Denton, 5.29.2024

Molten Plains at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios remains our must-see monthly gig for surprising sounds. Last night's edition came a couple of days after Sarah Alexander, Ernesto Montiel, Miguel Espinel, Dr. Louise Fristensky, and Aaron Gonzalez returned from representing Molten Plains at Tierras Sonidas fest in Marfa. 

On this occasion, Justin Lemons (Dust Congress, Shiny Around the Edges) kicked things off with a solo guitar set that began with a feedback drone which was already audible before we entered the show room. Waiting for the set to start, it was kind of calming and centering, a good transition from the aggro that seems to be everywhere these days. 

When Lemons took the stage and picked up his instrument, he immediately let loose with the loudest and most in-your-face guitar sounds I've heard in awhile. With the sound cranked and saturated to the point that the instrument would feed back any time he took his hand off the strings, we were treated to an extreme close-up/ultra high fidelity rendering of every scrape and clang. A bracing entrance. Things got more interesting later, as he manipulated the sampled sounds electronically, gradually tapering off to spectral wisps of sound. 

Next up was Anne-F Jacques, a sound artist from Montreal, who'd also performed at Tierras Sonidas, and made a riveting presentation that was as much performance art as sound. The room was reconfigured, with chairs in a circle surrounding a space in which materials -- batteries, a radio, Walkmen, lightbulbs, wires, paper cups, stones, and other objects which turned out to be air blowers -- were arranged in a seemingly random configuration.

Jacques entered the space like a post-apocalyptic sound technician and began connecting wires to the batteries and the radio. Low-volume static and electronic pulses emerged. She placed paper cups over the radio's speakers and weighted them down with stones. The sounds were amplified and became more focused. She turned on lightbulbs that were connected to devices which made them flash rhythmically. The pulses were audible in the radio interference. She placed lightbulbs around the space and turned on the air blowers. Tiny holes in the bulbs made whistling sounds. She placed the Walkmen, seemingly in record mode, around the space. At length she picked them up, left the space, and ended the performance. 

As always, Stephen Lucas was recording the proceedings, but it'd be hard to guess what was going on from an audio recording without being able to see Jacques'  activity and hear the spatial dimension in the sounds. (There's a podcast featuring an interview with Jacques and some sound samples here.)

Last but certainly not least came a set of quiet, nuanced improvisation by the multi-instrumental duo of Houston's Rebecca Novak and Denton's Miguel Espinel, whom I recently learned drums for both black metallists Oil Spill and noise punks Bog, as well as playing with Monteil in Monte Espina. (Oil Spill and Bog recently made a run up the East Coast, including a NYC date shared with my buddy Nick Didkovsky's band Vomit Fist, who liked both bands real much.) 

Novak started out on trumpet, employing projected visuals, as is her wont. She used the horn to produce low sounds like a didgeridoo or Tuvan throat singing, and employed a mute that gave it a sound like a wooden flute. Espinel responded with minimal patterns on a tom-tom and otherworldly tones on a violin. At length, he moved to the floor, where there was an array of small percussion instruments; Novak walked over and played her trumpet into the drum's head. She also had an array of small instruments, and for awhile they conversed on these, in a music of space and subtle gesture. Eventually they returned to the trumpet and drum/violin; Novak also played what looked like a child's wind instrument, shaped like a clarinet with large keys, and sounded like a melodica. 

When the set finally wound down, it brought to a very satisfying conclusion another night of exploratory music at Molten Plains. Next one will be on June 26, with Stephen Lucas's heavy prog outfit Vaults of Zin slated to appear, among others. We'll be there.

