Abaloni Macaroni

More Shows...

2010-06-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ill be playing one week from today in LA (6/21). The show is at Synchronicity Space, located at 4306 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA (map). Ill be playing a collaborative set with the theremin trio, Faraday Trippers and some other special guests. Theres no flier but you can check out the facebook event thing here.

These bands are also playing...

-Coup Pigeons

-Queen Victoria

-Warm Climate

-Metal Rouge

Also, Ill be playing the first annual noise conference in San Louis Obispo on July 2nd. Im going to be doing some lighting and a small installation at the gallery space. This is going to be a great show with some good friends and Im really looking forward to it.

The Bleak Haus show is still supposed to be happening on 6/26 so come out if your in the bay.

Come...

2010-05-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

EDIT: This show has been postponed till 6/26.

Ill be playing new stuff from the upcoming Abaddon release.
My close friend Matt Parchinski will be providing visuals/lighting for my set.

Guerrilla Show in San Francisco 4/9/10

2010-04-02T21:25:00.001-07:00

Wrong Hole
Weltschmertz

This is going down in a hallway that's about 4 feet wide. You might end up with a black eye.

Scantily Clad - Two

2009-12-18T03:12:00.000-08:00

Scantily Clad recently completed their second release which is now available. My good friend Preston (Hungrier) along with awesome dude, Greg Manata, out did themselves on this one. Not only musically, but also with the layout and packaging. I just got my copies in the mail and I'm beyond impressed.
I contributed to the last track, Kitten Claw. This release is limited to 100 so get them while you still can. Its sure to sell out, as did the last one.

Email Preston at cavemansalad@gmail.com to order.

Connector Tape Now Available Through Stunned Records

2009-12-04T00:41:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year me and a friend of mine, Bryce Loy, recorded two late night, gorilla sessions in Richard Serra's Connector sculpture...

Stunned Records has released a "special edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c50 tapes with double-sided jcard and foldout color insert."
You can read a full review of the tape here or here.

Edit: This release has sold out.

Upcoming Shows

2009-11-16T16:46:00.000-08:00

Ill be playing a few shows this week with Land Minds. Ill be playing a special set with some video and lighting. Come check them out if your in the area...

11/19 @ Echo Curio, Los Angeles, CA

11/20 935 E Broadway, Long Beach, CA

11/21 305 S. Roosevelt, Tempe, AZ

This show is going to start at 5pm so make sure to get there early

Come out if your around.

Also, a reblog from Illogical Contraption

Pamela Z

2009-06-25T23:52:00.000-07:00

Pamela Z is a fixture at most of the bay areas avant garde events. She not only attends most of them, she performs in many as well. I have seen her perform a few times, most recently at the chapel of chimes this past Sunday. Its always a pleasure. Her style is unique and most certainly an extension of her personality which is outgoing to say the least. Rather then try to describe her music Ill show you. Below is a video of her piece, The Pendulum. Since it isn't blatantly obvious from the video Ill just mention that the hand motions you see her doing are controlling this small box which is some sort of midi control box. Watching her use it is similar to seeing someone play a theremin but more elaborate.

PamelaZ.com

(I found this video on a blog I recently discovered called Iron Tongue of Midnight)

Welcome to San Francisco...

2009-06-19T18:08:00.001-07:00

Ikue Mori

2009-06-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

One of the pioneers of laptop electronics, Ikue Mori has been breaking new ground on the musical frontier for three decades. From her early days in the landmark No Wave band DNA, to her years as a regular in the downtown improvisation community and more recently as one of the epicenters of the international laptop electronic scene, Ikue has become an underground hero—yet her work is still sorely underappreciated. This newest solo CD features Ikue’s idiosyncratic take on contemporary dance rhythms and electronica. Fascinating ambient textures, detailed improvisations and pulsing hypnotic rhythms clash and combine in this complex and charismatic electronic masterpiece.

