#bryan day

*** TRUST LOST MUSIC SERIES ***

SEEDED PLAIN (Bryan Day and Jay Kreimer) 

May 25, 2010 

Today we look back at last week’s show at Canessa Gallery in San Francisco, featuring Elliott Sharp, Tania Chen + Wobbly, and Euphotic. This show was the subject of CatSynth TV Episode 8, and you can see and hear a bit of each set.

We were quite pleased to see Elliott Sharp. We saw him back in the 1990s, but it’s been a while since he made it to the Bay Area.

He has a unique and idiosyncratic sound, with fast runs, harmonics, and extended techniques, along with electronics. The electronics, which appeared to include some looping, sampling, and delay, did not overpower his guitar playing, and the individual gestures, from frenetic fingerpicking to expressive scratches, came through strongly. Although his style is unusual, it is still quite melodic and harmonic, something that comes out particularly in a solo-performance setting.

The evening opened with Euphotic, a trio project featuring Tom Djll (electronics, trumpet), Cheryl Leonard (instruments from natural found objects) and Bryan Day (invented instruments).

The sound was subtle and detailed, with a lot of short sounds clustering like schools of fish. Djll’s electronics bridged the space between Cheryl Leonard’s organic sounds and Bryan Day’s more chiseled electro-acoustic creations. There was also a quality in Day’s performance that foreshadowed Elliott Sharp’s sound and style later in the evening.

Euphotic was followed by a duo featuring Tania Chen on electronics, voice and found objects, with Wobbly (aka Jon Leidecker) on electronics. He had an array of iPads linked together.

The performance centered around “Feasibility Study”, an episode of the television show Outer Limits, slowed down beyond recognition. Chen’s vocals and found-object performance featured material and ideas from the episode, including chomping on biscuits and pop rocks to represent the rock-like aliens in the video. She also performed a melodic section on an iPad, which complemented Leidecker’s complex electronic processing. His sounds were slower and more undulating, providing an eerie setting for the overall performance.

We had a great time at this show, as did the rest of the audience that filled Canessa Gallery to capacity. We look forward to more interesting music from these artists and from this venue. And thanks to Bryan Day for continuing to host this series.

ocean of lakes, free psychic communications in six parts. improvised and recorded in a house in richmond, california. bass guitar, kalimba, voice, invented instruments, trumpet, modular synthesizer and cello. sound slab shift. voice with controlled feedback. grain grit. string bell.

sabrina siegel – free improviser/composer/visual artist, awareness of the relationship of body/expression with nature/chance in the creation of works.

bryan day – improviser/instrument inventor/installation artist, combining elements of the natural and man-made world, parallels between patterns and systems in nature and those in society.

tom djll – develops the trumpet’s wide array of extended techniques, incorporates complex noises, grit, melodic gestures, asymmetrical formal structures, lifelong study of improvised music.

bob marsh – shaping sounds words images ideas, currently active with solo work involving violin, voice and tap shoes; cello; accordion; vibraphone; electronics.

get the album here!