MSP/Piano+: in the quartet of Bruce Ackley／Lisle Ellis／Joe Lasqo／Donald Robinson, performing a large structure by Ackley • Sun 24 Aug: Berkeley Arts Festival, w Thomas Dimuzio & Wobbly • Mon 25 Aug: mystery location in North Beach, San Francisco, w Opera Wolf (Crystal Pascucci, Robert López, Joshua Marshall)

An all-too-brief visit to the Bay Area by virtuoso bassist and computer musician Lisle Ellis serves as a catalyst to gather together some musical friends for an electro-acoustic BBQ in space.

The secret recipe is provided via a large-scale improv structure by master chef Bruce Ackley.

◉     Show 1 – East Bay     ◉

@ the East Bay’s indispensable focal point for new music, Berkeley Arts Festival (2133 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA – map), 9pm, Sun 24 Aug.

+ Set 1: Thomas Dimuzio & Wobbly, 8pm (jump to Set 1 specifics)

◉           Show 2 – SF           ◉

@ a very cool mystery location in North Beach, San Francisco (send mail to joe@joelasqo.com for address & details), 9:30pm, Mon 25 Aug.

+ Set 1: Opera Wolf (Crystal Pascucci, Robert López, Joshua Marshall), 8:30pm (jump to Set 1 specifics)

Here’s some info on our crew, then details of each date and other acts.

Bruce Ackley was born in Rochester, NY. Following in his father’s footsteps, he began singing in choral groups at age 10. (His father performed in a vocal sextet as a young man in the 1930s.) Bruce sang throughout his school years and finally took up the sax. He formed his first improvising trio that year with friends from his art school days at Wayne State in Detroit, where he studied painting and drawing. In 1971 he relocated to the Bay Area.

Largely self-taught, Bruce studied saxophone briefly with Lee Hester and Noel Jewkes, and clarinet with Beth Custer and Ben Goldberg. Throughout the 1970s he was involved with the emerging free improvisation scene in San Francisco, and formed Sound Clinic with Lewis Jordan and George Sams in 1975. He began playing with Larry Ochs in 1973 and Jon Raskin in 1975, which led to the formation of ROVA Saxophone Quartet in the fall of 1977.

Since then Bruce has mainly devoted his musical life to his work with ROVA, with some notable side projects. In 1977 he performed and recorded with the quartet Twins, featuring John Zorn on reeds, and Eugene Chadbourne and Henry Kaiser on guitars. During the 1980s he played regularly with trombone-electronics wizard, Dino J.A. Deane and drummer Joseph Sabella. They formed Planet X in 1992, which performed extensively in the Bay Area and made a recording at that time. Bruce has also performed with the Italian bass virtuoso, Stefano Scodanibbio. In 1996 they performed together with koto-electronics player Miya Masaoka (正岡みや), and the brilliant cellist, Rohan de Saram, formerly of the Arditti String Quartet.

That year Bruce formed a trio to perform his more jazz-oriented original compositions, Actual Size, with George Cremaschi on bass and Garth Powell on drums. This led to the recording The Hearing by the Bruce Ackley Trio, featuring Joey Baron on Drums and Greg Cohen on bass, and released on the John Zorn-curated Japanese label Avant. During the late 1990s Bruce formed Frankenstein, a jazz repertory band that played the music of many of the forward-looking artists of the early ‘60s, particularly Grachan Moncur III, Andrew Hill, Eric Dolphy, and Jackie McLean—providing him an opportunity to dig into material that significantly impacted him during formative years.

Virtuoso bassist and computer musician Lisle Ellis is a veteran of 40+ recordings (including Down Beat ✰✰✰✰✰ The Ornette Coleman Songbook). Lisle has worked with Paul Bley, Peter Brötzmann, Andrew Cyrille, Anthony Davis, Ben Goldberg, Frank Gratkowski, Joëlle Léandre, Rudresh Mahanthappa (ರುದ್ರೇಶ್ ಮಹಂತಪ್ಪ), Miya Masaoka (正岡みや), Myra Melford, Bob Ostertag, William Parker, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Stefano Scodanibbio, Cecil Taylor, William Winant, Pamela Z, and John Zorn, among many others.

Lisle Ellis’ long-term working relationship with Donald Robinson, in groupings such as the Glenn Spearman Trio, What We Live and various Biggi Vinkeloe bands, has created one of free jazz’s most subtly driving and telepathic rhythm sections, described as “the best bass-drums tag team on the scene” by Jazz Times, and this telepathy will be in full force in our shows.

Laptopist/pianist Joe Lasqo studied classical music in India; computer music at MIT, Columbia, Berkeley/CNMAT; has been a long-time avant jazz musician; & has lived, played & listened in many East Asian and European countries (now in SF).

Special interests include applying AI techniques from expert systems, natural language processing, and computational linguistics to music; and the intersection of traditional Asian musics with modernism.

