FLOWERS in 12 parts
In the spring of 2020 when we left NYC due to Covid-19 and isolated in a small cabin in upstate NY, plants became our neighbors and flowers started sitting at our kitchen table at night, taking the place that we used to share with friends. We looked at them with a flashlight, we recorded them with our phone. The flowers kept silent, so we reached out to friends and fellow artists Miguel Gutierrez, Ama Birch, Jean Carla Rodea, Sheryl Cheung, Nick Flynn, Guy Barash, Kathleen Supové, Albrecht Schäfer, enrique maitland, Bobby Previte, Sonia Calico, Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere, TempleRat, Marianne Shaneen and Zach Layton, to accompany that silence with sounds. In 2022 we showed all videos together as an installation as part of “The Moving Picture Show” curated by Peggy Ahwesh.
FLOWERS – Part 12
“Where the Flowerbots Bloom” words by Marianne Shaneen, music by Zach Layton.
Composed and recorded for Flowers Part 12, October 2021, upstate NY
Marianne Shaneen writes fiction, essays, and poetry. She has been awarded fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Djerassi, and the Tusen Takk Foundation, and is the recipient of a NYSCA Individual Artist grant, and a Whiting Writers¹ Aid grant. She received her MFA in Writing from the Bard Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Bomb, The Brooklyn Rail, Manchester University Press, Vanitas, and elsewhere. She has been commissioned for numerous pieces for artists and filmmakers. Her chapbook Lucent Amnesis was published by Portable Press/Yo-Yo Labs. She is currently finishing her first novel, Homing.
http://www.marianneshaneen.com
Zach Layton is a guitarist, composer, curator, teacher and visual artist
based in New York.
He has composed orchestral music for the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn and has performed and exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum, the Kitchen, MoMa/PS1, ISSUE Project Room, Roulette, EMPAC, Eyebeam, International Computer Music Festival, Experimental Intermedia, Performa, Exit Art, Sculpture Center, Transmediale Berlin, SCOPE Art Foundation, Audio Art Festival Krakow and many other venues in New York and worldwide. He has worked with a diverse range of artists and musicians including Vito Acconci, Bradley Eros, Bobby Previte, Ben Vida, Tony Conrad, Victoria Keddie, Tristan Perich, Elliott Sharp, Joshua White, David Grubbs, Loren Connors, Luke Dubois, Peggy Ahwesh, Bradford Reed, Alex Waterman, and many more. Zach is also founder of the experimental music series, “Darmstadt: Classics of the Avant Garde” (co-curated with Nick Hallett), former co-curator of the MoMa/PS1 WarmUp music series and former curator of Issue Project Room.
Zach has received grants from the Fulbright Foundation, Turbulence.org, NYFA, Experimental Television Center, Danish Council for Visual Arts, Jerome Foundation, Signal Culture, Wave Farm and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant to artists award in the Music/Sound category. Zach is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, the Milton Avery Graduate School for the Arts at Bard College MFA program, and PhD at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute. He has taught at NYU, the New School, Bard High School Early College, Bloomfield College, and is currently Assistant Professor of Music Production at Ramapo College of New Jersey.
www.zachlaytonindustries.com
Nepenthae.bandcamp.com
zachlayton.bandcamp.com
instagram.com/zachlayton
twitter.com/zilzilzilzil
FLOWERS – Part 11
“Love is a fragile dream” by Temple Rat (Mei)
composed and recorded for Flowers Part 11, June 2021, Shanghai
Mei grew up near the vibrant megacity Chengdu in the lush Western China Sichuan Basin. At the age of 9, she began to learn the traditional Chinese Erhu, a genuinely mysterious folk instrument, two-stringed, played with a bow and made from carved wood and snakeskin, sometimes known in the Western world as the Chinese violin or the Chinese two-stringed fiddle.Inspired by her passion for the electronic music scene of Chengdu’s hyped underground, Mei started to fuse traditional Chinese folk music with minimalistic techno tunes:
“I usually start my sets by playing the Erhu alone, to create a sense of space, mystery and surprise among my audience. Then, gradually, I add electronic and industrial sounds to fill the space, slowly bringing my audience on an emotional journey, producing a unique kind of atmosphere.”
Mei steadily improved her skills to express a unique blend of live Erhu performances with 4×4 electronic beats. She eventually started to perform as Temple Rat from 2015 on culminating in her much-praised performance in Shanghai’s 2019 Boiler Room.
