Now residing in Philadelphia, multidisciplinary artist Mikel Patrick Avery had been actively working out of Chicago and New Orleans for the past 17 years. Established as a jazz drummer, he is commonly recognized for his orchestral and melodic style of drumming that often involves the use of unconventional “non-musical” objects. Adjacent to being a performing musician, Avery is a dedicated filmmaker, composer, photographer, designer, and educator, whose body of work invariably draws upon ideas of ‘unstructured-play’ commonly applied to learning environments found in early education.

In recent years, Avery has become an integral voice in varying ensembles, including Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society, The Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, and Theaster Gates’s Black Monks of Mississippi as well as leading several of his own projects, including 1/2 Size Piano Trio, Wazella, Sore Thumb, PARADE, and MPA ‘PLAY’.

Mikel has had the privilege to perform and exhibit either his own work or in accompaniment to others at a variety of venues and cultural institutions around the world. Most notably at, The Art Institute of Chicago, New Museum NYC, Art Basel (Switzerland), Hyde Park Jazz Festival, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Documenta, Drunk Lunch Gallery, Pitchfork Music Festival, Oto (London), & White Cube (London).

MV Carbon is a Brooklyn based artist whose work focuses on sound morphology and the transformative interrelationship between sound, space, and place, exploring the phenomenological and metaphysical. Carbon’s sonic approach is ever evolving, engaging musical styles such as noise, experimental, improv, and contemporary classical, weaving complex rhythms and textures through a mesh of extended techniques. She amplifies the ritual, rhythm, and momentum embedded in music, applying electric cello, magnetic tape, electronics, amplified objects, and sonic space.

Carbon’s solo and/or collaborative record releases include 5RC, Atavistic Records, Discombobulate, Ecstatic Peace, Chaikin Records, Hanson, Load Records, No Fun Productions, Various Artists, and Veglia. Past sonic formations include HEVM, Metalux, and Bride of No No, along with a multitude of collaborations with artists including Aki Onda, Brian Chase, C. Spencer Yeh, Bradley Eros, Charlemagne Palestine, Evan Parker, Ka Baird, Lary 7, Okkyung Lee, Shelley Hirsch, Tony Conrad, Zach Layton, Wolf Eyes, and many more!

Slow Dances is a card game for dance made in collaboration between the interdisciplinary artists Matt Mehlan (Skeletons) and Sonnenzimmer (Nick Butcher & Nadine Nakanishi). Slow Dances brings together the brilliant graphic virtuosity and cross-media thinking of the latter with the whimsical musical experimentation and photography of the former, into a wholly original and fun multimedia object. This iteration of Slow Dances features official Slow Dances music performed by Matt Mehlan (piano, electronics), Lia Kohl (cello), and Sam Kulik (trombone).

Sam Scranton and Katherine Young make music together as Beautifulish. We fuse free improvisation with composed musical material. Tightly interwoven gestures smudge into expansive textures. Rainbows of noise produced through haptic and breathy friction create proximity and space, timbre and harmony, pitch and rhythm. We use electronics and amplification to augment their primary instruments: Young plays bassoon; Scranton, percussion. The result is an integrated sound world that exists as its own beautifulish thing.

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