3rd Annual City Skies Electronic Music Festival, April 29-May 1, 2010The
3rd Annual City Skies Electronic Music Festival will be held in the Atlanta area on
April 29-May 1, 2010.
Kavarna in the Oakhurst section of Decatur, GA (minutes away from Atlanta) is once again the venue for the Festival Event. Kavarna gives us a perfect vibe for the performances, with great sound and a nice selection of food and beverage for festival attendees. Kavarna is a non-smoking and all-ages venue.
The list of performers include some of the best electronic musicians from around the U.S. heard on radio stations like Music From the Hearts of Space, Echoes, Star's End, Soma FM, StillStream, Galactic Travels, and more, and are from Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
Musical styles range from ambient to downtempo chillout to Berlin school to IDM to space music to experimental. This is not a DJ event.
For more information, ticketing, and performer bios and event schedule:
http://www.cityskies.com
Real electronic music performed live by humans!Performers and schedule for the three-day event are:
Thursday, April 29, 20108pm- The Wiitles (Georgia)
10pm- Paul Vnuk Jr (Wisconsin)
11pm- citizenGreen (Georgia)
Friday, April 30, 20106pm- Slate (Indiana)
7pm- Klimchak (Georgia)
8pm- Xeriod Entity (Pennsylvania)
9pm- Emerald Adrift (Kansas)
10pm- Tony Gerber (Tennessee)
11pm- R_Garcia (Georgia)
Saturday, May 1, 2010Afternoon session1pm- dRachEmUsiK (Indiana)
2pm- Burning Artist(s) Sale (Georgia)
3pm- Earthgirl (Indiana)
4pm- 84001 (Tennessee)
Evening session7pm- Mark Mahoney (Tennessee)
8pm- M. Peck (Tennessee)
9pm- Richard Lainhart (New York)
10pm- Richard Devine (Georgia)
11pm- Duet for Theremin & Lap Steel (Georgia)
All proceeds from ticket sales will go to performers for this event.
Tickets for each session are $5.00 and will be available at the door.
Venue location -Kavarna, 707 East Lake Drive, Decatur, GA 30030
Please add us as friends on MySpace and Facebook:
http://www.myspace.com/cityskiesfestival
http://www.facebook.com/pages/City-Skies/223286277021
Performer Bios:
Thursday, April 29, 2010
8pm- The Wiitles (Georgia)
The Wiitles are a rock band which uses Nintendo Wiimotes as their instruments. The Wiimotes are used to control the software Max/MSP, a graphical development environment, for creating music. No "real" instruments are used during the Wiitles performances. Wii will rock you! Enjoy!
http://www.myspace.com/thewiitles
10pm- Paul Vnuk Jr (Wisconsin)
Paul Vnuk Jr. is percussionist, synthesist, vocalist, recording engineer and sound designer.
He is one half of the Tribal Ambient duo Ma Ja Le' with Christopher Short, and their albums (which have been eloquently labeled, Symphonic Tribal Minimalism) include "Dreams In The Orchards Of Saturn", "Imaginarium" (with Vir Unis) and "Seed" (with James Johnson).
Together as sound designers they have been involved in sound-libraries and projects for Sony, M-Audio and Apple, which have been used in films and top ten albums. As a solo artist Paul's album "Silence Speaks In Shadow" is a classic among minimal-ambient connoisseurs and is a perennial favorite on the Hypnos Label. His latest Hypnos release, "Distance To Zero" (with Italian minimalist Oophoi) is as dark and intense as it is beautiful.