He’s had a weekly residency for 3¾ years+ at Viracocha (21st & Valencia, SF), and has appeared recently with Bruce Ackley and Steve Adams of ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Aaron Bennett’s Electro-Magnetic Trans-Personal Orchestra, Phillip Greenlief’s Orchesperry, his own 10-person Renga-kai Ensemble (連歌会), master drummer Donald Robinson, German-Swedish saxist/flautist Biggi Vinkeloe, pianists Thollem McDonas, Sarah Cahill, and Luciano Chessa, percussionist Suki O’Kane, sound artists Joe Snape (UK) & Lucie Vítková (Czech Rep.), experimental vocalists/electronic musicians Pamela Z & Viv Corringham (NYC/London), and many others.

His album, Turquoise Sessions, is on Edgetone, + new releases w Beth Custer, Thomas Dimuzio & Biggi Vinkeloe are coming soon.

Master drummer Donald Robinson, whom Coda Magazine has described as a “percussion Dervish”, has numbered among his most notable collaborators Alan Silva, Anthony Braxton, Oliver Lake, Glenn Spearman, Larry Ochs, Cecil Taylor, Wadada Leo Smith, George Lewis, Bobby Few, Raphé Malik, Joe McPhee, John Tchicai, Marco Eneidi, Miya Masaoka (正岡みや), Biggi Vinkeloe, & Matthew Goodheart.

After coming up in the hothouse of the Paris free jazz scene, Don has been a stalwart of both the SF Bay Area and northern and central European avant/jazz scenes, and will just have returned from his most recent Scandinavian tour for these shows.

To get an idea of the kind of sonic fireworks in store, check out the video above from a show in with the same rhythm section in concert with Biggi Vinkeloe at North Beach’s Emerald Tablet on 19 Apr 2014:

◉ Sun 24 Aug @ Berkeley Arts Festival (2133 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA – map)

Set 1: Thomas Dimuzio & Wobbly, 8pm

Set 2: Bruce Ackley／Lisle Ellis／Joe Lasqo／Donald Robinson (see above), 9pm

Bay Area lovers of electronic music have come to anticipate the annual shore leave of Starship Gench on Planet Plunderphonia as Thomas Dimuzio & Wobbly join together for duets at the Garden of Memory event at Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes on the Summer Solstice.

Unfortunately, dates couldn’t align for this year’s Garden of Memory, so we’re very happy to offer listeners a second chance to get their duo-fix of these contrastive electronic masters, whose complementary styles blend in the most surprising ways — truly, two great tastes that taste great together!

Thomas Dimuzio is a composer, multi-instrumentalist & electronic musician, mastering engineer, sound designer, and label proprietor based in San Francisco.

Long regarded as a musical pioneer for his innovative use of live sampling and looping techniques to create compelling works, Thomas is a true sonic alchemist who can seemingly create music events out of almost anything. Listed sound sources on his various CDs include everything from ‘modified 10 speed bicycle’ and ‘resonating water pipe’ to short-wave radios, loops, feedback, samplers, and even normal instruments such as clarinet and trumpet, while his current work is facilitated by the deep expanses of modular synthesis.

His use of signal processing, custom crossfade looping, and algorithmic mixing fuels a synergy of man and machine in his live performances, while intercepted signal feeds from collaborators, wild sources of MIDI-controlled feedback, modular synthesizers, circuit-bent toys, or ambient microphones on the streets, become integrated as sound sources within his system of live interactive electronics, effortlessly moving from electroacoustic and noise to glitch, dark ambient, improv and drone.

In his work as a sound designer, Thomas has worked with synthesizer and processor manufacturers such as Kurzweil, Lexicon, and OSC to create custom presets and sample libraries, and he has collaborated with Fred Frith, Tom Cora, and ROVA Saxophone Quartet to create sound libraries for Rarefaction and Big Fish Audio. Thomas also continues to play a key role in the development of Avid’s industry standard Pro Tools HD recording and mixing system, as he has for the past 20 years.

As a collaborator, Thomas works with numerous artists and ensembles such as Dimmer (with Joseph Hammer), Chris Cutler, Fred Frith, Dan Burke/Illusion of Safety, Nick Didkovsky, ISIS, Negativland, Arcane Device (David Lee Myers), Matmos, Wobbly (Jon Leidecker), Poptastic, 5uu’s, Tom Cora, Mickey Hart, Paul Haslinger, Arte Saxophone Quartett, Due Process, and Voice Of Eye.

As a mastering engineer, Thomas has worked with independent artists and labels through his own Gench Studios since the early 1990’s. Among his clients are Matmos, Negativland, ISIS, AMM, Captain Ahab, Doctor Nerve, Psychic TV3, Xiu Xiu, Devin Hoff, GG Allin, KK Null (Kazuyuki Kishino / 岸野 一之), Joey P, Fred Frith, Scott Amendola, and many others.

Thomas Dimuzio’s recordings have been released internationally by ReR Megacorp, Asphodel, RRRecords, No Fun, Sonoris, Drone, Record Label Records, Odd Size, and other independent labels.

Among his many gem-like albums, the one I’ve been listening to the most recently is the great Slew, a rich assortment of solo pieces that probe the facets of inter-dimensional sound space.

Jon Leidecker has been performing music under the name Wobbly since 1990.

