Mario Diaz de Leon is a composer, performer, and recording artist, whose creative work explores intersections of sound, spirituality, and technology. His music has been acclaimed by the New York Times, Pitchfork, and the New Yorker, and he has received commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and TAK Ensemble. Diaz de Leon is concurrently active in modern classical music, experimental electronic music, improvisation, and metal, having produced more than one dozen albums of his work in collaboration with chamber ensembles, as a solo electronic artist, in the duo Luminous Vault, and with the improvisation trio Bloodmist. Having previously taught at Columbia as Core Lecturer, he is currently Assistant Professor of Music and Technology at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Cyrus Pireh was born in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, usa, on March 22, 1981. As a composer, Cyrus’s works involve sign manipulation with the purpose of keeping the interpretive field open. As a guitarist, Cyrus seeks the limits of the body and the self. As an anarchist, Cyrus actively works to dismantle hierarchy and to heal the damages done by capital’s division of people into performers and audience, producers and consumers. In music, it is not possible to obstruct one sound with another. All sounds combine to create one harmony. Humans in harmony liberate each other. Cyrus Pireh complete bio: 4gre.org/C/bio.html

IE (pronounced “eeeee”), from Minneapolis, MN, is a band devoted to experiences of hypnotic minimalism—sonic rituals from the future. For this performance IE is singer, bassist, and saxophonist Mariel Oliveira (XOXO tech, The Controversial New Skinny Pill); keyboardist Michael Gallope (Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang, Skeletons, Starring, Oneida, Man Forever); with special guest Jeff Tobias.

Diamond Terrifier is Sam Hillmer, a Brooklyn-based musician, artist, and curator. He is the founding member of the band Zs and one half of the art duo Trouble (with Laura Paris). Diamond Terrifier is his solo saxophone project, though sometimes features electronics and/or a host of collaborators. For this event, Diamond Terrifier presents: EMANATE / CRENELLATE, video premiere. Video by Laura Paris (Trouble) and Lawrence Mesich. Videography by Alexander Perelli.

Composer and musicologist Clara Latham’s research and creative practice focuses on the relationship between sound, technology, sexuality, and the body. She has published articles in Sound Studies, Women & Music, Contemporary Modern European History, the Opera Quarterly, and the edited volume Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience. Before joining the faculty at the New School, Clara taught at MIT, Harvard, and Dartmouth. She has performed as a vocalist and instrumentalist with many groups including Starring, New Pope, The Fancy, Frankie Rose, and The Gongs.

A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.

Formed as an artist collective while conservatory students in Ohio, before making an indelible mark on underground music culture in New York City, the artists of Shinkoyo have been quietly involved in significant ways intersecting experimental music and art.  

Initially formed in 2003 to support debut releases by Skeletons (Matt Mehlan), Peter Blasser (instrument inventor and designer of Ciat-Lonbarde), and Severiano Martinez – Shinkoyo the “record label” has always been just a fraction of an expanded universe of collaboration and friendship. Shinkoyo artists have always “played on each other’s projects”: jointly originating bands like Skeletons, Sejayno, Symbol; founding DIY arts spaces like Silent Barn, Paris London West Nile (which became 285 Kent), and Oakland’s East Nile; releasing music on labels Tzadik, 12k, Crammed Discs, Ehse, Heresee, Tomlab, Ghostly International, Load, Denovali, Astral Spirits, American Dreams and others; traveling the world performing and collaborating with the likes of Tony Conrad, Konono No 1, Janka Nabay, Maryanne Amacher, Excepter, Nautical Almanac, Deerhoof, Juana Molina, Larry Clark, and Lou Reed.

Named for a nonsense word heard in a dream, the collective has always been dedicated to a kind of dream logic of newness. Founded on ideals of collaboration around music and the electronic, Shinkoyo has been directed over two decades by the creativity, labor and/or philosophical esoterics of: Matt Mehlan (who still manages the label), Peter Blasser, Severiano Martinez, Doron Sadja, Zeljko McMullen, Carson Garhart, Jason McMahon, Tony Lowe, MV Carbon, Thomas Arsenault, Johnny Mischeff, Ben Kamen, Michael Beharie – and has grown further in recent years with releases by Cyrus Pireh, Lia Kohl, Nat Baldwin, Sam Hillmer (Zs), IE, Clara Latham and Bobby Matador’s New Pope, Katherine Young and Sam Scranton’s Beautifulish, Patrick Shiroishi, Angel Deradoorian, artist and writer Sherae Rimpsey and others.

This series of concerts at Roulette brings together artists from each and every era of the imprint, celebrating the myriad threads of the past 20 years and introducing its future with Artist Pool, a non-profit initiative grounded in Shinkoyo’s collective ideals.

“The collective’s members […] have consistently created some of the most interesting and individual electronic music happening in America today” -Nate Wooley, Sound American

“There are connections in the music of Shinkoyo to a wildly diverse set of influences, from icons such as Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma, and David Tudor, to “outsider” influences such as Al Margolis and Annea Lockwood, to genre work from left field locations such as new age and hard noise electronics.” -Database of Recorded American Music