Released on Tzadik's Key Series

www.ikuemori.com
www.myspace.com/ikuemorimusic

Ikue Mori - Master of Deception

Originally posted from Tzadik.

Buried at Sea

2009-06-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

Heavy as a fully loaded cement truck...

Anthony Saunders

2009-06-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

This is a video from one of the shows I saw during my recent trip to New York. This guy is way cool dude. Check out his blog here.

Two other rad guys played that night. One was James Amoeba. You can check out his myspace here. The other was Eli Keszler and you can check out his page here. Eli is going on a US tour this summer. Check out the dates on his page. I definitely recommend checking out his show if you can make it.

Rachel Lattimore

2009-06-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

Very excited to be working with this excellent artist.

www.rachellattimore.com
www.rachellattimore.blogspot.com

William Duckworth

2009-06-02T04:12:00.000-07:00

William Duckworth (born 1943) is an American composer who also is an author, educator and Internet pioneer. He has written more than 200 pieces of music and is credited with the composition of the first postminimal piece of music, The Time Curve Preludes (1977-1978), for piano. His other notable compositions include Thirty-One Days (1987), for alto saxophone, and Southern Harmony (1980-1981), a choral work which uses certain features of shape note singing. Duckworth is a Professor of Music at Bucknell University. Nora Farrell, his wife, runs Monroe Street Music, which publishes many of his pieces. In recent years, Duckworth has concentrated on releasing music at his Cathedral Web site and has shifted much of his attention from music composed for traditional acoustic instruments to electronic music which utilizes world music influences and invites active participation from the listener. He obtained a bachelor's degree in music from East Carolina University, then master's and doctorates in music education from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He studied composition under composer Ben Johnston and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the notation of composer John Cage.

Two of my most valued books were written by this guy. I wondered what his music was like a few years ago when I first read them but never actually heard it until recently. His music is excellent and his ideas are awesome.
Check him out yourself www.billduckworth.com

2009-06-01T02:14:00.001-07:00

How to Survive Seeing Janes Addiction Live...

2009-05-23T03:16:00.001-07:00

Immediately afterwards...

Drink this...

"Too extreme to be called beer? Brewed to a colossal 45-degree plato, boiled for a full 2 hours while being continuously hopped with high-alpha American hops, then dry-hopped daily in the fermenter for a month & aged for another month on whole-leaf hops!!!

Our 120 Minute I.P.A. is by far the biggest I.P.A. ever brewed! At 21% abv and 120 ibus you can see why we call this beer THE HOLY GRAIL for hopheads!"

From dogfishhead.com

While listening to their latest...

Available on their website here.

Fuck EMI Records, the IFPI, & the RIAA

2009-05-22T02:04:00.000-07:00

Below is an email I received tonight, explaining why my post about danger mouse has been removed. For those who missed it, you can read the story the rebellious artist here and listen to it for free here. Id post a link again but blogger would take it down again Im sure. Anyone who would like a link to download the cd can email me using my information on the side. Id be happy to provide it. And let me again ask you all to support danger mouse by buying the book when it comes out and downloading the music for free.

Image originally posted at tinymixtapes.com

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog infringes upon the copyrights of others. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.

The notice that we received from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the record companies it represents, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling Effects at http://www.chillingeffects.org. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Please note that it may take Chilling Effects up to several weeks to post the notice online at the link provided.

The IFPI is a trade association that represents over 1,400 major and independent record companies in the US and internationally who create, manufacture and distribute sound recordings (the "IFPI Represented Companies").

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. We are in the process of removing from our servers the links that allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. See http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=254 for more information about the DMCA, and see http://www.google.com/dmca.html for the process that Blogger requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

Blogger can reinstate these posts upon receipt of a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and 3) of the DMCA. For more information about the requirements of a counter notification and a link to a sample counter notification, see http://www.google.com/dmca.html#counter.

