Altmusic announces 2010 programme

Altmusic announces 2010 programme

Established in 2001 and now organized by committees in every major city in New Zealand under the Audio Foundation, Altmusic is an ongoing series of audio events, regularly bringing a vital injection of contemporary and experimental music from around the world to New Zealand. This year, the programme continues with each city curating its own event and touring this around NZ.

Altmusic is pleased to announce its 2010 programme of international touring artists:

BILL ORCUTT (US)

Auckland: Wednesday May 19 - Venues/Support TBA Wellington: Thursday May 20 - TBA Dunedin: Friday May 21 - w / Gate & Eye @ Chicks Hotel, Port Chalmers Christchurch: 8pm Saturday May 22 - w/ White Saucer & Bruce Russell @ HSP, 84 Lichfield Street. $10

Bill Orcutt emerged as one of the most influential guitar players of the 1990s, alongside drummer Adris Hoyos in the seminal Miami-based free rock band, Harry Pussy, their half-decade existence throwing up a boutique of caustic masterpieces alongside equally luminary cohorts on labels including Chocolate Monk (Richard Youngs, Incapacitants, Bruce Russell) and Siltbreeze (Charalambides, Guided By Voices, The Shadow Ring), but their volatile, calamitous sound has remained their matchless own.

Orcutt’s unanticipated return with the 2009 self-released 7", ‘High Waisted’ and his late-2009 LP, ‘A New Way To Pay Old Debts’, was an exhilarating reincarnation of the rambunctious automatism and hair-trigger ferocity that pervaded Harry Pussy’s earlier, combustible missives. In Mimaroglu’s words, the latter recording ‘let loose a pan-trajectorial spray of freedom-inflected guitar histrionics, captured gloriously in a room-tone / blown-amp fidelity’. Its un-building of a noise-blues vernacular invoked the equally insubordinate spirits of the late Derek Bailey and John Fahey, and the delta bros, Fred McDowell and Joseph Spence, and was a universal, underground heir of album of the year, appearing on The Wire magazine’s Rewind list next to Oneohtrix Point Never and Broadcast.

RUINS ALONE (JP)

Christchurch: 8pm Wednesday 9 June - w/ Peter Wright & Grunge Genocide Drum Pentagram Dunedin: Thursday 10 June - Support TBA @ Chicks Hotel, Port Chalmers Auckland: Friday 11 June - Details TBA Wellington: Saturday 12 June - Details TBA

Variously described as the undisputed master drummer of the Japanese Underground, a rhythm section gone ballistic, trekker of the outer limits of weirdness and doctor of psychic polyrhythms, Yoshida Tatsuya is the protagonist of the erstwhile, hyperactive, prog-punk, hardcore, art rock, heavy metal, disco, psych and funk, drums and bass duo, RUINS.

As a central force of the effervescent Japanese underground, Yoshida has recorded and performed prolifically with a host of equally significant and influential acts, including guitar legend, Derek Bailey, Makoto Kawabata and Acid Mothers Temple, K.K. Null, Elton John collaborator, Elton Dean, Ground Zero’s Mitsuru Nasuno, Fushitsusha’s Keiji Haino, Bondage Fruit’s Kubota Aki, Boredoms’ Seiichi Yamamoto and ‘Senzuri’ champion, Juntaro Yamanouchi’s seminally transgressive Gerogerigegege.

Since reforming RUINS ALONE as a solo project, replete with manically express bass-lines triggered by a sampler (a suitable partner), and his own adrenaline-fuelled voice, Yoshida's project has become a flickering apparition of piled-up beats and stratified riffs that unfold at a staggeringly blistering speed. For his live audience, it’s a breathtaking prospect.

TOMUTONTTU (FI)

Auckland: Friday 17 September - Details TBA Wellington: Saturday 18 September - Details TBA Dunedin: Details TBA Christchurch: Details TBA

Tomutonttu is the solo project of Jan Anderzén, a visual artist and musician from Tampere, Finland, whose pivotal role in Kemialliset Ystävät and collaborative raids in Avarus and Anaksimandros has - alongside Fonal label colleagues, Es, Paavoharju, Kuupuu, Islaja, Fricara Pacchu, Lau Nau and Shogun Kunitoki - elevated the Finnish experimental underground into a Renaissance-like state, its cross-pollinating telepathy producing some of the most acclaimed records and performances since the mid 2000s, while setting a universal example for communal musical exploration.

The most prolific of the Fonal stable and its related tributaries, Anderzen’s music has also appeared on labels such as Ultra Eczema (Lucky Dragons & Yacht, Orphan Fairytale, Wolf Eyes), Fat Cat (Animal Collective, Black Dice, Múm), Dekorder (Richard Youngs, Xela) Lal Lal Lal (The Skaters, Javelin, Keijo), Jewelled Antler (Skygreen Leopards, Steven R. Smith) and Imvated/Taped Sounds (Christina Carter, The Futurians, Ignatz, Thurston Moore, Magik Markers). In 2008, Anderzén toured and recorded on the Approximately Infinite Universe Tour: A Caravan of Raw Sound Magic from Finland and the US, with Blevin Blectum, Axolotl, Sumara Lubelski, Fursaxa and members of The Skaters and No Neck Blues Band. He has also held workshops and played a series of concerts for school children at the planetarium of his hometown.

RICHARD YOUNGS (UK)

Auckland: Thursday 28 October - Details TBA Wellington: Saturday 20 October - Details TBA Dunedin: Friday 5 November - Details TBA Christchurch: Saturday 6 November - Details TBA

Richard Youngs is one of the most acclaimed, chameleon-like explorers of modern music, traversing a diverse set of distinctive and multi-instrumental forms that encompass avant-folk, psychedelic drone, progressive minimalism, lysergic pop, and rock concréte.

While recording with an array of various collaborators, including Jandek, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Neil Campbell of Astral Social Club, Alastair Galbraith, Matthew Bower of Sunroof, and Makoto Kawabata of Acid Mothers Temple, and appearing on a slew of labels such as VHF (Jack Rose, Pelt, Aethenor, Sandra Bell) and Table of the Elements (John Cale, Fennesz, John Fahey, SunnO)))’s Stephen O’Malley, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, Rhys Catham, Faust), Youngs has been reticent as a live performer, playing only a handful of occasions between 2006-2008, at Thurston Moore’s All Tomorrows Parties in 2006, and alongside Jandek and Heather Leigh Murray on European tours.

It is thus a rare and special opportunity to witness in person what Melody Maker has described as the ‘grand-meister of contemporary British improv, spiritual son of Eddie Prevost and Maddy Prior; gentle manipulator of English hymn-notics and religious incantations; protégé, challenger and radicaliser of folk, blues, rock, minimalism and improvisation’.

Altmusic would like to acknowledge the support of Creative New Zealand. For further information, please visit: altmusicnz2010.blogspot.com. To join the mailing list, please email: altmusicchc@gmail.com

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