When not crafting ambient-space music, Paul can be found deep in recording and production at "The Moss Garden" a professional project studio located in the serene countryside of southern Wisconsin. As an audio engineer Paul is a regular contributing author and reviewer in Recording Magazine.
http://www.myspace.com/paulvnuk
http://www.majale.com
11pm- citizenGreen (Georgia)
citizenGreen's rhythmic compositions have been evolving for 5 years and running. Fusing many modern styles of electronic music, citizenGreen's pulsing mechanical beats, cyclic melodies, bubbling organic basslines and delicately crafted textures and patterns make for a unique listen, and a sonic fingerprint all his own. Chris Amell is the man behind citizenGreen.
http://www.myspace.com/citizengreen
Friday, April 30, 2010
6pm- Slate (Indiana)
Jonathan Mills aka Slate is a newcomer to City Skies whose idea of music changed when he heard Terry Riley's "A Rainbow in Curved Air." It was 20 years before he began to compose and perform minimalist music as a shamanic practitioner using Tibetan singing bowls, logs, rocks and Native American flute. In 2005 he bought a Roland Fantom-Xa and began a string of CDs that include ambient pieces in the Pompeii Trilogy, "21st Century Shaman," "Trainspotting," and "¿a la Frontera Sur?" among others. His most recent work, the four-disc Oncology Cycle, documents his encounter with cancer. He has played at Bloomington's Lotus Fest, the 2007 Lilly ArtsWeek Festival, and collaborates with Janiece Jaffe to create healing music. When not composing, Jonathan is a professor of computer science whose work with Rubel's extended analog computer is internationally recognized. He and his students are designing "Synthesizers in Speakers," woven analog supercomputer fabrics that reproduce music holographically.
http://www.myspace.com/shamaniaq
7pm- Klimchak (Georgia)
Klimchak loves opposites. That may explain why he's played with bands as diverse as disco diva RuPaul and avant hipster Bruce Hampton. "I think of music as a crazy-quilt of different styles and patterns. I'm the thread that holds the whole mess together," says the Atlanta-based composer and percussionist. "I love the clash of colors and opposing patterns. That's where the music comes alive."
On his new solo CD, The Beat and The Buzz, he works the difference between electronic and acoustic music styles. Electrobeat buzzes clash with soulful hand drumming. An urban funk groove explodes into a hoedown of jaw harp and handclaps. Tuvan throat singing provides a sound bed for a flowering samba ensemble featuring the pig-like grunting of the Brazilian Cuica. This could be the loops of sample-hungry turntable collagists and laptop-toting poindexters. But it's not. One of the important qualities of Klimchak's music is that he plays it all himself. "I don't have anything against buying and using samples and loops of other people's music. For what I'm doing it's easier and quicker just to record myself playing the instrument."
Of course that is easy for Klimchak to say, since he owns and plays literally hundreds of instruments. "I've been collecting sound-makers since the late 1970's. When I have some free time, I usually sit down and learn to play a new flute or percussion instrument." It could be an early electronic instrument like the sci-fi staple, the theremin or a low-tech rawhide frame drum from the Middle East. It's all grist for the sound-mill. "In the modern world of Ebay and the internet, locating exotic instruments for cheap and getting instructions on playing them is a lot easier than it used to be."
Klimchak has been working exclusively in this style since the mid-eighties. Between stints with RuPaul, Hampton, and his two bass-vocal-percussion band, Fab Area, he began working on solo works for modern dance and theater. He uses his knowledge of exotic instruments and the sounds they make to provide a live underscore theater productions. Many of his recent works have been at the Georgia Shakespeare Festival. He has written and performed scores for the plays: Othello, Henry IV, Hamlet, Tartuffe, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Cymbeline. In addition, he's done scores for Shakespeare's Coriolanus at Shakespeare Santa Cruz, a live score for No Exit at Le Neon Theater in Washington, DC (nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for best sound design), and a live score for Malinche performed at the Bovenzaal Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam.
Klimchak's dance work is equally important to his style. His recent work includes scores for Jane Comfort ("Three Bagatelles for the Righteous, excerpt (Election Update 2004)", performed in NYC at the Joyce Theater by Jane Comfort and Co in September) and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Urban Bush Women ("Are We Democracy?", performed in November at Emory University's Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts). He regularly composes for faculty and guest choreographers at Emory University.
http://www.myspace.com/klimchak
8pm- Xeriod Entity (Pennsylvania)
Xeroid Entity is constantly exploring new musical territory by going beyond the barriers of standard conventions while still drawing upon classical influences. Their music ranges from light and whimsical to dark and aggressive, often within the same piece. Much of it is ambient in nature; without a discernable beat. When they do play rhythmically based music, there are often complex counter rhythms giving the music a poly-rhythmic flavor. The results can be subtle and spacey without being boring, noisy without being harsh, dynamic yet continuous.
