EDGETONE NEW MUSIC SUMMIT
HEAVY GUERRILLADina Emerson/Bob Marsh/Joseph Zitt/Ian Yeager/Rent Romus/Phillip Everett/Matt Davignon
Spontaneous smoke signals, coded slight of eye, take no prisonersO’RORKE/EUBANKS/SHIURBABrian Eubanks (Portland), soprano sax/John Shiurba, guitar/Simon O'Rorke (New Zealand), perc
RECURSIVE HERETICSScott Looney/Aaron Bennett
Live processing!
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Heavy Guerrilla is a collective entity loosely slammed together by Rent Romus to explore sound qualities and deep underbrush. The group originally began as 500lb Guerrilla soon finding itself waxing and waning in size heavier than 500 pounds. Thus Heavy Guerrilla was born mixing free form improv, freejazz, and everything else inbetween stopping for no one leaving no tracks, invisible to the naked ear.
Simon O'Rorke started playing bass guitar when he was seventeen. He first became exposed to free improvisation when he was a student in London in the 70s. Improvising with guitarist Andy Hammond (later of Conspiracy) in the mid-80s was a revelation that clarified this for him.
Later he moved from Britain to Auckland, New Zealand in 1989, there appeared to be no interest there in the American free jazz and European improvised music that had inspired him. He met saxophonist Brian Hutson in 1992, the year he moved to Wellington. For the next five years they struggled to find suitable collaborators and performance venues. They tried various line-ups, using the ensemble name The Slab from 1995. The turning point came in 1997. Around that time there began a revival in interest in improvised music, and they were pleased to be able to work with Matthew Mitchell, one of New Zealand's leading jazz guitarists. The CD The Slab (1998) was the result.
After Simon switched to drums, Brian Hutson moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1998 and Matthew Mitchell moved to London, England in 1999. But the Wellington free improv scene, which from 1992 to 1995 consisted more or less only of Simon and Brian Hutson, has took off. With the establishment of a specialist venue, The Space ("New Zealand's home of improvised music") in 1998, it has been much easier to play improvised music. The Space is kept going by volunteers, of whom Simon is one. He have been able to work with most of the talented musicians who have emerged on the Wellington improv scene, using the ensemble name The Slab for his main line-ups. His regular collaborators in The Slab have included guitarist Daniel Beban, since 1998, and saxophonist Anton Wuts, since 1999. They are both featured on the CDs Live at The Space (2001) and Squeakspeak (2001).
Bryan Eubanks is an improvising saxophonist born and raised in the NW and currently living in Portland, Oregon, and will continue to live there to pursue and development of improvised music. He believes the process to be life long and life changing, having an effect on all facets of social and psychological interaction. He enjoys working with a wide range of artist working in the method of free improvisation, and this pool is not limited to musicians. Some of these include movement/music group Super Unity, Dan Reynolds, and Doug Theriault. He is a co-founder and operator of the free music label, RAsbliutto Recordings (www.rasbliutto.org) and a member of the 411 collective, a portland based association of free improvisors who operate a dedicated venue to the art (www.411collective.org) He has spent equal amounts of energy developing his language on the saxophone as he as developing the community of improvisors in Portland.
Guitarist
John Shiurba is a composer and guitarist whose musical pursuits include improvisation, art-rock, modern composition and noise. Shiurba has recorded and toured the U.S. and Europe as a member of the bands Eskimo, The Molecules and Spezza Rotto, as a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the SFSoundGroup, and in various improv settings. Shiurba has composed works for his own Triplicate and 5x5 ensembles, for the SFSoundGroup, and for various soloists. As a guitarist Shiurba has developed a unique and personalized approach to the guitar. Through the use of extended techniques and unusual preparations, he expands the traditional sound range of the instrument, producing stunning, often unrecognizable results. Cadence Magazine calls Shiurba a “wildly creative guitarist... anti-jazz, anti-everything else, yet utterly compelling.” Shiurba was invited to play at the Seattle Improvised Music Festival in 1998 and at the High Zero Festival in Baltimore in 1999, and the Olympia Experimental Music Festival in 2002, as well as being featured at New Langton Arts in 2002, premiering his work "Triplicate" He has played with internationally acclaimed musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, Wolfgang Fuchs, Eugene Chadbourne and Jack Wright, as well as many of the finest West Coast improvisers-- Gino Robair, Dan Plonsey, Scott Rosenberg, Myles Boisen, Matt Ingalls, Tim Perkis, and Matthew Sperry to name a few. In 1998 Shiurba formed the improvised music label Limited Sedition, which has released 28 CDs documenting the diverse and lively Bay Area improvised music scene.
Recursive Heretics explores the concept of feedback at all levels between a performer and a processor in a live improvisational setting. Together they explore the concept of feedback in live performance as the saxophone sound is transformed by live, automated and manipulated signal processing using a customized Max/MSP setup. The results of this processing vary from subtle shifts in the original sound to a completely unique and distinct voice. The processed sound is then fed back to the player, who alters his playing to react to the processed reaction, which is then reacted upon by the processor, and so on, achieving a conversation of ever widening scope and depth, larger than either player or processor could create alone.
Cost: $6-10