Her music is influenced by sparks of the natural and religious environment she grew up in, ancient oriental rhythms as well as by her favorite 90’s ACID elements. In 2017 she released her first EP on ADE China Pavilion Records and from 2019 on Mei collaborates with Tokyo producer Ryogo Yamamori with whom she released her latest album on Kagerou Records which is available on Beatport and Itunes etc.
“I believe that music is alive, like a tree, rooted in the soil of your heritage.”
So far her musical career has brought her to cities all over China , Japan and major European festivals like the Château Perché Festival (France), the Summer Story Festival (Spain) and the ADE (Netherlands). Mei has recently performed live sets for Carnival Bizarre at KitKat Club Berlin, the Boiler Room Shanghai edition, Block FM Tokyo and the RedLightRadio Amsterdam.
Templerat.me/
WDR Germany
Girls ClubAsia
Hongkong Gold Thread
Boiler Room Shanghai
Origins Sound UK
SHCR online festival:
FLOWERS – Part 10
“Como la Flor for 12 Colors” arrangement by Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere in Brooklyn, NY. Spring 2021
Inspired by the song Como la Flor, Selena y Los Dinos, 1992
The soundtrack for Como la Flor for 12 Colors takes its structure from the 1992 song Como la Flor by Selena y Los Dinos. The composition is built from the first 3 chords that appear in the song. Each chord individually corresponds to the left, middle, and right video channels, thus creating visualized sound relationships. The song’s vocalized utterances are disharmonized generating tension and dissonance.
Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere are interdisciplinary artists whose practice spans over nineteen years of projects that actuate music and sound, radio, dissent, and the cultural complexities of the public sphere. They have produced works in video and installation, lyric writing, performance, and photography. Their research interests lie at the intersection between music, civic action, and historical moments that resonate through distinct musical instrumentation and sonorous practices. Nevarez and Tevere have exhibited and screened their work at the Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Creative Time, and New Museum in New York; Manifesta 8/Spain; Museo Raúl Anguiano, Guadalajara, Mexico; Casino Luxembourg; Henie Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden, Norway; Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Austria, and elsewhere. The first US survey of their work was exhibited at Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia in 2016.
Their fellowships and grants include a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital fellowship, an Art Matters grant, a National Endowment for the Arts project grant, and a Franklin Furnace Performance Art fellowship. Both artists were Studio Fellows at The Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, artists-in-residence at the International Artists Studio Program in Sweden; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY; Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, CA; and recently, Artpace, San Antonio, TX and Antenna, New Orleans, LA. Nevarez is a musician and teaches at Parsons School of Design, New York; Tevere received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and is Professor of Media Culture at the College of Staten Island / CUNY.
FLOWERS – Part 9
“Chaos Part I” by Sonia Calico
released in October 15, 2020 on her album, Simulation Of An Overloaded World
Born and raised in Taipei, DJ/Producer Sonia Calico has been at the forefront of Taiwan’s dance music scene, bringing a sharp ear for music that has fun and unique grooves.
The cornerstone of her sound is the UK influenced bass/ club music with a mature integration of a variety of sonic elements that was surrounded by her while she experienced growing up in Taipei. Including the sounds from Mandopop, oriental instrumentation from the traditional ceremonies, Japanese anime soundtracks. Her music often comes with messages, to raise the awareness of equalities, to reflect the issues of contemporary society…etc.
Former leader of the legendary Taiwanese electro punk band Go Chic, after the band went on indefinite hiatus she dedicated herself into creation and promotion of the underground dance music culture in Taipei. She has not only launched her music/ event label UnderU, but also started a monthly workshop “Beatmakers Taipei”, which created a platform for all the local producers to share their skills and experiences.
Since 2017, Sonia Calico has released 2 official EPs and a number of singles, remixes. Her endeavours led to several features on music magazines like The Fader, FACT, Dazed…, she has performed music events like Boiler Room, SXSW, ADE, Sonar Hong Kong…
In 2019, she released a self-directed video project “Clutter Confines”, which was her response to the marriage equality rights movement in Taiwan. The video was premiered on Boiler Room 4:3. In September she released a single “Hougong Crash” which she also directed the music video herself, collaborating with queer voguers group Slutty Pomi.
In December she released “Iridescent Vision Feat Taj Raiden”, discussing visions created when human civilization meets future technologies. The track won The Golden Indie Music Award for “The Best Electronic Music”.
In 2020, she teamed up with More Time Records, released her debut album “Simulation Of An Overloaded World”, discussing issues between humanity and technology.
In 2021 she released another single “Change, Reset” which she collaborated with Australian singer PRINCI, along with 4 other remixes via Tokyo’s Trekkie Trax.
