May
16
8:00 PM20:00

Fire Over Heaven presents Scott Li & Levi Lu

Scott Li and Levi Lu often collaborate in Warp Duo, but this will be the first time the two will share a bill in solo acts. I first learned about Scott’s work when I heard them at Joy Guidry’s show in 2022. I really loved the way they combined erratic, distorted, haunting sounds with simple, emotive melodies—a duality that embodied ecstasy and tenderness.

Levi designs Max/MSP-based electroacoustic feedback systems with cyborg-like body augmentations inspired by Objectophilia/animism, which include special microphones and speakers placed within bodily orifices, augmented amplified laptop, and a custom-mapped flight joystick controller. Their resulting performances consist of choreographed, ritualistic improvisations that build on ancient Chinese drumming traditions and explore body dysmorphia, sexuality, spirituality, and mortality, linking together sound, movement, and violence in divine ceremony.

guest-curated by LM

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Jun
16
3:00 PM15:00

The Forest: (D)ruminations for Edward Blackwell CD Release Show (Warren Smith's 90th!)

(D)RUMINATIONS is the debut recording by The Forest, a five member cooperative percussion ensemble featuring Gustavo Aguilar, Leah Bowden, Andrew Drury, Lesley Mok, and Michael Wimberly.

The album consists of an extended suite that Andrew Drury wrote for The Forest in homage to his mentor, Ed Blackwell, and a composition that percussion great Warren Smith wrote for, and recorded with, M’Boom. Warren Smith and J. D. Parran (bass flute, contra-alto clarinet, bamboo saxophone, and wood flutes) are guest performers on (D)RUMINATIONS.

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Grammy Award winning producer/engineer, Jon Rosenberg, (D)ruminations leads the listener through lush sonic landscapes created by instruments originating from a variety of traditions. The recording highlights the legacy of the legendary drummer, Ed Blackwell, and advances the tradition (largely neglected) of the composing, improvising, multi-cultural percussion ensemble.

The composition, “(D)ruminations for Edward Blackwell,” is a four-part, 44 minute suite that uses material culled from the Don Cherry/Ed Blackwell duo recordings “Mu First Part” and “Mu Second Part” from 1969. Blackwell was one of the most melodic drummers ever to play a drum set making his work ideal for compositional exploration.

Andrew Drury mentored with Blackwell from 1983 until 1992 and recently began the (D)ruminations series to explore specific drum melodies, patterns, sonic images, memories, and other ideas that emerged from his time listening to and studying with Blackwell, memories that have lovingly haunted Drury’s musical imagination for over 40 years.

Warren Smith’s composition “Elements of a Storm,” was composed for the percussion ensemble Smith co-founded with Max Roach and others, M’Boom, in 1969. It can be heard on M’Boom’s records Re:percussion (Strata East, 1973) and Collage (Soul Note, 1984). On this version members of The Forest play body percussion and five timpanis while Smith guides the way, also playing gongs, bass drums, and triangle.

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Jun
20
8:00 PM20:00

Fire Over Heaven presents vehicle / passenger (CD release!) & HXH featuring Speaker Music

Vehicle/Passenger is a new international trio consisting of Marc Alberto (NL/NA) on poetry, saxophones and electronics; Lesley Mok (US) on drums and percussion; and Florian Herzog (DE/US) on double bass and electronics. They will be releasing our debut recording, a special LP pressing of a live concert at Splendor in Amsterdam last spring.

In ‘Vehicle/Passenger’ the trio gathers around the thoughtful, radical poetry of Marc Alberto, as it weaves through energetically improvised pieces and delicate soundscapes. Exploring a queer perspective on body, society and improvisation - as suggested in the eponymous poem:

“vehicle/passenger
neither guide nor navigator
a carrier of time”

The sound of the trio is characterized by the patient and empathic interplay of spoken word, drums, sax, double bass and analog electronics. Intense and unapologetically political (in a way that’s reminiscent of hip-hop), yet always with introspection and collective awareness.

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HxH is the improvisatory electro-acoustic duo of Lester St. Louis and Chris Williams. The duo utilizes a mix of trumpet, cello and electronics to build worlds traversing through acoustic sound, grainy textures, expansive pools of sounds, breaks, cuts and beats. The approach is conceived as an expansiveness that holds a personal intimacy. HxH wants to bring the listeners in, tune them to the experience and take a long trip. HxH functions as a vehicle to bring together the mass of references and influences Chris and Lester share and create ways to crystalize those ideas in real, expanded time to an experience over minutes or hours.

Mobilizing freely improvised electronic percussion and stereophonic audio recordings, Speaker Music yearns to caress, engineer, and sculpt sentiment into a multi-textural rhythmic body, quivering moments into a collapsed “nonpulsed time.”

This will be a rare sighting of these combined forces!

guest-curated by LM

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