Please note that repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel. If you have any other questions about this notification, please let us know.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

Affected URLs:

http://abalonimacaroni.blogspot.com/2009/05/danger-mouse-dark-night-of-soul.html

Pirate Bay Continues Being Awesome...

2009-05-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

Originally posted at tiny mix tapes

You have to love the guys who run The Pirate Bay (or hate them a lot, depending on what you have at stake). Whether they’re bold-facedly advertising The Simpsons Movie available for download on its first day in theatres or trying to start their own country where file-sharing is legal, they tend to grab the bull by the prairie oysters. Well, those smug assholes have done it again. Or at least they’re about to have done it again.

Let’s back up. About three weeks ago, the well-publicized Pirate Bay trial reached a verdict requiring the management of The Pirate Bay to pay a fine of 30-million SEK. The money was to be paid to Danowsky & Partners Advokatbyrå, the small law firm representing the IFPI in the recent trial. Of course, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm and his three co-pirates, relaxed comfortably atop their beanbag chair-sized testicles, had no intentions of paying the fine.

Their current plan is to enact what is now being called a "Distributed Denial of Dollars" (or DDo$) attack. It is basically an adaptation of the DDoS attack, a technique by which a number of internet users intentionally overload a server in order to make it inaccessible to its intended users. In this case, The Pirate Bay is asking users to make tiny donations of 1 SEK (approx. 0.13 USD) to the bank account in which the 30 million SEK is meant to be deposited.

Here’s how it works: The first 1000 transfers made to the account cost nothing to Danowsky. Any further transfers, however, will cause the bank to charge Danowsky with a fee of 2 SEK. This means that any donations (beyond the first 1000) of 1 SEK will end up costing Danowsky 1 SEK. Bear in mind that The Pirate Bay has about 3.6 million users.

As Danowsky is a small firm that handles all transactions by hand, this attack will probably end up wasting a lot of their time. And time is money. So it will end up wasting some of their money, and then a lot of their money. Now, unless Danowsky is so overwhelmed that they have to close their doors, this still does not explain how Svartholm and his mates will avoid paying their fine. But as the old pirate saying goes, "If ye be drownin, ’tis best that the last bit of ya ter be seen be yer sinkin’ middle finger."

Posted by Nat Towsen on 05-19-2009

Julia Dales

2009-05-19T19:25:00.001-07:00

2009-05-15T23:30:00.001-07:00

Declassified Documents Available in Amoeba San Francisco

2009-05-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

The CD is priced at an affordable $6.98. It is handmade and limited to 100. It features a 6 page booklet with photos by Matt Parchinski. Go pick it up!

Tooth Powder #2 + Hungrier Demo

2009-05-10T21:06:00.001-07:00

That hungry fella is up to his old tricks again. My good friend Preston just finished off the second issue of his zine, Tooth Powder. Its 45 pages long(!) and also comes with a cd featuring some of his music. Our mutual friend Jen made one of her sweet collages for the issue. You can find me on track number 6 of the demo gettin down with the irie vibes of jah praise. Read more about it here and order a copy damnit! $5 is a hell of a deal for this sexy book of goodness.

That is all.

This dude...

2009-05-04T01:16:00.000-07:00

"kid koala lives in Montreal. his weapons of choice are… pencils, paper, clay, glue, mosquitoes, records and mixers… all of which he slyly uses to bring joy and silliness to the far reaches of the earth.

he is currently working on his second graphic novel + soundtrack… as well as his fourth album. in his spare time, he has been scheming up some new tours including but not limited to: a puppet musical about a robot who works at a cookie factory (complete with turntable orchestra pit), a quiet-time headphone / beanbag tour for the non-dancing listeners, and a hilarious Roller-rink tour which should be fun for the whole family.

all new romantics and jaded people alike are invited."

http://nufonia.com/

Sorry Preston...

2009-05-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

NY MOMA is so big its overwhelming. León Ferrari's incredible art was featured on the top floor.