His live performances search for the extended narratives spun from countless layers of samples, polyphony improvised from musicians who have yet to meet.

Releases include the album Wild Why for Tigerbeat6, Live 99>00 for Phthalo, Regards for Alku, Simultaneous Quodlibet for Important Records, and Playlist & Music For The Fire for Illegal Art. Recent festival appearances include Sound Unseen / Plunderphonia in Minneapolis, Ether at Royal Festival Hall in London, and Sonar in Barcelona.

Wobbly has been producing music since 1987 and ongoing studio and live projects involve collaborations with Antimatter, Kevin Blechdom, Blevin Blectum. MaryClare Brzytwa, Thomas Dimuzio, the Evolution Control Committee, Fred Frith, Huun-Huur-Tu (Хуун-Хуур-Ту), Lesser (Jason Doerck), Matmos, Anne McGuire, Dieter Moebius, John Oswald, Ōtomo Yoshihide (大友良英), Zeena Parkins,  People Like Us (Vicki Bennett), Tim Perkis, Tim Story, and Booper-inventor The Weatherman (David Wills) of plunderphonics pioneers Negativland. He’s also a member of the Chopping Channel and Sagan.

Taking to heart Spider Robinson’s advice from Melancholy Elephants, “Art is long, not infinite… One day we will use it up – unless we can learn to recycle it like any other finite resource”, Wobbly has gone on vast plunderphonic raids with fellow “detrivores” like Negativland, Matmos, and the Chopping Channel crew.

Or, as the website detritus.net puts it: “He says he is a performer of pre-recorded live music. If you know what that means please email us.”

◉ Mon 25 Aug @ a very cool mystery location in North Beach (send mail to joe@joelasqo.com for address & details)

Set 1: Opera Wolf (Crystal Pascucci, Robert López, Joshua Marshall), 8:30pm

Set 2: Bruce Ackley／Lisle Ellis／Joe Lasqo／Donald Robinson (jump to description above), 9:30pm

Bay Area trio Opera Wolf does “emergent composition” & collective creative communication, performing text-based compositions, graphic-scores, & free improv pieces, drawing on influences from free jazz,  contemporary classical music, & electroacoustic experimentation. Its members have all studied under Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins and William Winant, and their work synthesizes timbral manipulation, melodic extension, and poetic articulations of form with their highly individual approaches to instrumental technique, reaching beyond the traditional limits of instrumentation. Opera Wolf was notably featured as part of the 2013 Outsound New Music Summit festival. Stephen Smoliar of Examiner.com described the performance as, “…a journey of auditory discovery, the best possible follow-up to the ways in which Stravinsky shocked the world 100 years ago….”

Cellist/composer/improviser Crystal Pascucci is a classically-trained musician who works in the areas of free improv, graphic-score compositions, and chamber music, exploring non-traditional cello techniques to develop musical ideas beyond pitch & rhythm. Notable teachers include Joan Jeanrenaud, Robert Black, Anthony Braxton, & Marion Feldman. In addition to Opera Wolf, she’s performed the work of Roscoe Mitchell at Yoshi’s Oakland, the work of Polly Moller at the Soundwave Festival, with Aaron Bennett’s Electro-Magnetic Trans-Personal Orchestra, the Oakland Active Orchestra, and with renowned clarinetist, Rachel Condry, in the improv duo, Chocolate for Breakfast.

Joshua Marshall is an Oakland-based saxophonist and composer/improviser. His work involves architectural innovation, narrativity, advanced extended saxophone techniques, and live digital media. He’s studied with Pauline Oliveros, Evan Parker, Butch Rovan, I.M. Harjito, & Steve Adams of ROVA Saxophone Quartet. In addition to work with Opera Wolf, Joshua has worked with Ikue Mori (もりいくえ), Rent Romus’ Lords of Outland, Architect/Enchantress, Medium Sized Band, Josh Allen’s Deconstruction Orchestra, Key West, and Modest Machine. His amazing technique gives him relaxed command of cracked multi-phonics, exotic trills, and timbre tremolos, which he uses to superb effect.

Robert López is a percussionist working in ensembles spanning contemporary composition, free improv, & pop/rock. He’s studied mallet/multiple/hand percussion w Michael Carney, Dave Gerhart, Brad Dutz; Ghanaian Ewe drumming w Neili Sutker, Eric Hartwell, CK Ladzekpo; and drum set w Randy Drake. Before moving to Oakland, he recorded and performed with L.A. rock acts Wild Pack of Canaries, Bobby Blunders, New Lights By Dead Vines & the Vespertines; in the Bay Area, he’s worked with Opera Wolf, Quattour Elephantis, Jordan Glenn’s Mindless Thing, & his duo with Shanna Sordahl, ZE BIB!. Recent performances include the premier of Work Around the World by Aaron Gervais at Other Minds Festival 18, a duo appearance with Moe! Staiano at the14th San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, and with the avant-rock group Grex at the 2014 Switchboard Music Festival, following the recording and release of their full-length album Monster Music.

Join us for some rare and savory meta/electrico/post-jazz space-BBQ on either (or both!) sides of the Bay…

Joe