THE ELECTRIC POSSIBLE: June 1, 2008

Since I tend to write capsule reviews of experimental music performances in DC, I suppose a recap of Sunday's event is in order, since I'd been hyping it for a few weeks. And not to toot my own (so to speak) but it was an enjoyable return to live performance after some time spent away from the muse... (& thanks to Marian for shootin' it)

The venue was a classroom in the basement of GWU's Phillips Hall, and even with acoustic buffers in the ceiling, it was a challenge to do any delicate mixing: The whole thing was mixed based on the reverberating roar of noise bouncing off the back of the room. But the PA seemed plenty loud enough, at least.

Mine (Blue Sausage Infant) was a 25-minute improvised set that began with darkly ambient tones and vocals, which mounted into a frenzy of rhythmic self-indulgence. Case in point:


It can be quite fun to amplify and distort the shit out of a pink toy guitar and violate it with an electric razor for a while, as a bhangra drum loop, short-wave static, tremolo-distorted harmonica loops, and moog synth waves do their thing on auto-pilot...

Eventually, the freakout wound down, and returned to the mellow dreamy stuff, with native american flute layered over breathing loops and meditation instructions... Totally self-indulgent and ripping good fun.


Next up was Field Shaman, whose expansive sonic textures filled the room with equal parts sound and silence, sweetness and tension... Using only guitar, cello, vocals, and a b'zillion effect pedals.


The effected cello provided a phasing wind for the guitar's rhythmic patterns and whispered words; very heady stuff; zero-gravity music. Calm, menacing, melancholy, and spacious.


Closing the show was Violet, with a typically minimal-yet-intense wall of sound, using the trusty turntable-with-aluminum foil (i think), autoharp, effects, and whatever-the-heck else he had hidden behind the podium. It began with a blistering, strong carpet of hairy, throbbing, rolling noise, chopping into quieter passages, building layers of turntable crackles and pops, eventually building a final mountain of roaring tones and piercing frequencies before the whole thing stopped suddenly...

A damned fine evening. Many thanks to Jeff Bagato for hosting the event, and for providing an outlet for unique local music. Further Blue Sausage Infant activities will be announced here. And for more info on future Electric Possible events, dig the site here.

THIS SUNDAY: Bringing the noise

Just a reminder: You have plans this Sunday night in Georgetown.

The Electric Possible's organizer Jeff Bagato tags these events a "mad monthly laboratory for Promethean sound experiments" and that seems accurate.

But this weekend's event is crucial:

Your intangible narrator is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the BLUE SAUSAGE INFANT project, which began in a tiny apartment on 16th Street in 1988, with only a guitar, some aluminum ducts, a toy drum-kit, an open-reel tape machine, and a plastic Casio sampler. The equipment has changed since then, but the mission is still, simply, to build a hypnotic swirl of improvised music, and to have insane fun while doing it.

After several relocations across the country, the INFANT is back home and making hypno-surrealist noise in DC again, using a mix of electronics, weird acoustics, and whatever else I can find...

Also up is VIOLET, who's approach to drone and noise-music has been legendary in the DC area (and elsewhere, via overseas tours) for decades. And FIELD SHAMAN creates vast carpets of ambient soundscapes, using voice, cello, guitar, and ??? -- All highly recommended.

Details on the when-and-what on the flyer above. Click it for a higher-resolution version. And I'll see you at the 'Possible.

BSI to be reborn on June 1

I was active in the DC experimental music scene in the mid to late '80s: Played a bunch of shows at venues that no longer exist (DC Space, BBQ Iguana) and a few that DO still exist (DC Arts Center, Takoma Park planetarium, WMUC, the Alternatives Festival in Dupont Circle). It was a vibrant and creative time for local noise bands and avant garde improvisers.

After moving to upstate NY, live performances dwindled (Syracuse isn't much of a "psychedelic noise" town), so I retreated to the home studio. I played just one show during that period: a collaborative effort with NYC's Changes to Blind, at the Last Exit in Troy, NY (another great venue lost to history). Moved to Tucson, and by 2001, all music had stopped. Even coming back to DC didn't break the inertia.

Fast-forward to 2008.

An epiphany struck: The first cassette I did as Blue Sausage Infant (Trance Warfare) was born in the winter of 1988. Jesus, that's...twenty years, innit? Suddenly, the prospect of BSI having a 20th anniversary seemed profound enough to kick up the noise once again.

It's evolving every day, but the new sound of BSI is louder and stranger; more disorienting, blissful, self-indulgent, and FUN than it ever was before. This is music for swaying on the floor like an idiot while drooling on your shoes and letting your pupils dilate until they swallow the room in a pool of sticky black shadows. And that's before the fleet of jellied owls begin vomiting fire into the air and making tiny constellations and galaxies with the burning embers.... dig?

Dig!

Anyway: The rebirth will be June 1st at The Electric Possible, which is a monthly series of experimental music events at George Washington University. El Possible has been going on consistently for five years already, on the first Sunday of each month. See the poster above for show details (click the dirty space koala for magnification).

Also on the bill is Violet, who has been a comrade of BSI since the early days. In fact he's the only one from that circle who's been making music all this time. The Violet sound can be lo-fi loops and drones, or blistering walls of distorted noise...but always very satisfying. I haven't seen Field Shaman yet, but what evidence I've heard online is very promising. This could be a new Golden Age for DC experimental music.

So be brave. Descend into the bowels of Georgetown on Sunday, June 1st. The consciousness expansion begins at 8pm sharp.

There. Shameless self-promotion now concludes. Samples of older, less relevant BSI can be found here.