For the sixth Molten Plains, light finds a role to remind us that the cold darkness is approaching. Waveform Reversal are coming from Houston and San Francisco, bringing a 16mm film projector, cornet and objects. Louise, Sarah and Michael will perform as a trio of electronics, guitar, voices and objects. Python Potions, Monte Espina and Sarah Ruth will live score a film, yet to decide if it will be The Seashell and The Clergyman (Germaine Dulac, 1928) or Where Evil Dwells (David Wojnarowicz, 1985).
doors 8pm
music 8:30 sharp
$5-20 generous sliding scale
Molten Plains is a monthly series of adventurous sounds and further music experiences.
WAVEFORM REVERSAL
(San Francisco/Houston)
Disrupting the intended function of an object as creator of illusory motion, this audiovisual duo of 16 mm film projector/objects (Ivy Woods) and cornet/objects (Rebecca Novak) animates the projected light instead, interrupting and transferring its fluid waveforms into sound.
Influenced by Yvonne Rainer’s Hand Movie and Homemade, Trisha Brown’s historic projected dance performance, Ivy Woods’ hand and objects become gestural surfaces that redirect the light into the projector’s sound head, simultaneously generating sound while dispersing the projected light into space. Novak’s cornet vocabulary extends the binary parameters of on/off – sound/silence – light/dark into a gradient palette, both informing and disrupting the perception of sound and light through displacement and hocket.
Born in Chicago, Houston-based improviser and artist Rebecca Novak plays a constellation of objects and instruments including cornet, piano, shortwave radio, autoharp, and glass vases. Novak has written and produced text-based scores that consider sound in conjunction with live writing, acting and sculpture as a way of engaging self with environment. As an improviser, Novak has performed and recorded in the trio Garden Medium with Sandy Ewen and Carol Sandin Cooley, and in duos with electronic/cassette tape musician Steve Jansen and percussionist Anders Zelinski. She has presented her work at Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), Museo Tamayo (Mexico City), DiverseWorks Houston, Alabama Song, Project Row Houses, on a barge floating down the Mississippi, and most recently touring from Marfa, Texas to San Francisco in the audiovisual project Waveform Reversal with Ivy Woods.
Originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, bassist, poet, and experimental projectionist Ivy Woods is currently based in San Francisco, where he curates a performance/film/poetry series at Other Cinema as part of an internship with Craig Baldwin. Woods has performed Ben Patterson’s Variations for Double Bass (Notsouh, March 2022), played in various groups with gulf south improvisers, instigated a scratch orchestra (at the legendary mincine?, April 2022), and has recently begun the ongoing light/sound project ‘Waveform Reversal’ with Rebecca Novak.
LOUISE FRISTENSKY + SARAH JAY + MICHAEL MEADOWS
Among other things, composer, sound sculptor, and systems artist, Louise Fristensky creates works focused along the micro-refractions of reality’s pointillistic network of personally-aggregated and mutually agreed-upon mythologies; the places where the air tastes of electricity.
https://www.louisefristensky.com/
Sarah Jay is a Denton, TX-based experimental and improvisational musician, creating soundscapes with electronics and vocal processing.
https://sybiljay.bandcamp.com/
Michael Meadows is a free improvisation/noise guitarist, and songwriter for indie music project Philosophical Gun Club. Based in Little Hope, TX.
POTION PYTHONS + MONTE ESPINA + SARAH RUTH
Potion Pythons is a slithering hardware electronics from Denton. Modular synthesizers from Randall Minick accompanying vocals and sampling by Rachel Weaver.
https://pythonpotions.bandcamp.com/
Monte Espina is an electroacoustic free improvisation duo, consists of Ernesto Montiel and Miguel Espinel, both Venezuelan-born and North Texas-based. The pair perform in tandem, exploring the possibilities of sinuous sonic environments amid amplified sounds and signal processing. Their first “oficial” recording, ‘y culebra’, was published by Marginal Frequency in 2019, to be followed by ‘pa’ on Elevator Bath and ‘pueblo glortha’ (a collaboration with Louise Fristensky and Liz Tonne) on Round Bale Recordings, both in 2021. A year-long/site-specific project in collaboration with Sarah Ruth is about to be released on Full Spectrum Recordings.
https://monteespina.bandcamp.com/
Sarah Ruth is a diverse musician and artist – a multi-instrumentalist, she employs hammered dulcimer, harmonium, electroacoustic sound art, and extended vocal techniques. She performs frequently both solo and with multiple bands and improvisational ensembles in the North Texas area. She is a University of North Texas graduate where she focused on vocal studies and electroacoustic composition. She has also studied with Meredith Monk and members of her vocal ensemble. She tours nationally and her recent albums have been released on Pour le Corps Music , Tofu Carnage Records, and Obsolete Media Objects.