Boston's KFW visits Auckland
Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:22 pm

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An Alt.music presentation in association with ARTSPACE

Keith Fullerton Whitman, Dean Roberts + Guy Treadgold, and Pumice
$10, Saturday April 29, 2006, doors 8pm, starts 9pm
Westend Theatre, St James Complex, Lorne Street

KFW free artist talk, 1pm, Westend Theatre, Sat Apr 29

Alt.music is proud to present Boston's Keith Fullerton Whitman in Auckland as part of his April ROOM40 Australian tour. This visit coincides with the release of the Lisbon CD on American label Kranky. Brisbane label ROOM40 will also release an edition to accompany the tour - 'Track4 (twowaysuperimposed)' - some of KFW's most bass-heavy tone work to date. KFW is also known as legendary laptop composer (and sometime Greg Davis/Kid 606 sidekick) Hrvatski, his joyful/nutso/crazy hyper-programmed slice'n'dice laptop project.

Lisbon is a continuation of KFW's Playthroughs real-time processing guitar-and-electronics project. Recently he has been augmenting the pure-guitar sound(s) with a collection of small, battery-powered sound-devices and several tapes of "automatic synthesizer compositions" and field recordings from all over god's green earth. In addition, he places microphones and small speakers/FM receivers around the space, capturing the sounds as they occur at various points in the room, feeding them back through the central artery that is the max-msp-based playthroughs patch, then out again to any number of locations.

Keith Fullerton Whitman started his path through music at an early age (9) by intentionally 'versioning' Commodore Vic20 basic sound programs to yield raw computer-speak skronk. Growing up at record-collector fairs throughout northern New Jersey in the late 80s, Keith had access to just about every type of underground music imaginable, declaring allegiances early on to European free improvisation, progressive and psychedelic rock, breakdance-themed urban machine music, the post World War II orchestral avant garde, and the early electronic experiments of the WDR and INA-GRM camps. A guitarist from the age of ten, Whitman studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music where, in the early 1990's he discovered contemporary post techno. During the day he worked in the studio on his academic work, and the late evening and night he devoted to his youthful, beat-oriented pieces.

Dean Roberts + Guy Treadgold
Although currently residing in Auckland, New Zealand-born guitarist and composer Dean Roberts has spent much of the last decade in Europe. His latest release is under the guise of the Autistic Daughters, a group that also features Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmayr. The seven tracks on the trio's debut, Jealousy and Diamond, continue the exploration and mutation of the rock song Roberts undertook on his seventh solo album, Be Mine Tonight, which was also released by kranky and demonstrated a move from electronic texturing into songwriting and arrangements, combining rock music and sound manipulation. Playing with the Autistic Daughters, under the White Winged Moth alias or under his own name, he has toured extensively in the US, Europe and China, and released material on various labels (including Mille Plateaux, Erstwhile, kranky, and his own Formacentric label). For his Alt.music appearance, Roberts will debut a new project featuring Guy Treadgold on percussion.

Pumice
Since the 2004 release of his Raft album on US label Last Visible Dog, Pumice (aka Stefan Neville) has been wowing audiences around the world with his one-man-band broken-sound performances and recordings. Subsequent releases include Worldwide Skull (Audiobot), Spears (Pseudoarcana) and Yeahnahvienna (Soft Abuse), the latter two resulting from a residency last year at Vienna interdisciplinary arts institute, Quartier 21. Described as "a shipwreck in slow motion" by Pavement magazine, Pumice was formed in Hamilton by Stefan Neville and Sugar Jon Arcus in 1991. Existing in various forms and towns since then, these days it's usually Stefan by himself as he struggles to be the whole band. Neville is also responsible for the drum-monster rhythms that propel Chris Knox's new act, The Nothing.

Alt.music is an ongoing series of events, regularly bringing a vital injection of contemporary sound art from around the world to Auckland. Founded by Auckland gallery ARTSPACE and now organised in conjunction with the Audio Foundation, Alt.music began as an international festival of experimental music and sound art in 2001, followed by successive festivals in 2002 and 2004. Previous Alt.Music artists include Peter Rehberg, Pan Sonic, Tetuzi Akiyama, Jon Rose, Voice Crack, Sachiko M, Francisco Lopez, Pierre Bastien, Oren Ambarchi, Alan Licht Richard Nunns and the Dead C.

Alt.music is supported by ARTSPACE and Columbard. ARTSPACE receives significant funding from Creative New Zealand.

http://www.keithfullertonwhitman.com/
http://www.mimaroglumusicsales.com/
http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/article.php?article=850#
http://www.kranky.net/
http://www.audiofoundation.org.nz/

ARTSPACE
Level 1, 300 Karangahape Road, Newton
PO Box 68418, Newton, Auckland, New Zealand
phone +64 9 3034965
fax +64 9 3661842
http://www.artpace.org.nz/

ARTSPACE is a charitable trust whose mission is to present cutting edge contemporary art. ARTSPACE receives major public funding from Creative New Zealand. Join the crusade, become an ARTSPACE member.