I go to see one of my favorite pieces by Steve Reich, Electric Counter Point. It ends up being played on this bad boy.

Kid Koala, hands down, the most talented guy in hip hop and one of the best musicians Ive ever seen in my life.

Today Was a Good Day...

2009-05-03T00:18:00.000-07:00

Reading at 39,000 ft

2009-05-01T23:24:00.000-07:00

....
To be inside taht music, to be drawn into the circle of its repetitions: perhaps that is a place where one could finally disappear.
But beggars and performers make up only a small part of the vagabond population. They are the aristocracy, the elite of the fallen. Far more numerous are those with nothing to do, with nowhere to go. Many are drunks--but that term does not do justice to the devastation they embody. Hulks of despair, clothed in rags, their faces bruised and bleeding, they shuffle through the streets as though in chains. Asleep in doorways, staggering insanely through traffic, collapsing on sidewalks--they seem to be everywhere the moment you look for them. Some will starve to death, others will dies of exposure, still others will be beaten or burned or tortured.
For every soul lost in this particular hell, there are several others locked inside madness--unable to exit the world that stands at the threshold of there of their bodies. Even though they seem to be there, they cannot be counted as present. The man, for example, who goes everywhere with a set of drum sticks, pounding the pavement with them in a reckless , nonsensical rhythm, stooped over awkwardly as he advances along the street, beating and beating away at the cement. Perhaps he thinks he is doing important work. Perhaps, if he did not do what he did, the city would fall apart. Perhaps the moon would spin out of its orbit and come crashing into earth. There are the ones who talk to themselves, who mutter, who scream, who curse, who groan, who tell themselves stories as if to someone else. That man I saw today sitting like a heap of garbage in front of Grand Central Station, the crowds rushing past him, saying in a loud, panic-stricken voice: "Third Marines....Eating bees.... The bees crawling out of my mouth." Or the woman shouting at an invisible companion: "And what if I don't want to! What if I just fucking don't want to!"
There are the women with their shopping bags and the men with there cardboard boxes, hauling their possessions from one place to the next, forever on the move, as if it mattered where they were. There is the man wrapped in the American flag. There is the woman with the Halloween mask on her face. There is the man in the ravaged overcoat, his shoes, wrapped in rags, carrying a perfectly pressed white shirt on a hanger--still sheathed in the dry-cleaner's plastic. There is a man in a business suit with bar feet and a football helmet on his head. There is the woman whose clothes are covered from head to toe with presidential campaign buttons. There is a man who walks with his face in his hands, weeping histerically and saying over and over again "No, no, no, no. He's dead. He's not dead. No, no, no, no. He's dead. He's not dead."
Baudelaire: Il me semble que je serais toujours bien la ou je ne suis pas. In other words: It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not. Or, more bluntly: Wherever I am not is the place where I am myself. Or else, taking the bull by his horns: Anywhere out of the world.

by
Paul Auster (The New York Trilogy: City of Glass)

See You In A Week...

2009-04-30T18:09:00.000-07:00

These Germans Goin Hella Dumb!

2009-04-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

Declassified Documents Available Streaming

2009-04-29T01:08:00.000-07:00

You can stream the new EP for free, without downloading it, here.

Steve Reich Finally Wins a Pulitzer for Double Sextet

2009-04-28T20:24:00.001-07:00

You've probably seen or heard something about this. Its caused quite a buzz within the music community. Well as it turns out there is not yet a recorded version available for sale. In light of the situation Newsweek has put up the entire piece to stream for free here along with a short interview with the composer. Enjoy!