Latest links https://linktr.ee/SoniaCalico
Iridescent Vision feat. Taj Raiden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybhHULq5148
Desert Trance MV https://youtu.be/F3zKxreh9Zk
Clutter Confines https://youtu.be/OjrcQNqcdPw
EPK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwmDfyRbNIU
SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/soniacalico
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sonia_calico
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/soniacalico
UnderU https://www.facebook.com/underutpe|
Boiler Room Set https://youtu.be/mzo2JDH0VHQ
FACT interview/
http://www.factmag.com/2018/07/11/fact-rated-sonia-calico-interview/
The Fader Interview/
http://www.thefader.com/2017/02/02/sonia-calico-interview
Bandcamp Interview/
https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/09/07/taiwan-underground-list/
Dazed/
https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/42375/1/shanghai-clubbing-all-club-djs
Neocha/
http://neocha.com/magazine/crash-course/
FLOWERS – Part 8
Bobby Previte is a composer and performer whose work explores the nexus between notated and improvised music. One of the seminal figures of the 80s New York ‘Downtown’ scene, Previte is the recipient of the 2015 Greenfield Prize for Music, as well as a 2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Recent work: TERMINALS, Five Concertos for Percussion Ensemble and Soloist, released 2015/Cantaloupe Music; MASS, a reimagination of the ‘Missa Sancti Jacobi’ by 15th century composer Guillaume Dufay, released in 2016/RareNoiseRecords; RHAPSODY, an acoustic song cycle, released 2018/RareNoise. At present: BLUEPRINTS, fragments of 30 years of scores, spontaneously selected, conducted and projected on screen for audience and a rotating, open cast of musicians. ’His ensembles speak in visionary tongues.’ -The New Yorker
FLOWERS – Part 7
enrique maitland, product of Brooklyn NY, is an art director/graphic designer/multi disciplinary visual artist/video designer. He creates video art, interactive, and multimedia installations experimenting with perception and narrative in digital media and traditional fine art methods. Often inspired by the synergy of motion and sound that invites a synaesthetic experience; his creative has opened up opportunities with live productions, stage performances, brand concepts, event content and experiential spaces, live visuals.
Along with independent work in video production and motion design, his past art projects include single and multi-channel videos which has been screened and exhibited, domestically and internationally, in festivals and art spaces. Many of these works have been the subject of experimentation in perception and visual conventions.
https://visuals.enrichmedium.com
https://www.instagram.com/enrich_medium/
FLOWERS – Part 6
“WINTER FLOWERS” was composed and recorded by Albrecht Schäfer in Berlin in January 2021.
Albrecht Schäfer, born in Stuttgart in 1967, focuses on what is closest to him in his daily observations, finding the motifs for his small reduced-color oil paintings exclusively in his studio. It is here that he builds models of those very spaces and arranges his reserved subjects. Over an extended period of time, his painting edges closer to them by subjecting them to a sharp reduction until they become mysterious surfaces and painted spaces, from which a fascinating concentration and quiet emanate.
http://www.albrechtschaefer.de
FLOWERS – Part 5
“Our Friends Become Flowers” was written and recorded by by Nick Flynn in Brooklyn NY during November 2020.
Nick Flynn’s most recent book is This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire. His work has been translated into fifteen languages.
http://www.nickflynn.org
The music was created by Guy Barash (composer) and Kathleen Supové (pianist)
In May, 2012, Supové received the John Cage Award from ASCAP for “the artistry and passion with which she performs, commissions, records, and champions the music of our time.”
Ms. Supové annually presents a series of solo concerts entitled THE EXPLODING PIANO. In this series, she has performed and premiered works by a Who’s Who of contemporary music. The Exploding Piano is a multimedia experience using electronics, theatrical elements, vocal rants, staging, and collaboration with artists from other disciplines. She has performed with Yamaha Disklaviers, laptop orchestras, robots, and XReality. Her most recent recording is “Eye To Ivory” on the Starkland label, with works by Guy Barash, Dafna Naphtali, Randall Woolf, Nick Didkovsky, and Mary Ellen Childs, which has been receiving glowing reviews and constant radio play. Upcoming projects include a cross-disciplinary, theatrical production about MIGRATION.
In December 2019, Ms. Supové received her second ASCAP Plus Award for her work as a composer. She has also been commissioned by Ladies First, Composers Concordance, and Bargemusic, among others. For more info, visit http://www.supove.com, or follow on Facebook (Exploding Piano).
Fearless in his quest for uncovering sonic beauty in unexpected places, composer Guy Barash abandons the confines of genre, inventing a sound world that is uniquely his own. He is “a risk-taker, willing to pull ideas from all disciplines as he jumps into the unknown.” (icareifyoulisten.com) Frequently developing innovative, multidisciplinary projects, Barash collaborates with a wide array of artists including poets, video-artists, musicians and choreographers.