Nick Didkovsky's "Profane Riddles"

Nick Didkovsky has the most varied skill set of any guitarist I know. His band Doctor Nerve combines heavy guitar with a blazing horn section in a zone somewhere between Frank Zappa and Rock In Opposition. Some of Nerve's material is generated with the aid of music composition software Didkovsky wrote. He was a member of the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet and plays black metal in Vomit Fist, with his son Leo on drums. He's crafted four albums exploring the extremities of distorted guitar sound in the duo CHORD with his friend Tom Marsan. More recently, he's investigated the possibilities of collaborative improvisation in duos with Frith Quartet bandmate Mark Howell (Screaming Into the Yawning Vacuum of Victory) and Sean Walsh (Guitar Duets: Five Demos, the full monte to be released later this year), and in a trio (Seagull Brain) with Howell and Chris Cochrane.

His new release, Profane Riddles, is the logical next step from those collabs: a collection of solo improvisations, each recorded in a single pass, with additional layers overdubbed in the same session. (Three of the tracks are "orphans" from previous sessions that Didkovsky reckoned would fit here. Guess which.) The project is dedicated to Nick's friend, the musician, programmer, and educator Larry Polansky, who passed shortly before its release. The album is intended to be listened to in a single sitting, and its 30-minute duration is conducive to such -- about the length of a meditation session, or what my old drummer said was the maximum for human attention before it starts to wander. 

Opener "Rebirth" sets the stage with rolling arpeggios that give way to a leisurely ascending scale. "Wherever I Am I Be," composed by Fluxus member Philip Corner, contrasts dark minor chords with chiming harmonics. The direct-to-board sound of a guitar with low-output pickups gives the music a distinctive character. The brief "Ascension" has a ringing, open sound, and a feel reflective of its title, while "This Sacred Purity, this Oppressive Paradise" shimmers with pellucid light. "My morning star and light-bearer" finds us back in CHORD territory, with aggressively strummed low chords and an overlay of harmonic feedback. The remaining tracks recombine these elements in different configurations, maintaining a consistency of mood. On "The hand, palm upward, fingers curled in ecstasy," the harmonics sometimes sound like tuned percussion, while on the closing "The morgue's final thoughts," reverberating harmonics resound like crashing waves. 

A transporting listen that has already triggered one vivid dream since I first heard it. As I type this, Didkovsky is working on a four-minute video, based on the mysterious Y.I.H.H.'s accompanying artwork, that nicely captures the music's spirit. Profane Riddles restores my belief in the communicative power of the electric guitar. Here's a Bandcamp link; if you order from Punos Music, all the bucks go directly to the artist. Do what you think is right.

Things we like: Rob Mazurek, Miha Gantar

Since 2001, Pedro Costa's estimable Portuguese label Clean Feed has been documenting some of the finest in contemporary jazz from Europe, North America, and elsewhere. I first got hip ca. 2004 via my friend Dennis Gonzalez, who cut a series of albums for the label (full disclosure: I wrote liner notes for one, Idle Wild). It was through Clean Feed releases that I had my first exposure to Kris Davis, Mary Halvorson, Ingrid Laubrock, Angelica Sanchez, and Chris Lightcap, among others. They also released worthy stuff by the likes of Tim Berne, Anthony Braxton, Mark Dresser, Marty Ehrlich, Fred Frith, Tony Malaby, Joe Morris, Nate Wooley, and many more. When Clean Feed boss Costa announced plans to cease operations at the end of 2024, The Free Jazz Collective blog published a lovefest of tributes that helped him rethink his decision, and he now plans to continue after this year.

The latest batch of Clean Feeds includes two items featuring performers we've seen here recently. 

Rob Mazurek's Milan is a follow-up to his 2017 Clean Feed release Rome. The trumpeter, best known for his work with Chicago Underground Collective, Sao Paulo Underground, and Exploding Star Orchestra, has been based in the artist's colony of Marfa, Texas, for nearly a decade, working on his visual art, leaving town to tour and record. Earlier this year, he was in Dallas as part of the Dennis Gonzalez Legacy Band; their Texas Theatre concert was recorded and the first installment will be released this fall on Astral Spirits. On June 9, Mazurek will perform with vocalist Carmina Escobar and the rhythm section of siblings Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez to close Marfa's Agave Festival.

