GATE (2006)

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During the mid-2000s I played Gate (or Gate to Moon Base Alpha) every year as so. Coming off our Canadian tour, Ben Fleury-Steiner, William Fields, Aidan Baker and myself did a show in Philadelphia at GATE. I was experimenting with live looping using Casio SK-1, flute, melodica, effects pedals and Ableton Live. I was very happy with the results from this show. One of the pieces of this show became the track “Gate” from 2009’s vxvii which was then featured in Nora Gibson’s 2010 dance piece VESTED SOULS. Photo by William Fields.

Below is a recording from the performance that night:

City of Horns Duet

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When my friend and collaborator Bilwa asked me to do a live set at his photo and media event, I thought it was a standard Mikronesia “cocktail hour” type set. During these set (of which I’ve done plenty) I do background ambient music and people mill around, drink, talk and (sometimes) listen, which is fine. For these events basically a DJ, but instead of playing other people’s music, I’m usually there with a keyboard and laptop looping sounds and creating a soundscape on the fly.

However when I got to Mascher Space Coop (a venue that would lead me into a whole new field of composing and improvising with dancers and choreographers) I found out I would be doing a live improvisation with dancers and local experimental musician City of Horns (Rick Henderson). The whole event was really fun and like I said opened me up to a whole new world of collaboration.

Below is a live recording of our improvised set: