Microscope is excited to present an in-person-only night of live sound by artists Kirin McElwain, Ka Baird, Molto Ohm (Matteo Liberatore), and HxH (Chris Williams & Lester St. Louis).
The evening will feature three approximately 30-minute long improvised sets by McElwain (cello, voice, electronics), HxH (trumpet, cello, electronics), and a collaboration of Molto Ohm’s Matteo Liberatore (video-projection, electronics) with Ka Baird (voice, electronics).
Program (in order of appearance):
Kirin McElwain
Approx. 30 minutes
Ka Baird + Molto Ohm w/visuals
Approx. 30 minutes
HxH
Approx. 30 minutes
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Kirin McElwain is a cellist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer working in the realms of improvised, experimental, and contemporary music. In her sound and compositional practice, she uses cello, modular synthesizer, and voice to explore the tension between formal structure and chaos, western classical harmony and noise, and ideas of “goodness” and “correctness".
Matteo Liberatore’s project Molto Ohm is a sonic and visual exploration of the interplay between digital life and social decay. In today's alluring digital world, we are merely users, to whom health, beauty, love, and connection are promised. But at what cost? In the end, we find ourselves alone, void of purpose yet still mindlessly scrolling, pulling furtively on a pane of glass, unable to break through. Utilizing a mixed palette of sporadic dance beats, seductive voices, synthetic melodies and environmental sound, the music deftly distills these experiences into arresting aural scenes. For the live experience, Molto Ohm plays next to a vertical screen projection that is complementing (or not…) the ideas expressed in the music, creating an immersive world of screen recordings, 360 footage, iPhone footage, and stock footage, in which the audience can get lost, amused, bewildered.
Ka Baird is a performer, sound artist, musician and composer based in New York City. They are known for their live performances which include extended voice and microphone techniques combined with electronics and psychoacoustic interplay of flutes and other woodwinds. They create a present tense sound with a vigorous, ritualistic delivery that seeks extreme release through physical exertion and psychic extension. They have worked/collaborated with many other musicians, artists, filmmakers and choreographers, both in structured compositions and in their dedicated practice of improvisation and interdisciplinary work.
HxH is the improvisatory electro-acoustic duo of Lester St. Louis and Chris Williams. The duo utilizes a mix of trumpet, cello and electronics to build worlds traversing through acoustic sound, grainy textures, expansive pools of sounds, breaks, cuts and beats. The approach is conceived as an expansiveness that holds a personal intimacy. HxH wants to bring the listeners in, tune them to the experience and take a long trip. HxH functions as a vehicle to bring together the mass of references and influences Chris and Lester share and create ways to crystalize those ideas in real, expanded time to an experience over minutes or hours.