This is to let you know about four Bay Area shows w New-York based British vocalist and sound artist Viv Corringham's Life Is Clearer Seen Through Smoke Tour, this Sun 22 →Wed 25 Nov, + a new video release link at the end.
The program is multimedia, electrified, radicalized New Rebetika (Ρεμπέτικα Νέα). Often called the Greek Blues, rebetika's best known songs date from the first half of the 20th century, and come from an urban subculture on the fringes of society, despised and persecuted: Greek refugees (or "migrants") forced out of Asia Minor who had poured into the cities in the 1920s. Their songs talk of exile, poverty, drugs, love and jail.
An idea of the unexpected and unconventional possibilities of this repertoire can be got from Viv’s New Rebetika album with UK avant lap-steel guitarist and electronic musician Mike Cooper, called
Rembetronika (downloadable / streamable:
here)
The genre originally arose in the early 19th-century in İstanbul (Constantinople), İzmir (Smyrna) and Thessaloniki, the crossroads of Greek, Turkish, Sephardic, Black Sea, and Armenian cultures and musics, and is rich with influences — now including Stockhausen, Xenakis (Ξενάκης), and the Myōan-ji (明暗寺) school of Zen shakuhachi.
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Viv Corringham's "Life Is Clearer Seen Through Smoke" avant-rebetika tour, 4 Bay Area shows starting this Sun, 22 Nov
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◉ Sun 22 Nov (afternoon), Set 2: The Nunnery, SF
+ Set 1: John McCowen – new adventures in extreme technique for the clarinet, contrabass clarinet, and drum resonator
◉ Mon 23 Nov, Set 2: Studio Grand, Oakland
+ Set 1: Neem - queer improv duo focusing on issues of identity, bodies, gender, sexuality, feminism, eroticism, & more:
◉ Tue 24 Nov, Set 2: Double Divas of avant vocal art, Pamela Z + Viv Corringham @ Center for New Music, SF
+ Set 1: Pamela Z - multimedia mistress of loops, controllers, images, the far reaches of tessitura, and gorgeous, rich tone
◉ Wed 25 Nov, Set 2: Meridian Composers in Performance Series @ Canessa Gallery, SF
+ Set 1: CCMRA composers and instrument inventors Romain Michon & Eoin Callery present selections ranging from Klingon Opera on mutant mandolins to psychedelic folk computer music, with invented and traditional instruments & gobs of processing
Line-up:
— Viv Corringham: voice+
— Nancy Beckman: shakuhachi
— Tom Bickley: contra-bass recorder & EWI wind synth
— Nan Busse: dance & didgeridoo
— Anna Geyer: film & light abstractions
— Joe Lasqo: MSP/laptop, synth/piano, objects, field recordings
☞ Write-ups, showtime details, venue maps, video, and images:
here ☜
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☊ Video 📺 Ornette Coleman's Law Years, as deconstructed by Tomorrow Is The Metabody
(Lisle Ellis: bass, Darren Johnston: trumpet, Joe Lasqo: piano/laptop, Donald Robinson: drums, with hallucinatory visuals kindly provided by Bill Thibault)
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Through the generosity of videographer Charles Smith (aka "The Hermit Thrush"), please enjoy a clip of our deconstruction of an Ornette Coleman classic @ Center for New Music's ORNETTE! extravaganza on 25 Oct:
☞ 8min 46sec video link: here
Thank you, Charles! And thank you listeners, for coming out in force!
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Experience the deeply felt Rebetika music – forged in the forced Greek migrations of a century ago, refined in the multicultural speakeasies of the Post-Ottoman diaspora, made new with the vocal brilliance of Viv Corringham and the electro-avant imaginations of her Multimedia Consort, and paired with a luminous collection of remarkable Bay Area musicians in these varied shows – please join us in Viv Corringham’s Life Is Clearer Seen Through Smoke tour.
…Καλώς ήρθατε !
Joe Lasqo
[address removed]