Like Rome, Milan is a solo tour de force, broadcast live from a radio studio. Mazurek performed this music seated at a piano, which served as a resonating chamber with its sustaining pedal depressed to create more resonance, recorded at a level where there was slight feedback. Besides his voice and the piano, he played trumpet, piccolo trumpet, "magic yellow bucket" (also the title of the opening selection), bells, shakers, flutes, and percussion. 

At times, the music is spacious and minimalist; at other times, it's busy and dense (especially when Mazurek uses a sampler). Echoes of Don Cherry during his Swedish sojourn and the Art Ensemble of Chicago circa People in Sorrow abound -- the former especially in the piano-piccolo trumpet-vocal interplay on "Bar Basso," the latter in the collision of prepared piano and "small instruments" Mazurek calls "Sbagliato." "Moss Covered Hips" highlights Mazurek's trumpet virtuosity, while "Collimated and Trestled" mashes up electronica, sampled sounds of koto and North African multireed instruments (shades of Ornette's "Midnight Sunrise"), and Mazurek's wooden flute and trumpet. Always, the work is guided by a composer's intelligence and forms a unified expression.

Miha Gantar is a 26 year old pianist-composer from Slovenia, currently based in Amsterdam, and New York City is his third 5CD set (!) for Clean Feed. Like Introducing (2022) and Amsterdam (2023) before it, the new set presents the artist in a variety of settings: in a trio with bass and drums; accompanied by a string quartet; in a duo with Tennessee saxophone wunderkind Zoh Amba (who returns to Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios in a trio with Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano on June 23); in another duo with two percussionists; and solo. With the exception of the first trio disc, which features two compositions, each disc contains a single piece, ranging in length from under 40 minutes to nearly an hour.

Ultima, the first disc, teams Gantar with bassist John Hebert and drummer Eric McPherson, who previously worked together in piano trios led by Andrew Hill and Fred Hersch (which gives you an idea of Gantar's intent here). They stay with him every step of the way as he plays inventions against a simple two-chord theme, then embroiders a more romantic one. Second disc Transitions demonstrates Gantar's aptitude at writing for strings, well played by his collaborators (including three members of the Bergamot Quartet). "Parisian Impromptu" wends its leisurely way through several dynamic shifts; a mood of unease prevails.

Third disc Sanctuary, which came with an endorsement from my buddy Phil in Missouri, is the one that really pulled me into this set, as I've been a Zoh Amba fan since seeing her play twice at last year's Molten Plains Fest. While Bhakti is probably the best recorded representation to date of her high energy blowing, I've been waiting for a record to capture the light and shade she's also capable of live (as in her Molten Plains duet with Joe McPhee). Perhaps, I thought, she only shows that side in the presence of elders. But damned if her encounter with Gantar (a couple of years older but basically a peer) doesn't showcase her subtlety and range of expression like nothing I've heard on disc till now. It helps that he gives her a light and lyrical field in which to extemporize. When I met her last year, she said she's looking for "where the kids are" in every city she plays. If she could pull some younger folks into the audience for free jazz and experimental music, that'd be something indeed.

To these ears, the freshest and most exciting sounds here come from Angels, the third disc, which teams Gantar with the tempestuous tag team of Kweku Sumbry and Jeremy Dutton on matching drum sets, to which Sumbry -- a D.C. native schooled in West Indian percussion as well as Latin, hip-hop, go-go, and reggae -- adds hand percussion. Dutton's a Houstonian who's played with notables including Vijay Iyer, and released his debut recording as a leader, Anyone is Better than Here, last year. The two drummers explode out of the gate and gallop through the track's first 15 minutes while Gantar responds with muscular chords and a percussive attack. He shifts gears and sounds like McCoy Tyner battling back against Elvin and Rashied on Meditations, anchored by rumbling bass chords. Sumbry's hand drums dominate the next section, as the drummers take up a polyrhythmic groove. Then they respond to Gantar as he crashes chords and introduces some rhythmic variations. Best disc of the set.