Tax Dollars at Work (ReBlogged From The Rest is Noise)

2009-04-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

Can it really be true that the Department of Homeland Security has been sponsoring research into what it describes as "Brain Music" — "a form of neurotraining ... that uses music created in advance from listeners’ own brain waves to help them deal with common ailments like insomnia, fatigue, and headaches stemming from stressful environments"? When I first read the story, on AC Douglas's blog, I assumed it had to be an April Fool's joke that had got lost in the shuffle, but it seems to be the real deal. You can listen to an MP3 of a brain-wave composition that is supposed to engender a state of "alertness," and which a DHS operative describes as having a "Mozart sound." To me, it sounds like something fit for Dick Cheney's torture chamber. Plus, Alvin Lucier did it better in 1965.

Originally posted here.

A combination of just about everything I enjoy...

2009-04-26T21:12:00.001-07:00

I stole this from my fellow instrifer Ryan. I just found out he does a sweet black metal/noise zine called Doomsday Malitia. If your interested in picking up a copy you can send him a message through myspace (click his name)

Fennesz

2009-04-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Took the words right outta my mouth towards the end...

Woah Man...

2009-04-20T05:02:00.000-07:00

I want to see him do this with origin next.

2009-04-18T23:37:00.001-07:00

The artist has only to remain true to his dream and it will possess his work in such a manner that it will resemble the work of no other man--for no two visions are alike, and those who reach the heights have all toiled up the steep mountain by a different route. To each has been revealed a different panorama.

-Alfred Pinkham Ryder

A Good Man

2009-04-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

Many artists we write for here at Tiny Mix Tapes, as well as other sites such as Pitchfork and Pop Matters and Stereogum, have much to thank for file-sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay. They may not give them the immediate revenue that some artists and labels crave, but it gives them something else that’s more important: fans. Fans that will go to shows, fans that will pay for merch, fans that will support them in any way they can. I am personally acquainted with an artist (who shall remain unnamed), whose own success was through the inadvertent leaking of an album to file-sharing sites such as What.cd and TPB. He is now selling out shows across the country. There are no doubt others who have had similar success. This verdict says a lot about what is wrong with the music industry’s mentality towards piracy: All they see now are falling profit margins and the bottom line, lost sales where there never were any to begin with. They don’t see that most people aren’t just sales numbers. Some are slowly figuring this out and are now learning to earn their revenue off ticket stubs and merch sakles amongst other things. Others are still worshipping this dying god, and will do everything in their power to save it, up to the point of manipulating the government to serve them (which we will be reporting on next week). At the end of the day, while they may be morally in the right, their argument for maintaining this pyrrhic campaign is tired, and people have begun to move on.
Originally posted by Ze Pequeno
Tiny Mix Tapes

Declassified Documents Available Free

2009-04-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

My new EP is available for download here. Thanks to everyone involved.

If your interested in buying a physical copy you can email me at peterjlamons@yahoo.com
There will be photos of the layout soon.

Enjoy

Sunn O))) Leaks Monoliths & Dimensions, For A Few Hours Anyway

2009-04-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

By Andy Beta here

The advance listening sessions for Monoliths & Dimensions, the new Sunn O))) album (and 7th in ten years), couldn't have fallen on a better day: a desolate and bleak Friday, the sky a monolithic gray, an oppressive drizzle drubbing down. We could've been in Seattle, the former hometown for Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson's art project-cum-heavy metal machine music outfit. Nevermind that O'Malley now calls Paris home, while Anderson and clan reside in the climes of L.A.: the rainy northwest remains their locus solus. Most of M&D was tracked there, and the group drew heavily from local players, from the arrangements of composer Eyvind Kang to the music conservatory connections of Earth's Steve Moore, who in turn brought aboard such players as Stuart Dempster (who has been commissioned by John Cage and the Deep Listening projects of Pauline Oliveros) and Julian Priester (reedman with Sun Ra and in Herbie Hancock's seventies sextant).

"It's spanning generations now with this record. Those guys are old-timers, in their 70s," remarks O'Malley, when we caught up with him and Anderson after the session. The new group of musicians, he noted, are far afield of "metal" and its trappings. "They've been making experimental free music since the 60s. It's cool to feel you are part of this longer tradition by having these guys involved." Add to the core ensemble such luminaries as Hungarian growler Attila Csihar and Australian guitarist Oren Ambarchi, and these days Sunn, not only bridges generations, but whole continents.

