11pm - 1:30am
$8 donation
from Indiana:
The Unstable Ensemble
opening:
Mike Bullock - bass
The Unstable Ensemble
Jason Bivins - electric guitar
Matt Griffin - percussion
Marty Belcher - soprano sax
Eric Weddle - mixing-board / tapes
Ian Davis - percussion
The Unstable Ensemble is a fully free-improvising electro-acoustic “avant
jazz” group working in abstract terms of drifting ambience and melody. Often
creating meterless drift and magnifying minute details while pulling out
tufts of subtle form at times, the UE also forges into deeply layered noise
and textures. Originally formed in Bloomington, Indiana in 199 by guitarist
Jason Bivins the group’s membership is constantly evolving and scattered
between Bloomington and Raleigh, NC all the while maintaining a core of
four. For the June 2003 tour — our third — the line-up will be the core of
four: Jason Bivins (electric guitar), Matt Griffin (percussion), Marty
Belcher (soprano sax) Eric Weddle (mixing-board / tapes) with special guest
Ian Davis (percussion), leader of the Micro-East Collective.
The Unstable Ensemble has released two albums on Family Vineyard. A third
album is due this fall.
“The Liturgy of Ghosts,” the UE’s second album released in late 2002, found
the Ensemble mid-stride into their three-year life span by distinctively
sculpting a towering tectonic merging of massive planes and melodic spikes
which are absorb into the molting. Paying minute attention to the behavior
of sound, and the haze of natural distortion, magnified white blots and the
clicks and ticks of electronics, the UE blurs any lines between the notions
of Jazz, Improvisation and New Music.
“The Unstable Ensemble’s “styles covered range from the elegiac, wistful
tones through sparser territory of the sort more usually encountered on the
fringes of the European free improv avant-garde. The Unstable Ensemble, in
fact, is one of the few working American bands capable of operating at such
a high level in this area of improvisation.” — Brian Olewnick, All Music
Guide
“Soprano saxophonist Marty Belcher, baritone saxophonist Joe Donnelly and
guitarist Jason Bivins have developed a contrapuntal language with episodes
of sparse, meterless drift. They all work well together, but it’s the horn
players’ imaginative and responsive use of the music’s shifting spaces that
keeps me engaged.” — Bill Meyer, Magnet
“The points of reference remain AMM, an icon for many who examine jazz
through a contemporary lens, and above all the always-praiseworthy ensembles
Polwechsel, Zeitkratzer, and Dachte Music. This is jazz that deforms itself
into chamber music, that hops around and babbles over strings and keys. It
gives way every so often to dry, lunar be-bop, it sometimes holds court in a
kingdom that smacks of folk somewhere between “Sketches of Spain” and
“Jajouka,” and it even succeeds in transforming itself into perfect
compositions that we never could have foreseen.” - Blow Up (Italy)
Unstable Ensemble: http://fvrec.com/unstableensemble
Production: Mike Bullock - mbullock@earthlink.net