waits, Nate Wooley, Anthony Braxton, Carlos Icaza, Daniel Carter, Mike Pride, Dynamite Club, Chris Jonas and Leland Scott Davis. He has also had the opportunity to tour outside of the U.S. presenting music to audiences in Japan, Australia and Canada.
Shaikh currently resides in Brooklyn and acts as co-curator of the New Languages Festival. www.newlanguages.org
Discography
Aaron Ali Shaikh/Dan Dechellis- Under Careful Watch the Spoken Words Fly Sachimay Records, 2003
www.sachimayrecords.com
Shaikh/Icaza Quartet- June 2004 NYC
Two releases with the Japanese Punk Band Dynamite Club and one forthcoming release with Anthony Braxton and another with guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil and drummer Nasheet Waits ( http://eisenbeil.com/disc.html ).
Aaron Ali Shaikh Quartet - Brooklyn, August 2005 psychDOC 002 (forthcoming upon completion).
Two more releases coming in July, one with the Dealbreaker Trio on Utech records and one with Mike Pride’s Scene Fucker.
8:00–11:30pm
$12 suggested donation
rob chalfen & subconsciouscafe new chamber music presents
"critical jazz mass" with:
-Bryant / Bendian / Merenda / Turner!
Dave BRYANT - keyboard
Greg BENDIAN - drums
JamesMERENDA - alto sax
John TURNER - bass
performance & recording credits:
DAVE BRYANT
Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, John Tchicai, Shock Exchange
GREG BENDIAN
Cecil Taylor, Derek Bailey. William Parker, Ornette Coleman, Vinny Golia,
John Zorn and ex-Beefheart sidemen Zoot Horn Rollo & Gary Lucas, Nels
Cline, Peter Brötzmann, Ned Rothenberg, Tom Cora, Bill Frisell, Butch
Morris, Mark Dresser, Leo Smith, George Lewis
http://www.greggbendian.com
JAMES MERENDA
Roswell Rudd, Beat Science, Ran Blake, Cameron Brown, Joe McPhee, Joe
Hunt, David Maxwell, Either/Orchestra, Ardvark Orchestra, the Slip, Marc
Ribot, David Fiuczynsdi, Dave Tronzo and drummer Bob Gullotti.
http://www.jamesmerenda.com/
JOHN TURNER
Either/Orchestra, Charlie Kohlhase, J. Giles, Shock Exchange
Festival of Underground Music
4 pm - 8 pm
Union Square, Somerville MA
FREE
DR G.M. FASTIDIOUS & HIS PLETHORA OF PERPLEXITIES
A free outdoor festival of underground music, dance, performance & puppetry.
An ArtsUnion Event sponsored by the Somerville Arts Council.
Featuring the following performers:
Jamie McLaughlin
The Amalgam Trio
Ajda The Turkish Queen
Lisa Bufano
The Grindhouse Marionettes
Alec K. Redfearn
Crank Sturgeon
Doctor Selenium
Vermin Supreme
DR. G.M. FASTIDIOUS & HIS PLETHORA OF PERPLEXITIES will descend upon Union Square this July with the luminaries of Boston's "underground" artists and performers. This is a FREE outdoor performance in the parking lot outside The Independent and SCAT (Somerville Community Access Television). There will be music, dance, puppetry, giant fish, and other oddities. Strange and unusual things will happen. Modelled after old medicine shows and travelling troubadors, this event will attempt to capture the imagination and peculiar charm of those ragged self-styled street performers of old. This is the first of ARTSUNION, a series of outdoor events held in Union Square, sponsored by The Somerville Arts Council.