Gregg Kowalsky + Ben Vida/Koen Holtkamp duo + Ben Bracken

Saturday, June 20
Admission: $7, $10 minimum
Showtime: 10:30pm
reservations are recommended

Gregg Kowalsky and Ben Bracken make it to the east coast at the tail end of their June tour and land at Monkeytown to share a bill with Ben Vida and Koen Holtkamp in duo form. Tonight will be a celebration of Gregg's second Kranky release, Tape Chants, which he will perform a version of. "Tape Chants" is a composition using tapes as the main source material as well as the mono speakers of various cassette players for the piece’s amplification. All of the cassettes are tuned to each other using the pitch control and halfspeed playback devices located on the Sony TCM 200DV cassette recorder. All of the compositions are constructed with tuned sinewaves as the starting point and the pieces are built using sources such as shruti box, percussion, gongs, etc.

Ben Bracken will perform a new work in progress. Using an unplayed guitar as a starting point, the piece is built by activating and resonating the guitar with a process of harmonic partials feedback. The result is the emergence of a lush and glowing sound field which forges new relationships with each space it is performed in.

Tonight also marks the first live performance of Ben Vida and Koen Holtkamp. If their solo projects are any indication, it will involve both acoustic and electronic (both analog and digital) elements to create a dense fog of sound and melody.

Bios:

Gregg Kowalsky
Gregg Kowalsky resides in Oakland, California where he completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in Electronic Music and Recording Media at Mills College. Kowalsky’s compositions range from drone and noise pieces to meditative psychedelia. After his debut album, Through the Cardial Window (Kranky), Gregg started working with cassette tapes, sine oscillators, mixer feedback, contact mics, etc…
His recent series of Tape Chants explores the acoustics where the performances occur by setting up cassette players around the space, using only the cassette players’ speakers for amplification. Throughout the piece, Gregg moves around the space adjusting the amplitude of the players as a live mix. The first incarnation of Tape Chants was released in 2007 called Tape Chants A Million (Rootstrata).
Kowalsky has had the opportunity to perform throughout Europe and the United States over the past several years. He participated in festivals such as WDR’s SoundArt-Köln Festival, Sonar, OFFF (Online Flash-Film Festival) and The Nursery Summer Festival in Sweden. His recordings have released on Kranky, Rootstrata, Kning Disk, Nosordo, Ruralfaune and others. He has composed for dance, sound installations, film and acoustic ensembles.

Ben Bracken
For the past 15 years, Ben Bracken has slowly been creating a unique sonic language utilizing electronics, acoustic sound sources (guitar, cymbal, bells, found objects, etc), electric guitar, and field recordings.

Primarily interested in the possibilities of a kind of echo-relocation that exists with sound based art, his work has oscillated from performance to installation, often blurring the lines between the two. In both, the location of the event becomes an active participant, intimately shaping the nature and direction of each work.

After finishing a graduate degree in Electronic Music at Mills College in Oakland, CA, Ben moved on to his current technical support position at Cycling '74, the developers of Max/MSP, which he utilizes as one of many tools in his live performances. Ben also curates the Totally Intense Fractal Mindgaze Hut, a performance space in West Oakland, CA.

Some previous or current musical groups include Crystal Village (With Gregg Kowalsky), Flashpapr, Tiny Lights, Remote Viewing Ensemble, Duo with Luis Maurette, Duo with Zach Wallace, Bones (with Jacqueline Gordon).

Ben has improvised with Le-Quan Ninh, Brent Guetzeit, Kevin Drumm, Peter Kowald, Chris Cutler, Phil Minton, Rhodri Davies, Werner Dafeldecker, Fred Van Hove, Johannes Bauer, among others.

Ben Vida
For over ten years Ben Vida has been writing, recording and releasing records. Playing in such bands as Town and Country, Singer and DRMWPN and playing solo under the name Bird Show. He has released records with many labels including Thrill Jockey, Drag City and Kranky. Ben has toured extensively around the United States, Europe and Japan. "Untitled" is Ben's third release under the Bird Show moniker. Joining the group for this outing are Greg Davis, Robert AA Lowe, Michael Zerang and Adam Vida. 2009 will see release of the first Bird Show Band release (featuring Josh Abrams, Jim Baker, Dan Bitney and John Herndon). Ben is currently work on an opera in collaboration with visual artists Siebren Versteeg and Deborah Johnson.

Koen Holtkamp
Koen Holtkamp co-founded the apestaartje collective/label in 1998 while studying at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since then the label has relocated to Brooklyn and released CDs from artists from Japan, Germany, Austria, Australia, France, and the US. Holtkamp has released two solo albums as Aero and two albums as Mountains, a duo project with Brendon Anderegg. He has toured throughout the US and Europe performing everywhere from festivals, art galleries, and museums to basements, hippie communes, churches, and rock clubs. Holtkamp has performed with Fennesz, Tony Conrad, James Blackshaw, Tape, Nicholas Collins, Carsten Nicolai, Lichens, Supersilent, Alog, etc. His current solo performances utilize acoustic instruments and objects played through a series of both analog and digital electronics to create an extremely gradual and hypnotic listening experience.