The members of Xeroid Entity are Howard Moscovitz, Bill Fox, and Greg Waltzer. Combined they have more than 70 years of experience making electronic music. They all program their own sounds, and refuse to be bound by conventional scales or rhythms. The parts are freely improvised, though they frequently have structures based on the concerto forms of Mozart and Bach. This allows for maximum expressiveness and interaction between group members, while avoiding predictability.
http://xeroidentity.com
9pm- Emerald Adrift (Kansas)
Emerald Adrift is a nom de plume of composer and electronic musician David Herpich. Eclectic yet unified, the music of Emerald Adrift explores the unusual confluences of melodic synth-pop with avant-garde abstraction, meditative ambiances with propulsive rhythms, and purely electronic timbres with otherworldly manipulations of sounds from everyday life.
An interest in diverse synthesis technologies has led to the use of various commercial and academic computer-based applications, numerous additive, wavetable, FM, and analogue keyboards, and vintage rarities such as the E-mu and ARP 2500 modular systems. Throughout it all, Emerald Adrift has maintained a consistent approach to sonic expression which defies any obvious genre categorization.
David Herpich holds degrees in music theory and composition from the University of Kansas, and completed his master's degree in contemporary composition as a recipient of the University Graduate Fellowship Award at the University of South Florida in Tampa. At both institutions, he focused his studies on electronic music, working under Michael Timpson, Paul Reller, and Edward Mattila. In addition, Herpich has written award-winning works for acoustic ensembles, scored theatre, dance, and film productions, and lectured on the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. He is currently the host of Zen Caffeine, a weekly program on the StillStream internet radio station.
http://www.myspace.com/emeraldadrift
10pm- Tony Gerber (Tennessee)
Tony Gerber was mesmerized by electronic music in 1971, after playing with an SWTP theremin and hearing the classic "Switched on Bach". Like many young synthesizer explorers during the 70s he built his own PAIA synth when he was 14 years old. However, guitar is his main instrument, but he became a multi-instrumentalist over the years with an emphasis on synth sound creation.
In 1986, he founded the performance collective Space for Music which spawned multimedia performances combining film, video, dance, and electronic music. Space For Music was turned into a website in 1996 and then into a record label in 2000 (spaceformusic.com). In 1997, he founded the well-known space music group, Spacecraft, with fellow synth lover and musician, John Rose, after solo releases on the Lektronic Soundscapes label.
Combining his solo releases and SPACECRAFT recordings there are over 20 CDs available. Some of these recordings are with fellow City Skies performer and friend, Giles Reaves. Gerber has been a driving force in the art and space music arena during his 25 year stay in Nashville, TN. Tony is quite active in Second Life as the space music performer Cypress Rosewood (cypressrosewood.com). His own web site is http://spaceformusic.com/tonygerber
Many of Gerber's recorded works are the result of live performances, many of which take place in planetariums or outside, under the stars themselves. Several of Gerber's performances have been broadcast live on public radio in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana and the subsequent recordings have received airplay on syndicated shows like Echoes and Musical Starstreams. A pioneer in the use of computers for creating music and graphics, Gerber has also consulted with Apple Computer and has given many speeches on art and technology. An accomplished visual artist and craftsman working with both computers and wood, Gerber has enjoyed exhibits sponsored by the prestigious Cheekwood Gallery in Nashville and the Visual Artists Alliance of Nashville.
11pm- R_Garcia (Georgia)
R. Garcia began making loud noise with a Japanese drumset, a pair of boom-boxes and a flamenco guitar. Through this ramshackle conglomeration of stuff, he accidentally discovered multi-track recording. The result of his experiments would lead him to record an acoustic punk album before he could even fully tune his instruments.