His series of compositions for solo instruments and real-time digital signal processing, Talkback, was hailed as being “at once divine, serene and haunting.” (The Queens Chronicle) It has been performed internationally by such illustrious musicians as clarinetist Thomas Piercy, violinist Cornelius Dufallo, guitarist Nadav Lev, pianists Kathleen Supové and Stéphane Ginsburgh, cellist Kate Dillingham, trombonist William Lang, and soprano Jamie Jordan. The latest Talkback will be premiered by percussionist Makoto Aruga in Tokyo in Fall 2021.
Barash’s debut album, Facts About Water, which chronicles a five-year collaboration with author Nick Flynn, was released on Innova Recordings in 2014. Since then his music has been released on labels such as Delos Music, and most recently, Kathleen Supové’s recording of his Talkback IV for piano and electronics, on Starkland. His latest choral work, Stimmen, with text by Paul Celan, received its world premiere in April 2019 with the New York Virtuoso Singers led by Maestro Harold Rosenbaum. http://www.guybarash.com
FLOWERS – Part 4
“Untitled”
composed by Sheryl Cheung during the month of October 2020 in Taipei, Taiwan.
Sheryl Cheung experiments with the idea of the body as an instrument that is continually played by affects. Like an open, metabolic body, her sound palette is vulnerable and harsh at the same time. Sheryl works between experimental music, abstract scoring and writing to explore a materialist understanding of power, emotion and moral order.
https://soundcosmology.cargo.site
FLOWERS – Part 3
“Stamen, Anther, Filament”
words, song and sound design by Jean Carla Rodea
composed during the month of August 2020 in Brooklyn, NY
Jean Carla Rodea (b in Mexico City) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work involves a variety of disciplines and mediums such as music, sound, poetry, vocal performance and performance art, photography, video, movement, and sculpture. Her artistic practice deals with spaces and instances where socio-political and cultural constructs are rendered visible through multimedia installations and performance. Jean Carla is dedicated to perform a plethora of music in a variety of settings ––from solo to large ensembles. She has performed and recorded with William Parker, Darius Jones’ vocal quartet Elizabeth-Caroline Unit, Gerald Cleaver’s Uncle June, Anthony Braxton’s Syntactical Ghost Trance Music Choir, Cecilia Lopez’s Machinic Fantasies, and Talibam!. In addition to this, she leads her own multimedia projects; Looking for Marina, and Azares. Jean Carla has worked with Amirtha Kidambi, Patricia Nicholson, Jo Wood Brown, Rachel Bersen, Anastasia Clarke, Taylor Ho-Bynum, Joe Morris, Stephen Haynes, Matt Mottel, etc. She has performed extensively and shown work at Roulette Intermedium, Carnegie Hall, BRIC, Knockdown Center, Judson Church, Danspace, Center for Performance Research, Panoply Lab, Parallel, Rio ll Gallery, The Clemente, BRAC, WAAM, El Museo de Los Sures, Casul, The Graduate Center, to mention a few.
http://www.jeancarlarodea.com/
FLOWERS – Part 2
PERENNIAL PLANT has been written and recorded by AMA BIRCH in July 2020 in NYC.
Sound design by eteam with help from Jimmy Garver
Ama Birch is the author of three books: “Faces in the Clouds,” “Sonnet Boom!,” and “Ferguson Interview Project.”
https://facebook.com/FergusonInterviewProject
https://fergusonwritingproject.wordpress.com/author/amabirch/
FLOWERS – Part 1
SOUNDTRACK: “Do you worry about the future?” by Miguel Gutierrez
The song is from Age & Beauty Part 3: DANCER or You can make whatever the fuck you want but you’ll only tour solos or The Powerful People or We are strong/We are powerful/We are beautiful/We are divine or &:’///
Written and Recorded by Miguel Gutierrez at Gibney Dance Center during a DiP Residency, Summer 2015
Singers: Leslie Allison, Marisa Clementi, Tomas Cruz, Ashley Handel, Charlotte Mundy, Megan Schubertacco
Miguel Gutierrez is a choreographer, composer, performer, singer, writer, educator and advocate who has lived in New York for over twenty years. He is fascinated by the time-based nature of performance and how it creates an ideal frame for phenomenological questions around presence and meaning-making. His work proposes an immersive state, for performer and audience alike, where attention itself becomes an elastic material. He believes in an approach to art making that is fierce, fragile, empathetic, political, and irreverent.