Friday, July 29, 2011, 8:00 pm, $6-$10
ATA presents: an evening of Image and sound with
Monopoly Child Star Seachers (Portland) w/ a video by Spencer Clark
Orphan Fairytale (Belgium) w/ Titania” by Spencer Clark
Pod Blotz w/ a film by Suzy Poling
Sudden Oak w/ a film by Zach Iannazzi
MONOPOLY CHILD STAR SEARCHERS w/ “The Spectacle of Light Abductions” (VHS) by Spencer Clark
“Overlapping waves of bamboo percussion and endless serpentine synth lines gives this the feel of Terry Riley’s Persian Surgery Dervishes transposed to a Xeroxed Bikini Atoll where the natives are making like Kali with ritualistic celebrations of the ascent to heaven on a soft cushion of mushroom clouds accompanied by flutes, drones and choirs of Joujouka devotionals […] It has been a blast to witness the development of Spencer’s deeply personal muse from clouds of vocal fuzz through exactingly nuanced cells of rhythmic activity that pulse like blood through your brain and heart. Uplifting, dark, mysterious ritual music with a deep connection to subliminal process.” – Volcanic Tongue
ORPHAN FAIRYTALE w/ “Titania” (VHS) by Spencer Clark
“…makes use of toy instruments and primitive loops but there’s a weight to the material that makes it feel like her deepest pass to date. The first side starts off with thin, glassy tones forming into detailed helix patterns in a way that evokes the more minimal Mirror sides as well as the sound sculptures of Harry Bertoia. This gradually shifts into a lilting/falling keyboard pattern which in turn parts to reveal the kinda deep forest hand-drum and tonal percussive weave you might associate more with Spencer Clark’s work. The closing track, “Glorious High”, is particularly mesmeric, gradually resolving itself into one of the most haunting, far-away takes on modern gamelan exotica outside of the whole Skaters cultus.” – VT
POD BLOTZ w/ film by SUZY POLING
[Suzy Poling] exhibits her large scale photographs and also creates elaborate video and refractive light art experiments along with sound. Poling has performed experimental organ drones, electronics and tape manipulations under the moniker, Pod Blotz since 2002[…] Artistically, Poling is concerned with phenomenon inside of and surrounding the earth, ecological evolution, the systemized order of space within the universe and comprehensions of entropy and the effects that these awareness have on the human psyche and human ritualism. Her work explores interferences between analog objects to digital media and electrical synthesis.
SUDDEN OAK w/ film by ZACH IANNAZZI
“This macerated slurry of guitar and saxophone sounds like it could be a third-generation boot of some ultra-freaked-out 1970’s Krautrock tribe, recorded live at the top of a mountain in the midst of a gale-force windstorm. Oak-sters John and Matt heft a mightily high-pitched skree that slides off of this all-too-short cassette like the black sap caused by the tree disease from which they acquired their name. While it might take the sonic equivalent of a microscope to discern the guitar from the sax throughout most of this cassette, the sheer ferocity of the tsunami-like wall of sound minimizes the need for constructs as trite as ‘instruments’. Matt’s extended wailing and bleating on the horn slams into and commingles with the feedback and effects-laden shred emanating from John’s guitar. This is a symphony for the damned, and a more perfect symphony there is not!” – Foxy Digitalis