As a teenager, Garcia’s vision quickly grew beyond the immediate desires for beer, pot, and girls. He founded 9D recordings, a cassette-tape label that was more responsible for audio terrorism than anything else. 9D would later evolve into the critically acclaimed Nophi Recordings — a small boutique label that would grow to share in the fathering of the modern American electronic music movement.
Constantly writing, recording, releasing, and touring along the way, Garcia shows little sign of an easing stride. He currently performs with his band, The Nerd Parade, as a solo musician, periodic contributor to The Future Funk Collective, and a slew of other artistically-themed projects.
His recent return to the left-field of electronic music has afforded him a newly found dedication to the craft, where he has found comfort as both teacher and student in the ways of computer music.
"I've been writing music since I was 14. Before that, I used to create crude songs by splicing together sections of cassette tapes. I also played coronet, French horn and baritone in middle school orchestra. both scenarios were as tedious as they sound. I eventually found my way into formal training in music performance and engineering. It has taken me the better part of 10 years to unlearn the things I was taught."
"These days I focus mainly on my family and my graphic art as a means of self-actualization. This is not to say I have given up on music -- the situation is very much the opposite -- I've just chosen to remain at ease with my passion, rather than run myself ragged chasing after "the dream." I still regularly produce, record, perform, tour, do interviews and all of the fun stuff I used to do when I was hell-bent on success -- maybe even more so, only now I accept only the projects I want... It's rather nice."
http://www.randygarcia.com
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Afternoon session
1pm- dRachEmUsiK (Indiana)
Live electronic music with video. Experimental, Glitch-Groove, Ambient Beats, with a Modal Jazz Influence. Simple melodies swirling in mixed tempos and undulating textures. Dense, erotic, complex, emotional, spontaneous.
The ambient and experimental sets are entirely improvised except for transition material between improvisations.
The content of the musical structures (sound design, melodies, harmonies etc) are created from "scratch". In other words no pre-existing audio or MIDI sounds or loops are used in the creation of the music.
The rest of the music is a blend of improvisation and structure and is performed in real-time. The basic musical ideas are built in the studio and then dozens of audio events (or clips) are created for each piece. The audio events are triggered and manipulated via 36 foot switches and 16 faders along with real time synthesis played from an EWI4000S and MIDI keyboard.
Consequently, in performance, the content of each piece of music remains the same but the structure varies each time a piece is played depending on my mood and the environment. This allows me to interact creatively with the audience and have more personal expression.
http://www.myspace.com/drachemusik
2pm- Burning Artist(s) Sale (Georgia)
Kevin Haller's moniker for the variety of artistic and musical endeavors is Burning Artist(s) Sale. Alter egos include Killer Haven, a grizzled guitar slinging rocker that prefers to stay in his bunker making videos. KVpop writes catchy hooks, but until recently was too afraid to let friends or colleagues help him put finishing touches on his compositions. K love writes music intended for dance clubs old and new. eleK troniK is an ambient and experimental sound sculptor. Burning Artist occasionally performs as a solo artist (and is even sometimes usurped by Killer Haven), but prefers the dynamic of group interaction. Recent musical involvement has been with the Robert Cheatham Quartet, a regrouped BAS (w/ Barbara Vesey), both City Skies & Different Skies "All Star" jams, and a re-united Amalgamated Cliff Divers. Burning Artist is proud to have played at EYEDRUM's First Thursday Open Improv for more years than he can remember. Past bands have included GFE, Random Violets, Harper Fragment, Empty V, MASTERCOW, and TOAST.
http://www.myspace.com/burningartistssale
3pm- Earthgirl (Indiana)
Jeannie Allen is Earthgirl, whose music grows from sounds and feelings on our planet, plus some imagined ones. A lone car driving by late at night, far away thunder, the tapping of rain, and the swirls of falling stars.
Earthgirl is a veteran of electronic music festivals around the country including Different Skies 2008 in Arizona, electro-music 2008 in Tennessee, and City Skies 08 in Georgia. She also performs regularly in her hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana.
Jeannie has been inspired by new music created every day and by the musical roots of Vince Clarke, Yaz, Erasure, Tangerine Dream, Stereolab, Portishead, Moby, Brian Eno, ELO, Lou Reed, Syd Barrett, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, The Police, and Mozart, to name a few.
