December 21, 2007
visuals by Marge
MIKRONESIA is a Philadelphia-based producer, composer and musician. Since 1999 he has been playing in clubs, parties and galleries around the city both as a keyboardist and as a laptop based performer and DJ. From 2000-2003 he was the leader, producer and keyboardist for the Philly based live electronica ensemble Robots in Disguise. Post-Robots, Mikronesia has been doing free lance production and performance, concentrating on lending his ambient and glitch skills to artists from all musical genres.
ISABEL
Audrey Chen is a chinese-american musician and performance artist born outside of chicago in 1976. using the cello, voice and analog electronics, chen’s work focuses on the combination and layering of traditional and extended techniques. a large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is often extremely personal and visceral. her performance work incorporates sound, movement and visual/sculptural concepts. chen performs solo and in collaboration with a wide number of musicians and dancers. Among musicians, she has worked with many great improvisers, including phil minton, elliott sharp, aki onda, phill niblock, alessandro bosetti, mike cooper, mats gustafsson, sten sandell, mazen kerbaj, michael zerang, tatsuya nakatani, assif tsahar, scott rosenberg, le quan ninh, joe mcphee, susan alcorn, michele doneda, paolo angeli, and gianni gebbia. some current projects include duos with gianni gebbia, alessandro bosetti and nate wooley. the SILO trio with nate wooley and leonel kaplan. and Trockeneis with andy hayleck, dan breen, catherine pancake and paul neidhardt. chen has performed in europe, russia, australia, new zealand, china, japan, taiwan and the USA. She is currently based in Baltimore, MD USA where she is member of the red room and high zero collective, an on-going series and international festival devoted to experimental improvised music.
Katt Hernandez has recently moved to Philadelphia, after living in the Boston area for nine years, playing the violin, running spaces, and producing shows. She immediately became involved in performances with Bowerbird, Soundfield, Ars Nova, and Nicole Bindler's Dance Ensemble upon her arrival. Over the last year, Katt has also toured the U.S. with Vashti Bunyan, and most recently also with Vetiver. Before leaving Boston, she participated in the Voltaic Vaudeville festival, wherein she played Solo, with butoh dancer Jennifer Hicks, and as part of the Beat Circus Vaudeville Orchestra. Focused primarily on freely improvised music, Katt draws a firey array of electronic-like sounds and keening melodies from her completely accoustic violin. She also works extensively with microtonality, drawn from a study of a mixture of sources, including traditional folk and sacred musics of the Middle East, Turkey, and Eastern Europe, various odd-ball whisps of old Americana, and the Maneri/Sims 72 note system. Playing with as wide and unexpected a variety of other performers as possible is tantamount to her sonic and spiritual pursuits. She has also played music of the late Ottman empire and Whirling Dervish ceremonies with the Eurasia Ensemble. She spent some time playing old-time, vaudeville, and early jazz tunes with Matt Somalis (a.k.a. Shoe) whilst channelling the spirit of Amelia Earhart in the duo Lindy's Radio. And she also plays the mysterious incarnation of a disturbing cartoon character in the frightening music and performance art duo Dr. Selenium and Madame Margo. In fact, she plays somewhere for somebody at least weekly, come hell or high water.
ALKA: Experimenting in a genre largely criticized for it's lack of emotion, alka blends styles to create music that is both melancholic and uplifting; synthetic yet melodic. Alka's music is vast enough to go well with wide open spaces or condensed urban settings... it is the place where lucidity and obscurity meet.
M.A.D.: Drawing from 20+ years of musical experience, Mark DeCheser AKA MAD seeks to combine all of his musical endeavors into one all-encompassing electronic palette with his latest and greatest solo project. From his punk and progressive rock roots through his avant garde jazz explorations, Mark has acquired a massive selection of musical colors which he uses to paint electronic pictures. His most recent projects of note include Leafblower (downtempo IDM), The Sidecar Allstars (jazz/avant garde trio), and as a resident with Broketronica and Inciting Productions.
MARGE has been a video artist/ VJ since 2000. Large Marge started using Vjing Avant-Garde footage, Commericals, Stop Motion Animation, 70's and 80's videos, Found Films and more to create live projections for DJ's and bands. I then starting only using Public Domain footage to manipulate collages in Final Cut Pro, which eventually led to tweaking these live using AVMIXER and a MAC. I have recently been working using old slide projectors and slides, manipulating SUPER 8 film by coloring, bleaching, and scratching onto the film, oil projections, and only using footage I shot.
