musiXplore

musiXplore is proud to announce a splendid lineup of performers for our season for 2014-2015. This is our third year of bringing adventurous music of all types to New Jersey. As always, most of these great musicians are natives of New Jersey, with a sprinkling of performers from the Hudson Valley and elsewhere.

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The season starts with legendary synth pioneer Don Slepian. Don is one of the early creators of what later came to be called ambient or new age music. He is best known for his recordings of “The Sea of Bliss”. In the 80’s, NPR’s “Music from the Heart of Space” used his work as a theme song. Although his current repertoire leans more toward classical music, he is doing a special concert for us to revive his original space music sounds of the 1980s.

Zinc Nine Psychdelic is a powerhouse trio of experimentalists. Kevin Norton on vibes and percussion has played with greats like Fred Frith, John Zorn and Anthony Braxton. Nick Didkovsky has studied with Pauline Oliveros, played with Fred Frith and led the Doctor Nerve band, “annihilating the boundaries between rock, metal, improvisation, jazz, and experimental music since 1983”. On top of this wildness is the electronically mutilated trumpet of Dave Ballou, who has extensive experience in both the jazz and classical worlds.

Our November show will feature Sumari. Guitarist Jack Desalvo joins percussionist Tom Cabrera and Matt Lavelle on trumpet for a bopping afternoon of free jazz. Jack is one of the principals behind avant-jazz record label Unseen Rain. Matt has played with Ornette Coleman, among many others.

We’re very fortunate to have booked world music expert Dean Poulsen for January 18, 2015. Dean received his Masters in Balinese and Javanese gamelan, then studied at the Gamelan-Academi Seni Kawaritan in Bali, Indonesia and the the Stockhausen Composition Summer Courses in Europe. He’s doing fascinating work integrating traditional acoustic instruments with electronic treatments.

Next up is Jersey City cellist and vocalist Jody Redhage. Jody is a new mother, but she’s taking time from parenthood and her busy Rose and the Nightingale quartet to play some excerpts from her experimental album “Of Minutiae and Memory”. Click on her name to hear samples of both.

Hailing from Ithaca, NY, The Electric Golem is a synthesizer duo who have been performing for years at festivals like Electro-music and the New Jersey Festival of Electronic Arts. What lifts their work out of the usual space music genre is the scoring and musical structure they give their pieces.

For our final concert of this season, Bryan Alka of Woodbury, NJ favors us with “Occultronica”, a deeply moody and moving electronica. If you like Autechre or Plaid, you’re going to love this performance.

From JEM of Symmetry’s April 27, 2014 performance, here’s a remix of one of his pieces:

Coming soon: musiXplore’s 2014-2015 season with lots of great musicians from Jersey and the Hudson Valley!

We just found out that only a few hours after Todd Steponick’s At Work performance at musiXplore, a drunk driver killed his mother and injured his father. We feel a profound heart-heaviness from the terrible accident. Keep well, Todd.

At Work is the performance moniker for Todd Steponick. The At Work perspective is influenced both by the deep woods serenity of the Pine Barrens and by the electronica scene of nearby Philadelphia. Here’s the first half of At Work’s show:

There’s more of At Works at this link: At Work – second half

JEM of Symmetry set (also in 2 parts)

This was the final show of our 2013-2014 season, but plans are in the works for next year. Have a great spring and summer!

From deep in the Pine Barrens of southern Jersey come the chill beats of At Work. This is a solo project of Todd Steponick, whose work has been played from the Tate Modern in London to the raves of Philadelphia.

At Work (Todd Steponick)

At Work has been at work since 2001, producing original work and remixes for Batona Records. He has performed with a wide variety of south Jersey and Philly experimentalists, including Funkstorung, Alka, City Rain, Rekall, Knife Jams, MAD, Jason Carr, Vytear/Black Unicorn, and Clocklife. If you enjoyed the spare glitchy beats of Ben Neill at our October show, you’re going to love At Work. Here’s a sample:

Opening for At Work is JEM of Symmetry, the performance moniker for Jose Murcia. JEM performed at last year’s summer solstice celebration of music Make Music New Jersey. Here is a video clip of him performing on that occasion:

This is the last musiXplore show for this season, but we’re busy lining up great experimental musicians and composers from New Jersey and the Hudson Valley for 2014-2015. We hope you’ll come out and say hello!

It was standing room only for Diane Moser on March 16! She played a beautiful set with great variety and feeling. Here’s one of Diane’s performances:

You can view the almost the entire show from these links:

Barry Chabala opening set

Diane Moser’s set, including two songs performed with her son Chad Moser at the end.

Please note, one movement is missing from the performance of Diane’s new suite “Music for The Last Flower”. To hear the complete suite, please consider purchasing the music as performed by her quintet:
Preview and buy downloadable MP3s
Preview and buy the CD

Proceeds support musiXplore’s experimental music concert series as well as the talented musicians who make the sounds!

Guitarist Barry Chabala

For our opening act for Diane Moser on March 16, musiXplore presents guitarist Barry Chabala. Barry was born in Passaic and lives in Rockaway. His playing is informed as much by the history of blues, R&B and rock as it is by John Cage and Morton Feldman.

Over the past several years, Barry has performed and/or recorded extensively the works of Wandelweiser composers Michael Pisaro and Antoine Beuger among others, and has released recordings on several labels, including Erstwhile, Winds Measure, Copy For Your Records, Pisaro’s Gravity Wave, and his own Roeba Records.

His latest release is unbalanced in (unbalanced out) on the Another Timbre label which features Toshimaru Nakamura, Bonnie Jones, Gabriel Paiuk, Tisha Mukarji & Louisa Martin alongside Barry’s acoustic guitar.

The finest jazz composer in New Jersey is performing at musiXplore on Sunday, March 16. She is the musical director, pianist and contributing composer of Diane Moser’s Composers Big Band, a 17-piece big band formed for the purpose of developing and presenting new music for big band. Since 1999 she has led her quintet, The Diane Moser Quintet, and since 2002 The Diane Moser Trio. Diane has an enviable history of collaborations with musicians like Oliver Lake and Diamanda Galas, compositions for movies, musical theater and dance companies and numerous grants, awards and critic’s accolades.

Composer Diane Moser

But the musiXplore concert will be something a little different: Diane Moser Solo. You’ll get to hear the sumptuous beauty of her piano playing, unclouded by accompaniment. Here’s one sample of her solo piano. Diane writes: “This is the third movement from my new quintet recording ‘Music for The Last Flower’, inspired by the James Thurber book ‘The Last Flower-A Parable in Pictures’ (1939) Diane Moser-composer. On my recording this track segues into the next 3 tracks..but not here..so the ending will be somewhat abrupt.”

For part of the concert, Diane will be joined by her son Chad Moser. With him on laptop and her on piano, they’ll do some electronica free-improv: another side of Diane you haven’t seen before!

Peter Jarvis, Gene Pritsker and Dan Cooper put on a great concert at musiXplore on February 16. We’re so proud to be able to present such capable and talented musicians and composers. Here is one piece from the show:

You can view the entire show from these playlists: opening act Headbrain’s performance and the Comp Cord Ensemble’s set. Thanks once again to all the musicians!

For our opening act this coming Sunday, February 16, Hoboken art rockers Headbrain will perform a set of their spooky improvisation. For this show, Headbrain’s lineup will include Elizabeth Walsh and Adam Budofsky. Here is one of their videos to give you an idea of their style and sound:

The main act on Sunday will be the Comp Cord Ensemble (Peter Jarvis, Gene Pritsker and Dan Cooper), see our previous post for more details about them. Show time is 1pm, $5 suggested donation.