Finally, Towards Purity is the solo disc, with Gantar at his gentlest and most pastoral. 

New York City is a big listen, and one wonders what Gantar will do to follow releasing 15 CDs in not quite two years. (In recent memory, only late starter Allen Lowe and beloved elder Wadada Leo Smith have been more prolific.) In any event, I'm happy to have the discs with Zoh Amba and the drummers, and I'm glad Clean Feed's Pedro Costa has reconsidered folding the tent. The world can't have too many quality jazz labels.

Oak Cliff, 5.17.2024

As a teenager on Long Island in the '70s, I had a nodding acquaintance with salsa music. An influx of Puerto Rican kids whose families had moved out to the Island from NYC was actually the catalyst in stopping the aggro between Black and white kids in my high school (a truism of life in America is that the new arrivals always get it from everybody else). Salsa was in the air in the same way as doo-wop was in the German-Irish-Italian neighborhood where I grew up. The record store where I worked as a teen sold a few Fania All-Stars LPs, which is like having a record collection with one reggae album: Bob Marley Legend. Ansonia Records, home to the likes of Arsenio Rodriguez, Frankie Figueroa, and countless others, was as strange and exotic to me as some of the conjunto labels my friend Hush Puppy likes to bend my ear with today. 

But when Ansonia reactivated a couple of years ago, after 30 years of dormancy, the first act they signed was Meridian Brothers, brainchild of Bogota-based polymath Eblis Alvarez, designed as a laboratory to combine experimental electronica with Colombian traditional music. Alvarez started releasing small-batch cassettes under the Meridian Brothers moniker in 1998, and formed a live band in 2007, although he continues to play everything on the records. Among recent Meridian Brothers recordings, Cumbia Siglo XXI (2020) applies modern drum machines, synths, and software to '80s coastal cumbia with its funky basslines; Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento (2022) dives headlong into '70s salsa, with socially conscious lyrics; and Mi Latinoamerica Sufre, due for release on July 12, blends syncopated guitar sounds from Congolese rumba, Ghanaian highlife, and Nigerian Afrobeat with tropical Latin rhythms.

In 2022, Meridian Brothers -- Alvarez on vocals and guitar, Maria Valencia on winds, keys, and percussion, Mauricio Ramirez on drums, Alejandro Forero on keys, Cesar Quevedo on bass, and sound engineer Alejandro Araujo -- played The Wild Detectives on the hottest day of a very hot year. This time, they had perfect weather for an outdoor event attended by a large, dancing, grooving audience. A warm-up set by DJ Elkin Pautt put everyone in the mood to party. It was a nice mix of folks from across the Latin American diaspora, along with Black, white, and Asian listeners. Meridian Brothers are a band with deep roots in a particular community, but live, they create community wherever they take the stage. You don't have to understand Alvarez's lyrics to respond to the joyful explosion of rhythm in his music.

My wife was feeling a little under the weather, so we hung out on the steps in back, which meant that we heard a lot more of the band than we saw, but the sounds of cumbia, salsa, and rumba were irresistible. Ramirez plays more like a timbalero than a conventional trap drummer, and the mix of electronic and acoustic sounds percolated with life: tumbling polyrhythms, burbling bass, arpeggiated guitar patterns, synth blasts. Alvarez ran the show from behind a Fender Jaguar, singing, growling, and making announcements. At times it sounded as if he was using some kind of vocal processing, as I heard what I took to be a child's voice and saw him at the mic. When the band finished their set, the audience demanded an encore, then the sound tech shut things down with recorded jams, to avoid noise complaints from the neighbors.

It was nice to see Epistrophy Arts impresario Pedro Moreno, up from Austin, for a brief moment, and Texas Theatre's Jason Reimer for the first time in years (we'd been on similar guitar journeys during the pandemic lockdown). A more upful night of music would be difficult to imagine. Now I need to preorder Meridian Brothers' newie.

