Brian Chase, drummer of esteemed band, “Yeah Yeah Yeahs” brings a different view to the drum with Swiss video artist
Ursula Scherrer. This sound and video experience has been well received, around the world, now in Baltimore, for you.

“goes inside the sound and…puts your brain inside another space” -The Wire Magazine

 

Opening for Mr. Chase and Ms. Scherrer are a handpicked group of High Zero improvisors utilizing hand-coded noise to fine-tuned
reed playing to old fashioned sampling and keyboard synthesis.

 

Doors to the store open at 8:30, the show will begin at 9pm. The bookstore will be open before and during during intermissions!

 

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

 

More detail about Drums and Drones, and then about the High Zero players.

 

Drums and Drones & Ursula Scherrer is a live sound and light performance featuring drummer Brian Chase and video artist Ursula Scherrer.

Drums and Drones, an approach to listening as an experiential process, began as Brian’s solo venture and has since expanded to include the video projection of Ursula as a key component of the experience. The project takes its initial inspiration from La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s Dream House, a legendary on-going sound and light installation in TriBeCa, NYC. With this, the notion came to investigate the subtle acoustic properties of drums and percussion as a medium for ‘going inside the sound:’ expansive soundscapes are constructed, like aural snapshots of tone, uncovering the richness of sonic depth hidden within the resonance of these instruments. Similarly, the visual component investigates and reconstructs elements of found forms, whether in filmed objects or light itself. In the live video projections, an architectural abstraction continues to emerge and re-evolve, and layers stack to reveal shifting fields of depth and perception. The music and visuals function to bring on what La Monte has termed a “Drone State of Mind.”
Sch
Presentations of Drums & Drones include those at the X Avant Festival (Toronto), New Ear Festival (Fridman Gallery, NYC) REDCAT (Los Angeles), Broad Art Museum (Michigan), and Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia (NYC). On June 15th, 2018 was the release of Drums and Drones: Decade, a 144 page book and triple album chronicling the project’s first ten years in sound/image/text. For more info visit www.chaikinrecords.com.

“This stuff will put your brain into another space, and frankly, recordings that can reliably do that don’t come down the pike every day.” -Bruce Russell, The Wire

“All the videos share an oneiric feeling, visually relating to something in between abstraction and reality. What emerges then is the contemplative characteristics of the sounds, reinforced by their respective animations, creating a perfect symbiosis and reflecting the compositional qualities connected with visual and emotional consequences.” -Neural.it

Brian Chase is a drummer and composer living in Brooklyn. His diverse range of work includes that with Grammy nominated rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the community of the New York experimental music scene, and his solo project Drums and Drones. Performances have taken him across the world to the Sydney Opera House (with Karen O’s Stop the Virgens and Nick Zinner’s 41 Strings), UK’s Reading and Leeds Festivals (with Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Toronto’s X Avant Festival (with Drums and Drones), and throughout NYC to such notable venues as The Stone, Pioneer Works, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Recorded works include several with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the 144 page book and triple album Drums and Drones: Decade, and albums with leading improvisors guitarist Alan Licht, clarinetist Jeremiah Cymerman, and accordionist/electronic musician Andrea Parkins, among more. Brian has held a performance residency at John Zorn’s venue The Stone in 2016 and an artist residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2015. In 2017, Brian was a visiting professor at Bennington College. Spring 2018 saw the launch of Brian’s record label, Chaikin Records.
www.chasebrian.com
www.chaikinrecords.com

Ursula Scherrer is a Swiss artist living in New York City. Her aesthetic training began with dance, transitioned to choreography and expanded to photography, video, text, mixed media and performance art. Her work has been shown at REDCAT (Los Angeles), Ideas City Festival of the New Museum (New York), The Clocktower Gallery (New York), Chelsea Art Museum (New York), Brooklyn Museum (New York), Seoul Square/Gana Art Gallery (South Korea), Organhaus (Chongqing, China), LACE (Los Angeles), City Center (New York), LAB (San Francisco), Würtemburgischer Kunstverein, (Stuttgart, Germany), Kunstraum Walcheturm, (Zürich, Switzerland) Raum (Bologna, Italy), Kunstraum (Krems, Austria), O’artoteca (Milan, Italy), Gasometer (Liechtenstein), Espai Ubu (Barcelona, Spain), Centre d’Art La Panera, (Lleida, Spain) among others.
www.ursulascherrer.com

 

The High Zero improvisors opening this night are Jeff Carey, who writes his own sound software and programs his own interfaces for playing, Jamal Moore who plays reeds and percussion, Rose Burt, reeds, M.C. Schmidt who plays synthesizers, samplers and percussion, CK Barlow who samples and processes other players as well as her own sounds. It is undecided, at this time, whether they will play together for thirty minutes, or in 3 ten-minute small groups. Perhaps you could tell us when you are there.

Event location:

The Red Room at Normals Books and Records 425 E. 31st Street Baltimore, MD 21218

The Red Room is a volunteer-run space in Baltimore dedicated to mind-expanding experimental culture, headquartered at Normals Books and Records.