Author: Caitlin Gleason

Anaïs Maviel: DIáSPORA / Cross Times

What: Anaïs Maviel celebrates the release of her duo DIáSPORA’s new album exploring trance in popular music.
When: Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20 Door, $15 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368

Brooklyn, NY – Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Anaïs Maviel and collaborators present the composer’s latest investigations into the manifestations of song in relation to trance in electro-acoustic settings. Cross Times, will focus on the dilatation and crossing of time layers in songs written on the n’goni (West African gourd lute). The second set of the evening will focus on the collaboration of the touring duo DIáSPORA in conjunction with their debut record of the same name. DIáSPORA seeks to use voice and rhythm as a base for exploration of trance in popular music. The album was recorded live in Mexico City and produced in South, Central and North America, in collaboration with Principa (MX) & Hérnia de Discos (BR).

Album Digital Release: May 25 2018

Album Preview: https://soundcloud.com/ana-s-maviel/sets/diaspora-1/s-feAa

Anaïs Maviel is a vocalist, percussionist, composer, music director, educator, curator, and healer. Her work focuses on the function of music as essential to settling common grounds, addressing Relation, and creating utopian futures. She works at the crossroads of several mediums – music, visual art, dance, theater, and performance art.

Chiquita Magic is interested in the cross-pollination of seemingly contrasting styles (cumbia, salsa, choral music, hip-hop, jazz) with futuristic electronic textures.

Luke Stewart is a DC-based multi-Instrumentalist and organizer, recognized by the Washington Post as a key contributor to the scene there. In DC his regular ensembles include Trio OOO with legendary DC Free Jazz saxophonist Aaron Martin, Six-Six, a duo with guitarist Anthony Pirog, experimental jazz trio Heart of the Ghost, and experimental electronic group MOM^2 (Mind Over Matter, Music Over Mind).

Sam Yulsman is a composer, pianist and multimedia artist from New York City, whose music spans a wide range of musical idioms. Currently, Yulsman performs regularly as a member of Brandon Lopez’s trio “the Mess”, and co-directs “Little Moments of Invisible Death” – a multi-media performance installation, designed and performed in collaboration with Martin Hiendl.

Lineup:

DIáSPORA
Chiquita Magic – synths, voice
Anaïs Maviel – surdo, voice

Cross Times
Sam Yulsman – keyboards, electronics
Luke Stewart – bass
Anaïs Maviel – voice, n’goni

Phew: Voice Hardcore // Laura Ortman

What: Japanese legend Phew performs a voice-only set in celebration of the release of her new album. Violinist Laura Ortman opens.
When: Monday, May 21, 2018
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25 Door, $20 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368

Brooklyn, NY – Mingling electronics and extended vocals, Phew performs a set at Roulette in celebration of the release of her new Mesh Records album, Voice Hardcore. Phew has been a pioneer of pop and avant-garde music for nearly 40 years. Her early albums have been cited as among the “Greatest Albums of Japanese Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and her Osaka post-punk band Aunt Sally was inspired by the Sex Pistols. Voice Hardcores was recorded in eight hours over three days in Phew’s Tokyo bedroom, and she’s described the project to Pitchfork as “an attempt to make new reverberations that I have never heard before using only my body.” Violinist Laura Ortman opens.

Phew’s career began in the late 1970s as lead singer of Osaka punk group Aunt Sally (whose only full-length was released by Vanity Records in 1979). Ryuichi Sakamoto produced her first solo release in 1980, a two-song single, and in 1981 Pass Records released her debut album, a bonafide classic recorded with original Can members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit at Conny Plank’s studio in Germany. She has forged a singular path over the past thirty-plus years, collaborating with folks from DAF, Einstürzende Neubauten, Boredoms, Anton Fier, Bill Laswell and more. Her early albums have been cited as among the “Greatest Albums of Japanese Rock ‘n’ Roll,” while her most recent albums, Voice Hardcore and Light Sleep, have received critical acclaim, finding her breaking new ground and staying at the forefront of fresh electronic and vocal music.

Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) is a Brooklyn-based composer, musician, and artist. She produces solo albums, live performances and film/art soundtracks and frequently collaborates with artists in film, music, art, dance, multi-media, activistism and poetry, such as Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Nanobah Becker, Okkyung Lee, Martin Bisi, Caroline Monnet, Michelle Latimer, Raphaele Shirley and Martha Colburn.

