52nd City

The Eric Hall Invasion

Eric Hall, South City's most active catalyst for experimental music, has a few events coming up in coming weeks, including one this weekend. We'll reprint the this weekend's event first, then note a neat event coming up in May.

From Radio Cherokee:

ERIC HALL (beautiful electronic soundscapes) will open for VOLTAGE (chicago). VOLTAGE has been doing vocal-less rock numbers for the past few years. with only drums and guitar, home made electronics fill in the gaps. their most recent recording was released on flameshovel records. www.voltage.camp-gay.org headliners PARKERS BACK bring it with improvised toe tappers. drums, keys, guitar. of the improvised stuff, they're top of the heap!!!!

sat april 8 doors 9pm all ages
www.radiocherokee.net
radio cherokee is located at
3227 cherokee st. @ virgina
st. louis mo 63118

From Eric:

As some of you already know, I have been curating an annual performance/installation for the last few years at Dunaway Books on S. Grand
Ave. in St. Louis, Mo. This year's edition will be each Thursday in the month of May, from 8-10pm. We are adding another element to the series this year, but in case you are not familiar with the initial idea behind these events, I will give you a quick explanation: the series is called Ancora il Più Estinto, which roughly translates from Italian to "play as softly as possible", which is the only guideline for the performers. For each of the four nights there will be a different collection of musicians, typically about 10-20, scattered throughout the bookstore playing simultaneously and "as softly as possible". The store has a large ground floor with several isolated corners and nooks, as well as a mezzanine and large basement. With the performers all playing at especially low volumes while tucked away into their own spaces, it removes the idea of a singular audience
perspective and lets people roam the space freely to create their own unique
experience, all while looking at books if they choose. The acoustics of the space makes it fascinating to hear the shifts and blends of sounds as you change vantages. The performers are free to play for the entire two hours or only portions of the event so they can move around the store and check it out for
themselves. Some performers have participated in multiple evenings each year, which is great, but I do try to have a loose calendar for the month so we do not wind up with 35 performers one week and 3 the next. So, for those choosing to be involved, be prepared to casually commit to one or more nights. The instrumentation is always quite varied; acoustic and electric guitar
and bass often played using treatments and extended techniques, vocals and
field recordings being processed live, synths, bent electronics, samplers, trombones, toys, turntables, cellos, saxophones, bells, bowls, laptops...
you probably get the idea. In addition to the live performers, many
people have created sound-sculptures (Matt Harnish made an awesome automaton chime from a turntable and suspended metals, I have brought multiple cages of crickets set about to respond to the sounds), interactive environments (Robert Goetz used motion sensors to trigger quiet sounds as people walked past one area, Ben West placed contact mics on the duct work and Joseph Potthoff put them on the stairs, Jeremy Brantlinger performed
electronic sounds that were projected through PVC pipes atop the shelves), and
prepared CDs (Ben Hanna created a CD with sparse small talk which many people in the room actually thought was someone behind the shelves addressing them, Brett Underwood recorded a diatribe on literacy that played from small speakers hidden in one shelf). So long as they are quiet and do not overwhelm the other sounds, that is all very welcome. In fact, I have been contacted already by people with some very creative ideas for this year. Of
course, anyone would have to bare in mind that this is a store and we cannot do any permanent installation or modification to the space, so if you are
thinking of something like this think compact and mobile. The event is free, open to all ages (in fact, many toddlers have come by and been totally engaged by it), and the store will be open to continue selling books and CDs.