Active Music Series: Runcible Spoon Fight, Rempis-Johnston-Ochs, G. Shariatzadeh

Runcible Spoon Fight

Tom Djll and Clarke Robinson, electronics, Josh Marshall, saxophones, Bill Wiatroski, video projections

Runcible Spoon Fight came together at the insistence of Thomas Pynchon’s literary agent, who encouraged them to form, thus ensuring a rich supply of “a sudden chorus of whoops and yibbles” for your event, whether it be a bar mitzvah, battleship launch, or ritual suicide via V2 rocket. The duo says their sound is “about beats… but on our terms,” meaning, presumably, something different from the norm (there is never a drum machine employed in the music). In fact, expect beaten-metal clouds of mercury syringe-drops, squeezed into popcycles of sub-prime numbers only, with peanut-prawn curry icing.

http://runciblespoonfight.com/

https://soundcloud.com/runcible-spoon-fight/live-in-a-room-excerpt

Dave Rempis – Darren Johnston – Larry Ochs Trio

Dave Rempis, Alto Saxophone / Darren Johnston, Trumpet / Larry Ochs, Tenor and Sopranino Saxophones

This free-improvising trio came together in the fall of 2011, when Rempis journeyed to the West Coast to discover some things about his compatriots on the Bay Area improvising scene. Trumpeter Johnston, a frequent visitor to Chicago, where the two had collaborated in several different settings in the years prior, suggested this trio lineup for a performance at Oakland’s Uptown Nightclub. Although Rempis hadn’t worked with Ochs before, the latter’s renowned experience in the all-horn lineup of The ROVA Saxophone Quartet made the idea especially appealing. From the first few notes, that initial meeting flowed comfortably, yet in totally unexpected ways, with all three making logical structural decisions that gave their improvisations the feel of through-composed pieces.

Eager to continue developing this language that the three later came to dub “invisible architecture,” Rempis made a follow-up trip to the Bay Area in the spring of 2012 for two more concerts and a studio recording session. Spectral, the first document of their work, was the result of that visit, and shows an improvising trio playing out an audible game of chess. Not satisfied with simply existing in the moment, these three combine sensibilities to look many moves ahead, setting each other up time and again to capitalize on structural possibilities that give rare and meaningful form to an otherwise very spontaneous music. Their second CD, a digital-only release, is a live tour-de-force recorded in Buffalo on tour in 2013. You can hear (and even buy!) this CD, Neutral Nation, right here: aerophonicrecords.bandcamp.com

http://www.ochs.cc/groups/rempis-johnston-ochs.html

https://aerophonicrecords.bandcamp.com/album/spectral

Shariatzdeh/Cohen Duo

Golnaz Shariatzadeh – violin

Alex Chohen – guitar