DIFFUSION Festival (our sixth) takes place in two locations this year, at our year ’round home at the Red Room at Normals Books and on the second weekend at 2640 St. Paul Street.

This second night SATURDAY THE 11th of November is at The Red Room.

LIVE multichannel synthesis will be performed by Matthew Ryals

and

4 fixed media pieces will be played. Work by

• John Berndt

• Remst8

• Katt Hernandez

•iD M Theft able

For some of these composers, it’s their first multichannel piece, others have been making this form of sound art for decades.

All these concerts will be presented in what is called by contemporary hi fi enthusiasts, “8.4” which is to say there are eight separately addressable speakers and 4 separately addressable “sub-woofers” for low frequency sounds. Different artists in different compositions use this capability in different ways.

These evenings require nothing more than engaged listening, no education or foreknowledge is necessary for enjoyment…though you might want the foreknowledge that we will only provide folding chairs, you might want to bring a butt-pillow, or a bean bag chair, or a joga mat and a blanket? You are welcome to lay on the floor if you’d like…

There will be almost no visual accompaniment, light show or videos.

Please join us, all four nights for this, the

• • • • • • Cinema for the ear! • • • • • •

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Now for the curious and research driven, some biographical data about some of the artists and in some cases, links to other work.

Matthew Ryals is a musician + educator based in New York, NY.

Primarily working with a modular synthesizer, his music explores generative composition, improvisation, cybernetics, and unfixed forms. Currently, his research investigates human-machine collaboration and the co-authorship of the resultant material. Tiny Mix Tapes has described his music as “filter[ing] the emotion of the human experience through the cold circuitry of electronics”.

He has releases on Oxtail Recordings (Sydney), sound as language (Carolinas), dingn/dents (Seoul), Post Season Franchise Records (NYC), Low Hanging Fruit (Cologne), and Behind Glass (NYC).

https://matthewryals.bandcamp.com/album/generative-etudes-vol-1-0

John Berndt (born 1967) is a musician and organizer based in Baltimore, Maryland who is best known as an extended-technique experimental saxophonist and electronic musician. He participated in the second wave of the neoism cultural movement, the first wave having consisted of Monty Cantsin, Istvan Kantor, and Blaster Al Ackerman, amongst many others. Berndt’s participation in Neoism began after the 1st eight Neoist Apartment Festivals (1980 to 1984) during the “64th International Neoist Apartment Festival” in 1986 in Berlin and subsequently in the “One Millionth” in New York City in late 1988 and the “13th” in Paris in 1994. Conceptual work by Berndt was shown at Documenta X, in Kassel, in 1997.

https://www.johnberndt.org/relabi/index.html

Remst8 is a mild-mannered engineering type by day, dabbling as an experimental computer musician when spare time and motivation allow. This on-again/off-again affair began in the early ’90s using tracker programs and curiosity-fueled trial and error. (Which is still an accurate description today…)

https://remst8.com

Katt Hernandez is a composer, improvisor, violinist, producer and artistic  researcher. She moved to Stockholm in 2010, and rapidly began working with  many artists and new music organizations. In addition to solo violin work, she co-founded The Schematics and Deuterium Quartet, and has worked with a  host of musicians and others in Europe’s improvised, electronic and  experimental music and sound art scenes. After earning a Masters degree in composition from Sweden’s Royal College of Music, she began a PhD in Music  at Lund university in 2015, and was also employed at the Royal College of Music as part of Klas Nevrin’s 3-year research project Music in Disorder, as well asLotte Anker’s research project and ensemble subhabitat at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in  Copenhagen. She has more recently played in Elsa Bergman’s Playon Crayon group, the Kontrapunkt/Counterpointing project with violinists Anna Lindal, Biliana Voutchovka and Eva Lindal and visual artist and filmmaker Lisskula Moltke-Hoff,   the Fire! Orchestra, led by Mats Gustafsson,, the Ljudtornet collective and with other artists like Jakob Anderskog, Rotem Geffen, Ville Bromander, Karin Hellkvist, John Andrew Wihlite-Hannisdal, Peter Söderberg, Sarah Buchner and Christian Rønn. Her work has been featured on festivals, series, museums, conferences and radio stations throughout the world. Before leaving the U.S.,  Katt was a 13 year veteran of experimental music scenes on the east coast, where she worked with a vast array of musicians, dancers, visual artists, puppeteers, film makers and performance artists, in venues ranging from underground urban art spaces to ivy league concert halls.

https://www.discogs.com/seller/katthernandez/profile

iDM Theftable

id m theft able performs within and without the realms of noise, > avant-improvisation, sound poetry, performance, et c. et c. et c. > using voice, found objects, electronics, and whatever else is > available…… > > He has given over a thousand performances across 4 continents, in 40 > countries in settings ranging from the scummiest of squats to the > fanciest of festivals.

https://idmtheftable.bandcamp.com/album/l-e-t-t-i-n-g-s

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Join us for this second night and hear these unique works and listen in a way that you simply cannot at home. Doors open to the bookstore at 8pm and the music begins at 8:30. Seating is first come, first served at the door. A finite number of people can be seated, we’re sorry to say! Please bring cash as it’s VERY cumbersome for us to use digital monies.

Event location:

The Red Room at Normal's Books and Records 425 East 31st St. Baltimore, MD