Dallas, 5.11.2024

Listen: The history of creative music is made up of moments, whether it's The Rite of Spring causing riots after its Paris premiere, Charlie Parker running the changes to "Cherokee" in a Harlem chili parlor, or Ornette, Cherry, Charlie, and Billy initiating "the battle of the Five Spot." If you weren't there, you missed it. 

Less revolutionary perhaps, but on a similar plane in the realm of North Texas jazz, was Trio Glossia's set at New Media Contemporary in Dallas's Exposition Park last night. For comparison, I have to go all the way back to the night in 1978 when I was watching Miles's '50s pianist Red Garland sit in with Marchel Ivery's quartet at the Recovery Room on Lemmon Avenue and on the break, Charles Moffett's sons Charles, Charnette, and Codaryl came in and blew the roof off the joint with a effusion of '60s-style energy music, then said thank you to the band and disappeared into the night. 

I use the much-maligned term "jazz" with intention; Trio Glossia's leader-vibraphonist-drummer Stefan Gonzalez is explicit in wanting to align this band with that tradition, rather than, say, European free improvisation, or the school of non-idiomatic improvisation that emerged from Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening foundation in Houston.

Across the street, Stefan's sibling Aaron was performing in Ochre House Theater's production of Matthew Posey's Patti & Theo, which runs through May 18. After timely pause to await latecomers (a necessary evil in a time when music fans are unwilling or unable to buy advance tickets to shows), Trio Glossia kicked off their set for a small but fervid audience. This was the most intense and focused performance I've seen by this unit to date. They've been working hard to build a repertoire of material, and rehearsing relentlessly, along with playing gigs in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio, as well as locally, all to riotous acclaim.

Their ability to craft and develop engaging musical themes, and transform them in performance, is a strong suit, as is their multi-instrumental versatility. Stefan attacks both of his instruments with a mixture of brute physicality and total control, while Joshua Miller brings youthful vitality and joyous release to his performances on both the trap set and Ayleresque tenor sax. When he dials back the intensity, Joshua inhabits a more lyrical, Ben Webster-esque territory -- as many fire-breathing freeblowers tend to do (that vibrato!). Bassist Matthew Frerck is a stunning virtuoso with highly advanced ideas who covers the full range of the bass -- arco, pizzicato, harmonics, even a percussive attack -- and serves as a strong melodic voice as well as providing the music's harmonic foundation. Some of the music's finest moments came during intervals where two or three instruments were playing in melodic unison -- a nice contrast to the often explosive character of their three-way extemporizations (that seem controlled by a single intelligence).

Following Trio Glossia, we lucky few were treated to a shorter set by Houston-based El Mantis, who recently (the last three weeks) expanded from the trio heard on the intriguing CIA Records release El Mantis II from earlier this year to a quintet, adding Mark Medina on congas, bongos, and flute, and Jeremy Nuncio on keyboards. Their sound is evolving from the dark mystery of the record to a more extroverted Latin-rock sound, fueled by Afro-Cuban rhythms with Danny Kamins' ecstatic free jazz saxophone as the icing on the cake. 

Kamins is a superb technician who gave ample voice to the circular breathing and multiphonics he worked on during the pandemic lockdown (documented on the solo Retainer cassette for UK-based label Sound Holes). I was pleasantly surprised to recognize guitarist-bassist Andrew Martinez from the shadowy and mysterious duo Ak'Chamel, who blew minds at The Wild Detectives a few weeks back. While Nuncio's keys added Bitches Brew-like atmosphere and doubled a heavy riff to good effect, they also obscured drummer Angel Garcia's passionate vocals, and I would have enjoyed being better able to hear the interplay between the trap set and the conguero (not to mention Medina's flute when the band was rocking out). Looking forward to hearing this band again when they've had more opportunity to integrate the new players. But even with a subpar sound mix, their music percolates with energy and excitement.

Kudos to James Talambas and the whole New Music Contemporary team for creating a space to hear vital, challenging music evolve in real time. If you are a fan of such, you owe it to yourself to hear both of these bands when you can. Catch 'em on the rise, and you can tell your friends that you heard 'em back when.