Earthgirl music combines ambient, experimental and found sounds to create sonic soundscapes, that have attracted the the attention of fans, musicians, and record labels around the globe. When the debut album "Vibrations in Space" is released in 2008, all profits will go for global warming relief in developing countries.
http://www.myspace.com/earthgirlvibes
4pm- 84001 (Tennessee)
84001 began in upstate NY as a lo-fi/drone/experimental music bedroom recording project in the mid-1990's. A short-run self released cassette was distributed in 1997 to a small number of college radio stations, independent music magazines, and friends. More tracks were recorded in the summer of 1997 and another tape release titled '84001-prospectUs' followed. In the fall of 1998, '84001-whatwouldhealthiswoundedsoul?' was released. Masters and any copies of that tape have since been lost. From 1999-2005, 84001 was dormant. 84001 returned in Nashville, TN in late 2005. By mid-2007, the cd-r 'we look for things to make us go' was completed. 84001 has been playing shows in Tennessee and Georgia, and completed the CD-R “The Search for Incandescent Glaciers”. 84001 is currently a two man project exploring a variety of sonic territories.
http://www.myspace.com/84001
Evening session
7pm- Mark Mahoney (Tennessee)
Mark Mahoney describes himself as an ambient/experimental musician, but often his music will embrace other genres as well. When performing, his compositions will take the listener through mysterious inner journeys that have many musical twists and turns.
Mahoney has been a musician most of his life. Evolving from saxophone, bass guitar, acoustic/electric guitar, and now synthesizers, Mahoney is comfortable on any of these instruments. Referencing greats such as John Coltrane, Steve Roach, and Robert Rich, Mahoney approaches his craft in a very thoughtful and cerebral manner that defines post-modern ambient music. He utilizes both analogue and digital synthesizers in performance.
http://www.limitedwave.com/subterraneous/news.html
http://cdbaby.com/cd/mmahoney
8pm- M. Peck (Tennessee)
Michael Peck is a ubiquitous fixture in Northeast Tennessee’s thriving music scene. Known for his energetic and cross genre live sets, Peck has carved a name for himself in the electronic music community up and down the east coast performing at the Electro-Music.com Festivals as well as performing at the prestigious Gathering Concert Series in Philadelphia.
Over the past decade his solo releases have been praised both in the U.S. as well as abroad. His collaborations with fellow electronic musician Mark Mahoney have also been regarded as some of the best progressive ambient being released to date. Peck also curates the Waiting World Records label that was launched earlier this year that focuses on releasing “curious music” from independent musicians ranging from ambient to noise and everything in between. Peck is proud to say that he burns the candle at both ends and is driven by creativity and self expression through sound design.
http://www.limitedwave.com/redweb
http://www.mpeckmusic.blogspot.com
9pm- Richard Lainhart (New York)
Richard Lainhart is an award-winning composer, author, and filmmaker. He studied composition and electronic music with Joel Chadabe at the State University of New York at Albany, and has worked and performed with John Cage, David Tudor, Steve Reich, Phill Niblock, David Berhman, and Jordan Rudess, among many others.
His compositions have been performed in the US, England, Sweden, Australia, and Japan. He's also played vibes in a swing band; composed music for film, television, CD-ROMs, interactive applications, and the Web; released recordings of his own music on the Periodic Music, Vacant Lot, and XI Records labels; engineered audio for recordings and live sound; and served as technical director at Intelligent Music, a pioneering music software company. He has performed in public approximately 2000 times.
Since childhood, he's been interested in natural processes such as waves, flames and clouds, in harmonics and harmony, and in creative interactions with machines, using them as compositional methods to present sounds that are as beautiful as he can make them.