Good thing the music is massive enough to hold such weight. On nomenclature alone, the band fully plumbs its jazz and group ensemble roots. The title itself mimics a Sun Ra album (Monorails & Satellites) and the opening number, "Aghartha," namechecks one of those amoebic, roiling, abyss-staring Miles Davis live albums from the mid-70s. That telltale bowel-tickling "draaaang" and drone of the band opens the album, only to part midway through to let in Attila's growl of "I search for the riddle of clouds," with eerie foghorn sounds and atonal strings (scored by Kang) making the massive track feel like some ghost ship, at once pitch-black and luminous.

When I ask Anderson what his baby daughter likes in his record collection, he grins: "What she really likes is a lot of jazz. I've been playing a lot of Eric Klaus, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, she likes a lot of that. She likes Chick Corea records." And if his Miles Davis tee shirt doesn't drive that point home, then "Big Church" (a play on Live-Evil track "Little Church") does. There are differences, obviously--rather than build upon a chug of tarry guitars, an Austrian female choir sets the track's tone.

As the disc progresses, perceptions change. Where one expects guitar chords, horns intone instead. I tell O'Malley that instead of the slab (which their previous efforts have always evoked, and which their new album's cover art, culled from a Richard Serra painting, seem to reinforce) there are instances when it's revealed to be a scrim instead, startling in its spacing and transparency. He states that the disc's intent was to couple their telltale sound with "the integration of acoustic instruments," citing the work of current French "spectralist" composers who deploy computers to exact acoustic timbres, composing backwards, as it were. The results play with the listeners' perceptions and the illusion of sound.

On the closing "Alice," such notions come to a head. "Steve, Oren, and I are really into Alice Coltrane," says Anderson breaking down the process: "So let's challenge ourselves to make a track that is inspired and influenced by her, let's challenge ourselves to not create a track that is not 25 amplifiers and cabinets to 10. Let's create something that breathes, that has space and silences." And amid the pulsing crush that remains Sunn's métier, odd timbres blossom, with harp and flute arising at the track's climax. Suddenly, heaviness becomes lightness. One startled critic, upon reaching disc's end, quips: "The silence is overwhelming now."

Eat Your Heart Out Paper Rad

2009-04-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

Concert on April 7 in Templeton, CA

2009-04-01T00:12:00.000-07:00

Ill be playing this show so if your in the area come check it out. Everyone else on the bill is really good so it should be a fun night.

The Human Quena Orchestra (Pennsylvania)

Graves House (California)

Dustin Ransom (Florida)

Peter Lamons (California)

...

2009-03-26T17:34:00.000-07:00

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." - Søren Kierkegaard

Free Music

2009-03-17T01:45:00.000-07:00

An excellent source of free music.

György Sándor Ligeti (May 28, 1923 – June 12, 2006)

2009-03-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

Poème Symphonique For 100 Metronomes

Etude 6: "Autumn in Warsaw"

Etude 13: "The Devils Staircase"
Disclaimer:
The performer, Greg Anderson, is kind of a goober and the "special effects" are lame, but if you can ignore that its a good performance of a great piece.

Other Minds 14

2009-03-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody in the blog world. I don't know how regularly Ill update this thing. Im starting this mainly because Id like a host for some of my writings and music so dont expect daily updates. That having been said only time will tell what this will turn into.
For the first post Im going to repost a sort of review of the Other Minds festival that I attended last week. Unfortunately all of the links to the artist pages were lost in the transfer and I dont have time right now to re-add them here now. If your curious about anyone mentioned you can check out www.otherminds.org. That has almost all of the composer profiles and google can provide you with any of the others not on their site. You can also view it in its original context here. Enjoy...