Lineup:
Phew – Voice, Electronics
Laura Ortman – Violin, Electronics

Ka Baird: centers: 4 channels

What: Ka Baird premieres two piano pieces incorporating 4-channel synthesis with spatialized light and movement.
When: Sunday, May 13, 2018
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20/15 Door, $15 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368

Brooklyn, NY – Seated at a piano in the middle of Roulette’s concert hall, with the audience in the round, Ka Baird will premiere centers: 4 channels. The program, part of her Jerome Residency at Roulette, will consist of two pieces: piano: vivification exercises with Crystal Penalosa, and voices: source. Both pieces incorporate 4-channel synthesis (in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of the listening space, reproducing signals that are wholly or in part independent of one another), as well as spatialized light and movement.

Ka Baird is a composer and performer living and working in NYC. She is one of the founding and continuing members of the experimental outfit Spires That In The Sunset Rise founded in Chicago in September 2001. Since relocating to NYC in November 2014, she has set off in numerous directions apart from Spires to both pursue new collaborations and hone her solo work. Her current work explores piano, electroacoustic interventions, extended vocal techniques, physical movement, and the electronic manipulation of the flute. She is interested specifically in performance/sound as a means to break recurring thought patterns and create passages into pure energy potential.

Crystal Penalosa is an American artist & interdisciplinary designer based in New York. Their work primarily focuses on performance with modular electronics, utilizing signal processing as a collaborative tool to sculpt sounds in real-time. Penalosa has performed collaboratively and solo in New York at Issue Project Room, Microscope Gallery, Sediment Gallery, MoMA PS1, Experimental Intermedia, and at Spektrum in Berlin. They currently work with the veteran underground record label Generations Unlimited.

Lineup:

piano: vivification exercises
Ka Baird – Piano, Voice
Crystal Penalosa – Electronics, Processing

voices: source
Ka Baird – Voice

Che Chen with Talice Lee and Patrick Holmes

What: 75 Dollar Bill’s Che Chen present slow-moving modal music in just intonation for bass recorder, clarinet, violin, voices, organ
When: Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20 Door, $15 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: https://roulette.org/event/commission-che-chen-with-talice-lee-and-patrick-holmes/

Brooklyn, NY – Widely celebrated as the guitarist and multi-instrumentalist in 75 Dollar Bill, Che Chen has taken this Roulette Jerome Commission as an opportunity to push deep into the sound worlds of modal improvisation, untempered tunings, and extended, slow-moving durational structures. Built around a just intonation tuning matrix and modes devised by Chen, this intimate, evening-length work aims to slow the listener’s attention and direct it towards minute differences in pitch, timbre, and awareness.

Chen has assembled a new ensemble especially for this piece featuring Talice Lee (violin, voice), Patrick Holmes (clarinet, voice) and himself (bass recorder, voice, electric organ). Bracketed by long tone harmonies and unison themes, individuals improvise at length with extemporaneous support from the other two players. The trio’s interaction is often framed by static, microtonal chords from Chen’s organ, resulting in a “triangle within a circle” structure of voices.

Che Chen is a musician and multi-instrumentalist based in Queens and Stonybrook, NY. Born in 1978 to Taiwanese immigrant parents, Chen studied painting and drawing before turning his attention to sound. This change in direction has made improvisation, the harmonic series and the ecstatic possibilities of music his main preoccupations ever since. Chen’s interest in modal, microtonal improvisation has led him to an earnest, if rather informal study of the musical traditions of North Africa, India, and the middle east, as well as the acoustical theories underpinning their tuning systems (just intonation).

Lineup:
Che Chen – Bass Recorder, Voice, Electric Organ
Talice Lee – Violin, Voice
Patrick Holmes – Clarinet, Voice

Cecilia Lopez: machinic fantasies

What: Cecilia Lopez’s multichannel video and sound installation uses oil drums that have been transformed into playback systems.
When: Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20 Door, $15 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: https://roulette.org/event/commission-cecilia-lopez-machinic-fantasies

Brooklyn, NY – Cecilia Lopez’s machinic fantasies is a performative installation based on the idea of producing a sonic and visual live “mediation process/machine.” The Roulette-commissioned work utilizes multichannel video and sound spatialization techniques to augment the audience’s perception of specific kinetic sound objects. Performers will hand-spin oil drums that have been transformed into revolving playback systems to amplify appropriated sound and field recordings, spoken word, and live acoustic/electronic instruments. Images of these sound objects will also be projected onto different screens, creating an immersive environment of synchronicity, and asynchronicity.