FTW, 5.10.2024

The Northern Lights were going to be visible, and Hamell On Trial was at the Grackle up the street. We headed for the North Side, to the Rose Marine Theater, where Teatro de la Rosa was presenting Rob Bosquez's play My Brother and Sister with Wings, directed by the author.

Rob's a Fort Worth original, a writer, director, actor and educator. He's taught at Artes de la Rosa's Artes Academy and at Stage West. He's written for SceneShop (at Arts Fifth Avenue) and Hip Pocket Theatre. He spoke with great enthusiasm after the show about bringing another series of Cuentos Fantasticos -- "a collection of short stories that communicate the strange and fantastic" -- to the Rose Marine. (Full disclosure: I've known Rob for over 20 years -- around the time this play was first produced -- since he used to come and sing at the Wreck Room's  Wednesday night jams when I was in the house band.)

The plot in My Brother and Sister with Wings unfolds in episodic fashion, opening with a provocative solo turn by Ron Fernandez as the mad Doctor Horacio -- a specialist in "abnormal conditions" whose affinity for some unidentified inhalant reminded one theatergoer of Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. Amanda Nicole Reyes as Mara is accompanying her younger brother and sister, Joaquin and Sofia (Corbyn Littrell and the amazing Eowyn Lightbearer) -- both born with wings and exploited by their father Deacon, a fallen preacher (Thad Isbell) -- to New York City to seek treatment by Doctor Amador (Justin Rhoads), who proves to be just the public face for Doctor Horacio. Horacio wants to use the children's blood to cure his equally mad wife Abigail. The spectral figure Shadow (Susan van Belkum) serves as a kind of Greek chorus, narrating the action. 

The tempo accelerates after the brief intermission with the introduction of Juno (Freddie Quiroga), a Native American shaman who's fallen on hard times in the city and become a thief, and the first onstage appearance of Jozy Camp as Abigail, who almost steals the show with a performance of mercurial menace. Juno's spirituality is a marked contrast with Deacon's corrupted faith and Horacio's demented science. He teaches the children to find their ability to soar, and a home where they can live harmoniously with nature (although they might only ever attain these goals metaphorically). 

The fine cast is a mixture of veterans and newcomers. Some choral interjections from the wings and a scene in which the Ringmaster (Nicholas Zebrun) exhibits the children as freaks before a rowdy crowd are particularly raucous; Reyes's Mara is a calm, reassuring presence amid all the sturm und drang. Lightbearer takes a solo dance turn and displays a striking physical presence despite having few lines (Sofia speaks "only when she wants to"). The staging is minimal but effective, complimented by the imaginative lighting and sound design. 

Rob Bosquez is Fort Worth's very own magical realist. It's a pleasure to once again be in the presence of his creative spirit, and a reminder that there's nothing else like live theater.

FTW, 5.4.2024

This month is starting off strong with two weekends in a row of Trio Glossia, my favorite band of the moment. This Saturday, they played two strong sets to a small audience at Bee Yourself Art Gallery, a pop-up at The Pool Near Southside just south of Cook Children's neighborhood clinic on 8th Avenue. The exhibition features works by transgender and gender-diverse artists in support of Finn's Place, a community center for trans people in Fort Worth, and will run the next three Saturday evenings from 6:30-10pm.

Trio Glossia radiates joyful energy in everything they do, with a unique blend of personalities, multi-instrumental flexibility, and a determination to ground their flights of invention within well developed structures. Stefan Gonzalez grew up in a creative family and performed free jazz and thrash in units with this father and sibling (Yells At Eels, Akkolyte) before making international impact with Humanization 4tet and The Young Mothers. Joshua Miller steered the psychedelic rock outfit Same Brain toward free jazz before teaming with Stefan; to these ears, he was a major contributor to the vibe of the most recent edition of the Dennis Gonzalez Legacy Band. Matthew Frerck is a schooled musician with a strong creative bent, and a driver in Trio Glossia's compositional focus.