Last weekend I volunteered for the fourteenth Other Minds festival. Other Minds is a San Francisco based nonprofit organization that puts on concerts of "new music" which translates to contemporary classical.

I originally volunteered because I was broke. The festival had an amazing lineup and I knew Id hate myself if I missed it. It ended up being an incredible experience that went above and beyond just seeing the performances.

Day 1 (Thursday)
I met some of the other volunteers who were all really cool people. One person I really enjoyed getting to know was New York based composer Brent Miller.

The first piece of the evening was a string quartet titled, Spiral X: In Memoriam (2007), by Chinary Ung. This piece was inspired by the Cambodian holocaust in which half of the composers family and many of his friends were killed. The Del Sol String Quartet not only played their instruments but also yelled and shouted, mimicking the cries of the holocaust's victims. I enjoyed this piece. It was my first exposure to the composer and it sparked my interest.

The next two pieces, The Shadow of Silence (2003-2004), and Phantasmagoria (2006-2007), were by Bent Sørensen. The first was performed by pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann, the second was performed bythe Trio Con Brio Copenhagen. Both were good but neither stood out to me over all. I have to say that Phantasmagoria takes the cake for best title of the festival though.

After a brief intermission Ben Johnston's new piece, The Tavern (1998/2008) had its world premiere. It was written for, and performed by, John Schneider. Joining Schneider was baritone, Paul Berkolds. The piece was for just intonated guitar and voice. Johnston set the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi to music for this piece. While Im a fan of Ben Johnstons music I didn't like this piece as much as others I've heard. The guitar didn't seem to work. He admitted in the liner notes that he is not a guitarist and I think that resulted in the guitar parts not being as good as they could have. That having been said, I enjoyed the text he chose. It was humorous, dealing mostly with wine, drunkeness, and at one point hash, yet still offering some interesting words of wisdom and insight.

The final two pieces were performed by the Cello Octet Amsterdam.
Both pieces were inspired by vocal music. The first was Motetten (2005) written by the recently deceased Mauricio Kagel. Its fairly easy to see that the piece was inspired by the motet style from the title. The music was lively and the performers were animated. The was a certain lightheartedness that was almost comedic at times. It was fun to watch and seemed to be equally so to perform.

The Final piece of the night was the US Premiere of O-Antiphonen (2008) by Arvo Pärt. Pärt was the only living composer that did not attend. Arvo's recent music is beautiful and peaceful. This piece was no exception. As is the case with most of his recent work, religious music was the inspiration for this piece. This time the inspiration came from the Great Antiphons which is a series of seven songs usually sung like a Gregorian chant over the week leading to Christmas in Eastern or Greek Orthodox churches.

Day 2 (Friday)
The evening began with a piece titled Hannah, for solo cello and electronics, by Dobromiła Jaskot. The cello was played by Hannah Addario-Berry and the electronics were handled by the composer. This piece was interesting. The hall had six speakers hung, four in the corners, and two in the middle on either side. The composer added effects such as delay and reverb, or used filters to change the timbre of the instrument, while performer played. While doing this the performer also panned the sound between the six speakers, sometimes taking the processed sound to one corner and the normal sound to another.

The second piece, by Los Angeles based Cat Lamb, was called Dilations (2008). It was the world premiere and was commissioned by Other Minds. The piece was for three tenors, (Carl Boe, Trey Costerisan, & Noah Miller) three bass clarinets, (Jeff Anderle, Phil O'Connor, & Jonathan Russell) and three cellos (Gianna Abondolo, Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick, & Thalia Moore). The piece, like Ben Johnston's prior and several upcoming, used just intonation. It was slow moving and sparse. It was made up mostly of long sustained tones and silences. As is the case with all music in just intonation that Ive been able to hear, the overtones were beautiful. The long sustained intervals and chords sang. While I enjoyed the piece very much, it wasn't received very well by all of the audience. Some left before it ended and the applause seemed halfhearted. Cat was the youngest featured composer (b. 1982). I had the chance to speak with her several times throughout the festival. She was very personable and bright. Watch out for her in coming years.

