A tenuous coexistence of fragility and density

“A tenuous coexistence of fragility and density”

Saturday May 23rd – 8 pm
+ Roy Montgomery
+ Alex MacKinnon
@ Artspace , K Rd, Auckland
Level 1
300 Karangahape Road, Newton

Free lecture – 1 pm Friday, May 22nd at Elam Lecture Theatre

Oren Ambarchi is an experimental musician whose work explores the effect of music of tremulous beauty played at brutal volume. Born in Australia, he has a long history of challenging, absorbing solo work, and collaborations with some of the most prestigious artists working in the field of contemporary music: ranging from the high art seriousness of Keith Rowe, Evan Parker, Sachimoko M, Phil Niblock and Christian Fennesz, to Dave Grohl and the satanic majesties of experimental metal, Sunn o)), with whom he has recently toured. Ambarchi also played on their recent ‘Monoliths and Dimensions’ and 2005’s bleak masterpiece, ‘Black1’, plays with Greg Anderson and Attila Csihar in Burial Chamber Trio, and released the ‘Grave Temple’ album with Stephen O’Malley. Ambarchi also co-curates the essential ‘What Is Music’, Australia’s most important festival of experimental music.

http://www.orenambarchi.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXP3smULLL4

ROY MONTGOMERY’s discography and performance history is devoid of conceit yet stretches with utter prolificacy from Flying Nun – with the Pin Group – to Flying Saucer Attack, who he collaborated with in 1997 for label VHF (Astral Social

Club, Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Richard Youngs), as well as projects with seminal psyche-ruckus act Bardo Pond and Dunedin band Dadamah, which also included Kim Pieters and Peter Stapleton of Eye, Terminals and Flies Inside the Sun fame. As labels Siltbreeze and Kranky enjoy a sort of renaissance, artists such as Montgomery can themselves revel in a renewed sort of limelight, but it’s a kind of light that they’ll always elude, instead operating in a realm that’s brilliant in a totally different manner. It’s thus a rare and special occasion that provides an audience the opportunity to witness what The Wire’s Edwin Pouncey has described as a ‘fabled New Zealand guitarist’, a musical cousin to The Velvet Underground, Television and Wire and a general sorcerer of some of the most other-worldly yet agrarian sonic experiments and exports this country has ever paid witness to.

http://www.scaruffi.com/vol6/dissolve.html

Alexander MacKinnon’s place in Dunedin’s current generation of experimental sound practitioners is as multifarious as it is catalytic. His occasional live solo appearances are supplemented with his sound installation practice (characterised by its lo-fi take on media materiality, as well as its careful attention to the spatiality of sound)

He has frequent collaborative performances in the groups Khomet, Dirt Room, the more recent PQRST, and a duo with drummer Lee Noyes, as well as a recent stint in Matt Middleton’s rock band The Aesthetics.

Part of the celebrated Lines of Flight festival and publisher of the “craft DIY” record label Radio Jaundice, Alex also is an event organiser around the None studio artist collective and in the wider Dunedin community with Alt Music’s distributed event series.

http://www.myspace.com/alexmackinnon

Organised by the Audio Foundation, Altmusic is an ongoing series of audio events and tours, regularly bringing a vital injection of contemporary and avant-garde sound art from around the world to New Zealand.

Previous Altmusic artists featured are The Necks, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Pauline Oliveros, Voice Crack, Grouper, Francisco Lopez, Philip Jeck, Tenniscoats, Metamkine and the Dead C.

Altmusic is supported by Creative New Zealand, Lions Foundation, ARTSPACE and ASB Trust.

ENDS