While Stefan's vibraphone and Joshua's post-Ayler tenor are the band's nominal "lead" instruments, Matthew's bass serves as another strong melodic element, as well as providing the music's harmonic and rhythmic underpinnings. Both he and Joshua will shift the music's rhythmic thrust on a dime; some of Matthew's arco harmonics (played simultaneously with open string pedal tones) give the impression that there's another wind instrument onstage. Observing from up close, it was interesting to compare the two drummers' approaches. Joshua tends to float more a la Roy Haynes; his deft brushwork is a strong suit. Stefan drives with the polyrhythmic power of an Elvin Jones or Ronald Shannon Jackson. Both are, in their own ways, stupendous.

Stefan is adamant about maintaining the music's connection with the blues and bebop, as well as free jazz and open improvisation, and wants the band to develop a deep catalog of original material. Next month, Trio Glossia will record in the studio with engineer extraordinare Aubrey Seaton at the controls. Next Saturday, May 11, they'll be at New Media Contemporary in Dallas's Exhibition Park on a bill with Houston jazz-rock-flamenco juggernaut El Mantis. Don't you dare miss it.

Denton, 4.30.2024

This month's edition of Molten Plains was on a Tuesday for the first time (causing Sarah Ruth Alexander to have to sub out from her radio show), and surprisingly well attended. Ernesto Monteil had just gotten his picture in a New York Times article about Deep Vellum and The Wild Detectives, and it was announced at the end of the evening that Sarah, Ernesto, Louise Fristensky, Aaron Gonzalez, and Miguel Espinel will be performing (under the rubric Molten Plains Ensemble) at a festival in Marfa the last weekend in May. Word's getting around.

The first set was by a trio of Rachel Weaver, an environmentalist and zine-maker, on vocals and electronics, Chelsey Danielle (Pearl Earl, Helium Queens) on vibraphone and small instruments, and Will Frenkel on accordion, cello, and synth. Beginning unannounced, they conducted a nuanced dialogue on a foundation of Rachel's electronically altered utterances, with Will switching between instruments and Chelsey listening attentively and adding rhythmic and melodic counterpoint. My favorite moments came when she responded to Frenkel's tapping on the face of his bass with pentatonic theme and variations on vibes, and then later when he had moved to synth and I had to look around to see that the other sound I was hearing was Chelsey, tapping on a tambourine. 

Next set featured Mexico City-based bassist Juan Garcia (a past collaborator with Houston's Pauline Oliveros Foundation and Nameless Sound) and Houston guitarist Ryan Edwards. Juan demonstrated the variety of tones that can be obtained from an arco bass while plucking the strings and fretting false harmonics with his other hand. Ryan used a bow, eBow, and controlled feedback, regulating his volume from the amplifier, to add his input to the conversation. (I kind of wished his stage volume had been higher.) The interruption of a train in the middle of their set seemed to fit right in with what they were doing; later, they said it wasn't the loudest locomotive interruption they'd ever experienced. And it turned out the rattling sound we were hearing was from detuned strings. 

The last set brought together the powerful vocalist Lo Ramirez (Sunbuzzed) with Austin-based percussionist Lisa Cameron and the aforementioned electronic musician Louise Fristensky (who can be heard to good advantage on the Pueblo Glortha CD with Monte Espina and Liz Tonne). Lisa was coming from back-to-back sets in Austin Monday night and earlier Tuesday with saxophonist Danny Kamins and bassist Thomas Helton; she's planning some downtime this summer but until then, she'll maintain her furious gigging pace. This was the evening's most cathartic (and loudest!) performance. Lo showed the dynamic range of her voice -- from a whisper to a roar -- and exercised good mic control while Lisa used an amplified drum with strings and a wooden block suspended above it, a bowed cymbal and other devices to create welters of feedback. Louise used her synth to conjure a vast undertow of sound that rippled and rumbled and collided with the more organic sounds the others produced. A soul-cleansing experience, much needed and appreciated by all.