ENVISION ENSEMBLE | Live at Berkeley Arts Festival | Hummingbird Records

For the second-ever performance by the ENVISION ENSEMBLE, the players expanded instrumentation and instrumental range, moving more fully into multi-dimensional “festival form”. The ENSEMBLE’s formal expansion more or less flips the concept of a usual approach to improvisation, that in which players “listen” to and complementarily match what other players are doing while only occasionally moving into an entirely independent space. The ENVISION ENSEMBLE begins in independent space. The players hear the whole as well as listen to the parts, creating beyond the strictures of standard complementarity. The intent is to fashion an experiential rather than compositionally logical totality. Continue reading

Tim Perkis | Noisy People

Noisy People is a new feature length video documentary, presenting portraits of eight sound artists and musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tim Perkis says about his film: “At first I thought I was simply stepping in to do a job I wished someone else had done, documenting a little-known musical scene with an interesting story. But it soon became clear that the film also touched upon a more basic question: what is the nature of a creative life, and how can one live it?” Continue reading

Opeye Orchestra | Live at Tuva Space

Thanks to the musicians who generously gave of their time and talents to breathe life into the OPEYE ORCHESTRA. Thanks to Eleanor Lindgren who provided Ben Lindgren’s painting “Exotic Jumble” for the performance and who took the orchestra photos. Thanks to Scott Looney who did the recording and mastering. Thanks to Michael Zelner for making copies of the results for each of the players. And thanks to Arjuna who invited the OPEYE ORCHESTRA to play at TUVA Space. — Henry Kuntz (May 2011) Continue reading