"He's evolved a singular vision as a composer, performer and engineer of darkly seductive minimalism." (Peter Marsh, BBC)
[His] "music reflects the spirit of possibility that once defined electronic music, bringing with it a sense of past, present and future that transcends time, technology and cultural assumptions. The spell-binding music seemed to evoke feelings that can't quite be named, and suggest music I might rather imagine for myself in silence than trust most composers to compose." (The Village Voice)
"Lainhart crafts sounds in a tonal, musical fashion - sustained tones, drones, melodic fragments - and electronically manipulates them into beautiful tapestries of sound. At a casual or first listen, these pieces ... might seem static or aimless, but given time - and if you liberate yourself from the concept of music-as-event - the sounds develop in an imperturbable, organic manner, washing over you a gently as a sunset." (Waterfront Week)
http://www.otownmedia.com/he/he.html
http://www.otownmedia.com/he/buchla.htm
http://www.vimeo.com/940594
http://www.otownmedia.com/he/performance.htm
http://www.airglowmusic.com/
10pm- Richard Devine (Georgia)
Richard Devine is an Atlanta-based electronic musician. He is recognized for producing a layered and heavily processed sound, combining influences from old and modern electronic music. Devine largely records for the Miami-based Schematic Records. As a result of praise of his music from Autechre as well as a remix of Aphex Twin's Come To Daddy, Devine recorded an album for Warp Records which was jointly released by Schematic and Warp.
Devine first started using computers for composition around 1993. Don Hassler, an instructor at the Atlanta College of Art, got him interested in computer synthesis, introducing Devine to CSound and other powerful computer-based applications. Devine claims he coded a couple FFT applications in SuperCollider, an environment and programming language for real-time audio synthesis. “It’s interesting, because you’re doing things to sound that just aren’t physically possible.”
Devine also uses Native Instruments (NI) software. His favorite NI applications are Reaktor and Absynth. Reaktor is a very powerful modular system, similar in many respects to classic modular synthesizer systems but also capable of performing low-level DSP sound processing. Devine has also designed sound patches for NI’s Absynth. He has also scored commercials for Nike and Touchstone Pictures, and engineered and performed his own music worldwide.
During the past three years, Richard Devine has remixed top Warp artists like Aphex Twin and Mike Patton (Faith No More). He has released 4 full-length albums on Schematic, Warp, Asphodel, and Sublight records and has performed his own ear-tearing music mayhem worldwide. Based from Atlanta, Georgia he has done film score work for Touchstone Pictures (with John Hues & Kyle Cooper). He has also collaborated with BT (Brian Transeau on movie "Surveillance" Directed by Adam Rifkin, Wieden & Kennedy, AKQA Inc., and have done sound mangling/programming for Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, composed and designed commercials for the Nike Shoe Company and worked with various companies doing sound design for Audi, Ford, Scion, LandRover, Peugeot, Dodge, HBO, Nestle, Nike Japan, McDonald's, Spike Television network and XBOX (Halo2 for Microsoft Gamming Division http://www.halo2.com. He has also worked with Konami gaming division for the Dance-Dance Revolution game. And currently now for Sony Play station PS3 (Infected) for Dawn of the Dead. He has also recently completed all the sound design for the new xbox360. http://www.xbox360.com
In conjunction with TV and film work Richard also has done programming and sound design work with major audio companies. His work has been featured and endorsed on new software and hardware titles from many innovative companies such as Apple Computers, Allen & Heath, Ecler DJ Mixers, Digidesign Eventide, Izotope, Access Virus, Native Instruments, Korg, Clavia Nord, Alesis, Ableton Live, Apple Computers, Openlabs, Universal Audio, Hartmann Neuron synthesizers, Stanton Magnetics DJ Company, and M-Audio Division.
http://www.richard-devine.com
http://www,myspace.com/richarddevine
11pm- Duet for Theremin & Lap Steel (Georgia)
Duet for Theremin and Lapsteel is Scott Burland on Theremin and Frank Schultz on Lap Steel. The project came out of an Eyedrum improv group performance at The Contemporary. Although we were both there, we never did get paired up to play together and thought that it would be an interesting pairing. Performances and recorded tracks are improvised.
http://www.myspace.com/duetforthereminandlapsteel
Chuck van Zyl, host of Star's End Ambient Radio, is featuring the new Combs Creek Haller CD Singularity on his radio show this weekend. He writes about the album in his weekly newsletter:
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