Gen Admission: $20
Doors: 7:00 PM
Show: 8:00 PM
http://www.gamh.com/artist_pages/cosa_brava_081411.htm
Three bands who love songs and bring unique perspectives to the art of writing and performing them.
Semi-popular music?
The art of melody?
Walking, running, and standing still?
The passionate pursuit of dirt and disorder?
Personal and musical differences?
Minutiae?
Big sound?
Born to be mild?
Bones bleached behind us...
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COSA BRAVA
Fred Frith - guitar, bass, voice, compositions
Carla Kihlstedt - violin, voice
Zeena Parkins - accordion, keyboard, voice
Shahzad Ismaily - bass, percussion
Matthias Bossi - drums, voice
The Norman Conquest - sound
Cosa Brava is one of Fred Frith's most dynamic, unpredictable, and popular projects. With the recent addition of the extraordinary Shahzad Ismaily on bass and percussion, and a rapidly growing number of songs written since the acclaimed first album Ragged Atlas , the group has entered a new phase, drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Astor Piazzola, Indian film music, Icelandic volcanoes and the late, great Swedish melodicist Lars Hollmer. Cosa Brava gathers together some of the most versatile and sought after players of our time, who have between them played with a who's who of innovative modern musicians, from Derek Bailey to Björk, from Alvin Curran to Eno, not mention Marc Ribot, Evelyn Glennie, Katia Labeque, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, Robert Wyatt, John Zorn, and dozens of others. All the members of Cosa Brava are also noted composers and creators in their own right, and with the addition of the passionate and unorthodox sound designer The Norman Conquest, they sound like no other band on the planet.
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"These beautiful songs combine the rhythmic force of rock with improvisation and classical and world musics. There is a lyricism here that immediately attracts and a sense of the hearts and minds that made it."
Duncan Henning, Jazzwise, UK
"As music that transcends time and genre, Ragged Atlas stands as one of 2010's most auspicious debuts."
John Kelman , allaboutjazz , USA
"The music lies somewhere between folk, Celtic, modern chamber, Latin, funk, Eastern. Here, the progressive boundary of rock meets a world traveler's folk (but) Frith's ideas never stray far from joyous music making."
Mark Corroto , allaboutjazz USA
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JACK O' THE CLOCK
Jordan Glenn - drums, percussion, accordion
Jason Hoopes - basses, voice, piano
Kate McLoughlin - bassoon, voice, flute, recorder, percussion
Emily Packard - 5 string and baritone violins, viola, banjo, psaltery, melodica, musical saw
Damon Waitkus - voice, guitar, hammer dulcimer, banjo, piano, pianet, flute, ukelin, percussion, production
Jack O' The Clock brings a quietly giddy sort of energy to the intersection of American folk songwriting and experimental music. The group's sound, a jangly mix of concert-hall agility, acoustic rock drive, and junk shop scouring, is characterized by tight vocal harmonies and intricate arrangements for unusual combinations of instruments made possible by the varied musical experience and multi-instrumentalism of its five members, who have played everything from new music to art metal to fingerstyle folk to free improvisation, sometimes in the same concert. Jack O' The Clock's recordings go beyond the group's live sound to incorporate bits of on-location percussion, found sounds, clandestinely recorded monologues, city noise, and various birds and insects, as well as a number of guest musicians and singers.
This is a band entranced by and dedicated to songs, which it crafts with resolute attention to voice, melody, and storytelling. These songs are embodiments of the small, magisterial, inane, inspired, and pedestrian voices of everyday people and staticky news reports filtered through a string of sleepless nights. Your weird neighbors and relatives squawking back at you at 5AM.
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"Normally around this part of a review I would offer some reference points or comparisons, but in this case that would be futile. There's an amazing amount of originality in these twelve tracks, and those looking for some intrepid, barrier-breaking music would do well to start here."
Peter Thelen, Exposé
"...a goldmine, accessible, and moreover, fun."
Tasiverin.net
"...brings an offbeat sort of energy to the imagined intersection of American folk songwriting and experimental music...a mix of concert-hall sensibility, meandering musicality and junk shop scouring."
Jeremiah Sutherland, Bullfrog Music
"Some of the freshest and most surprising music I've heard since, well, since their first record. Hallelujah!"
Fred Frith
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GREX
Grex (greks) n. 1. a multicellular aggregate of the groups Acrasiomycota or Dictyosteliida, formed for the purposes of travel and food collection. 2. a Bay Area creative music partnership composed of Karl A.D. Evangelista (guitar, vox, etc.) and Margaret Rei Scampavia (keys, winds, vox, etc.).
Grex(the band) was formed in and around the Mills College music axis, late night inside jokes, and intense dissections of South African music, emphasizing genre bending, cross-idiomatic conceits and melding elements of mostly everything (Evangelista has a background in free jazz and Scampavia is a biologist) into something stark and eldritch.
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"A thankful anomaly in contemporary music, merging not only an affinity, but a true love for creative improvised music on par with folk-rock, psychedelia, and modern composition... they are onto something really special."
Ni Kantu, AllAboutJazz
"The striking thing about this music was its stubborn refusal to eschew any element in favor of another, offered with a headlong creative urge that made the unexpected turns and sequences into a joyful expression. It's a body of works that has a life of its own, with a connecting tissue that links it to Erik Satie, the Bloodhound Gang and jazz standards in a way that gently consumes (or is consumed) by the way it veers beyond mere reference at unexpected turns."
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