After the intermission Chico Mello's chamber piece, ...Das Árvores...(1999) was performed by Jeff Anderle & Jonathan Russell (clarinet), Peter Wahrhaftig (tuba), Richard Worn (contrabass), Eva-Maria Zimmermann (piano), and Rick Sacks (percussion). Chico was born in Brasil and now lives in Germany. His piece was really fun and similar in mood to the Kagel piece the night before but even more so. It had members of the ensemble lighting matches, shrugging their shoulders, and turning their heads to look at each other throughout it. I helped with the change over for this piece so I had to watch it from the side of the stage. I was a little disappointed because I couldnt see everything that was going on but it was still really enjoyable.

The next two pieces were by Canadian Linda Catlin Smith. The first was titled, Through the Low Hills (1994). It was performed by the composer (playing piano) and Gianna Abondolo (cello). Neither piece really stood out to me. I found them to be a bit boring.

Ending the night was another piece by Dobromiła Jaskot. it was titled Linearia (2007) performed by the Del Sol String Quartet. This piece wasn't bad but wasn't one of my favorites either.

Day 3 (Saturday)
Beginning the evening was another piece by Chinary Ung. This was titled Spiral XI: Mother and Child (2008). Ung Wrote this piece for his wife, violist Susan Ung. Again in the piece the performer not only played the instrument but also sang. Susan's voice was powerful and added quite a bit to the piece. I enjoyed this piece quite a bit.

John Schneider was next up. He performed two original pieces on just intonated guitars. The first was a slide guitar and was accompanied by some spoken word. The second was instrumental, performed on a steel string guitar. Both were very good. His CD's aren't widely distributed but if you ever happen to see them around make sure to pick it up. I believe Other Minds has some available for sale online.

John Schneider also performed two Harry Partch pieces. The first was on one of Partch's original instruments called a harmonic cannon. Here's a picture...

It was called Two Studies on Ancient Greek Scales (1946/1950). The second piece is one of Partch's best known, Barstow (1941). John Schneider performed this brilliantly on a just intonated guitar. Schneider is gifted with a good singing voice but he took the piece above and beyond by playing the part of the narrator, sticking out his thumb for cars to and turning to watch as they passed him by, eventually announcing "Screw it, I'll walk!" and then walking across the stage while playing.

After the intermission Chico Mello played a 45 minute set of "brasilian" songs showing his great sense of humor. The first 20 minutes or so were made up of fragmented samba and other songs. He would play seconds of a song and change abruptly. He would begin to play familiar songs such as Girl From Ipanema juxtaposed with soft whimpers and noises. The whole thing was very funny and enjoyable. He announced afterward that it what he had just played was called John Cage on the Beach. He then played several songs with a distinctly samba feel but without the steady beat. He would stop unexpectedly or change the rhythm completely in middle of a song. The lyrics were in Portuguese but he also incorporated throat singing which was, in my humble opinion, awesome.

The final performance of the night was by La Monte Young's protégé Michael Harrison accompanied by the Del Sol String Quartet. The piece was called Tone Clouds (2008) which was based on his 2007 release for just intonated piano, Revelation. I enjoy the CD quite a bit and have listened to it often. While the performance was excellent on everyones part I felt that the string arrangement didn't add to the piece at all and in fact, detracted from it. That having been said it was still very powerful to hear.

Volunteering for the festival ended up being a incredible experience. I was able to meet almost all of the composers and performers. I also met a lot of the people involved with the Other Minds organization who were very cool. A highlight of the weekend was being able to meet Ben Johnston who will be 83 on the 15th of this month. He was a student of Harry Partch and a really interesting guy. I was only able to speak briefly with him a couple of times, he was surrounded by people most of the time, but the little I did speak with him was a great experience and a real honor.