Cecilia Lopez is a composer, musician, and multimedia artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work explores perception and transmission processes focusing on the relationship between sound technologies and listening practices. She works across the media of performance, sound, installation and the creation of sound devices and systems.

Jean Carla Rodea is a Brooklyn-based vocalist, interdisciplinary artist, and educator, born and raised in Mexico City. She is dedicated to perform a plethora of music in a variety of settings -from solo to large ensembles. She has performed and recorded with Darius Jones’ vocal quartet Elizabeth-Caroline Unit, Gerald Cleaver’s Uncle June and NiMbNl quintet, Anthony Braxton’s Syntactical Ghost Trance Music Choir. In addition to this, she leads her own projects: AZARES, trio=tres nube.

Julia Santoli is a Brooklyn-based artist and experimental musician. Creating immersive and precarious environments with voice, feedback, electronics, and installation, her work deals with intergenerational hauntings and reclamation through the body.

Lineup:
Cecilia Lopez – Composition, Electronics
Jean Carla Rodea
Julia Santoli

Jason Treuting: Nine Numbers, Vol. 1 with Sō Percussion, Tigue, Adam Groh, Ji Hye Jung

What: Nine powerhouse percussionists perform a program of modular “sudoku” works written by composer/performer Jason Treuting.
When: Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/$20 Door, $20 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: https://roulette.org/event/jason-treuting-nine-numbers-vol-1-with-so-percussion-tigue-adam-groh-ji-hye-jung/

Brooklyn, NY – Jason Treuting, founding member of Sō Percussion, presents nine pieces for nine percussionists, with each piece governed by a set of instructions inspired by sudoku puzzles. The kinetic and hypnotic trio TIGUE, as well as percussionists Ji Hye Jung and Adam Groh, and Sō Percussion, perform. Jason Treuting is a founding member of the innovative, multi-genre original group Sō Percussion, which The New Yorker describes as an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam.”

Lineup:
Jason Treuting – Composer and Percussion

Sō Percussion
Eric Cha-Beach – Percussion
Josh Quillen – Percussion
Adam Sliwinski – Percussion

Tigue
Matt Evans – Percussion
Amy Garapic – Percussion
Carson Moody – Percussion
Adam Groh – Percussion
Ji Hye Jung – Percussion

María Grand: Revés/Rêves: Dreams of a Departed Maestra // Magdalena Album Release Show

What: María Grand premieres a multi-media work honoring dancer Noemí Lapzeson & celebrates the release of a new DiaTribe album.
When: Tuesday, May 1, 2018. 8pm.
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20 Door, $15 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: http://bit.ly/SP180501

Brooklyn, NY – For her Roulette-commissioned piece, saxophonist, vocalist, and composer María Grand offers an exploration of sound and movement in a tribute to her childhood dance teacher, Noemí Lapzeson. Inspired by Lapzeon’s split screen dances, Revés/Rêves: Dreams of a Departed Maestra presents movement as an instrument and uses the placement of musicians on stage to create intentional spaces of sonic expression. The second part of the evening will celebrate the release of Magdalena, a new album by Grand’s band DiaTribe. Magdalena explores modern familial relationships through the lens of Egyptian and early Christian myths, connecting them to the pioneering work of family therapist Virginia Satir.

María Grand was born in Switzerland in 1992, to a Swiss mother and an Argentinian father. Since her move to New York in 2011, she has become an important member of the city’s creative music scene, performing extensively in projects with musicians such as Vijay Iyer, Craig Taborn, Jen Shyu, Steve Lehman, Aaron Parks, Marcus Gilmore, Jonathan Finlayson, Miles Okazaki, etc. Her debut EP “TetraWind” was picked as “one of the 2017’s best debuts” by the NYC Jazz Record. María is a recipient of the 2017 Jazz Gallery Residency Commission and the 2018 Roulette Jerome Foundation Commission.

Lineup:

Revés/Rêves: Dreams of a Departed

María Grand, tenor saxophone and vocals
Ganavya Doraiswamy, vocals
Joel Ross, vibraphone
Rajna Swaminathan, mridangam

Maestra Magdalena Album Release Show

María Grand, tenor saxophone and vocals
David Bryant, piano
Rashaan Carter, bass
Jeremy Dutton, drums