Music Features

Booked solid

A week of deconstruction, dubstep, and drones

By SUSANNA BOLLE | October 3, 2008

The Bug

So many unusual sounds, so little time! This week there’s an array of shows featuring experimental music of all shapes and colors. It all starts tonight, October 2, with a live performance by filmmaker AMY GRANAT and electronic-musician STEFAN TCHEREPNIN at the Rose Art Museum in Waltham. So, how does one “perform” a film? Well, in Granat’s case, she projects her films (which she makes by scratching and etching directly onto the filmstock) and then manipulates and amplifies the sound of the scarred surface (the hisses, crackles, and pops) as it runs through the projector. She’ll collaborate with Tcherepnin, who will further manipulate the sounds using a classic Serge Modular Synthesizer (invented by his uncle, the famed instrument builder, Serge Tcherepnin).

Then on Saturday, venerable ribcage-rattling dubstep producer the BUG (a/k/a Kevin Martin) makes his long-awaited US debut at Good Life — he was slated to play here over the summer, but, yes, visa problems intervened. His latest album, London Zoo, features some of the UK’s finest toastmasters and vocalists, among them the amazing Jamaican-born MC WARRIOR QUEEN, who joins him here in Boston.

And on Wednesday, Sweden’s the SKULL DEFEKTS will play P.A.’s. Some of Scandinavia’s finest experimental musicians are Skulls, like Alvars Orkester’s Joachim Nordwall and former Union Carbide member Henrik Rylander. But don’t be put off by their pedigree; though they may be in thrall to droning repetition at high volume, they’re very much a rock band. Honest.

Related: Prodigal daughter, Review: ''Backstage Pass'' at the PMA, Keepin' it realtor, More

Prodigal daughter
When pianist Anastasia Antonacos walks into the coffee shop for our interview, it is clear even without a piano in the room why she has been so successful.
Review: ''Backstage Pass'' at the PMA
The half-century chronology covered by the Portland Museum of Art's latest exhibition, "Backstage Pass," reveals in photographic portraiture a story of music that is a euphemism for the ultimate creative act. Like sex, rock-and-roll is about surrender to the present moment.
Keepin' it realtor
There’s an old Saturday Night Live sketch — not, truth be told, one of the show’s funniest moments — called “Rock & Roll Real-estate Agent.”
Road show
Be warned, Hollywood: Eugene Mirman ain’t takin’ yo’ shit.
Jarvis Cocker | Further Complications
For his second solo album, the former Pulp frontman lays waste to his typically polished sound with the help of de-prettier Steve Albini.
A life in music
Why is that we install a stop light after an accident?
Shapeshifting
It’s a delicious surprise to find that Jose can get beyond the bedroom sound of Veneer , and by “get beyond,” I mean this guy can swing with a reckless, nerdy abandon that does nothing to rob him of his Nick Drake comparisons. Slideshow: Zero 7 at Avalon, September 12, 2006
Power suit
Claude Chabrol initiated the French New Wave with Le beau Serge and Les cousins, and for a decade after his work was as shiny as anyone’s.
‘Ice’ is nice
In culture-crazy Reykjavík, the city of 200,000 that spawned Björk, Icelanders have practically everything to get them through the cool-to-cold weather: a symphony orchestra, dance and theater companies, rock bands and poetry readings, and an astonishing number of Euro-hip galleries and art museums.
Flora, fauna, and the female figure
The Art Nouveau movement of the late-19th/early-20th century distanced itself from the mass production of the Industrial Revolution with elaborate, one-of-a-kind works made from unusual materials.
Last days of New Alliance
Wandering around the Fenway’s soon-to-be-demolished RFT building feels like spelunking through the bowels of Boston’s hard-rock scene.
Less

Topics: Music Features , Entertainment, Music, Movies, More

Comments

Add a Comment

view all

[ 10/16 ] "My So-Called 90s Night" @ Common Ground

[ 10/16 ] Jon Pousette-Dart Band + Alive n' Pickin' + Full Moon Revue @ Granite Links Golf Club

[ 10/16 ] "In Full Swing: A Cappella Concert" @ Sanders Theatre

[ 10/16 ] Zac Brown Band @ Agganis Arena

[ 10/16 ] White Rabbits + Here We Go Magic + DJ Frank White + DJ Mistaker + DJ Ghostdad @ Artists For Humanity

--> -->

ARTICLES BY SUSANNA BOLLE

ASSAULT AND BATTERIES | February 20, 2009
After a brief stint in Pittsburgh, guitarist and electronic musician GEOFF MULLEN is back in his native Rhode Island, and the New England music scene is so much the better for it.

SO MUCH IN STORE | February 10, 2009
Australia's the NECKS are the sort of band who thwart classification.

A COMPROVISATIONAL WHAT? | February 02, 2009
Local saxophonist and electronic-musician JORRIT DIJKSTRA combines a variety of styles ranging from jazz to electro-acoustic improv and noise to create his own emotive and often idiosyncratic music.

WINTRY MIX | January 26, 2009
There are so many interesting and unusual musical happenings this week, it's almost more than this little column can bear.

RARE FREQUENCIES: CALLITHUMPIAN CONSORT, THURSTON MOORE AND BILL NACE | January 20, 2009
Although composer JOHN CAGE is best known for 4'33" of silence, he could raise a ruckus when the mood struck.

See all articles by: SUSANNA BOLLE

Most Viewed

Most Emailed

HOW GAY IS SOUTHIE?
Welcome to the gayborhood.

REVIEW: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
I can’t speak for the kids, but I would rate Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s 40-page children’s picture book up there with Up and Wall•E as topping the recent renaissance in children’s movies. If pressed, I’d rank it close to The Wizard of Oz .

KHAZEI, LIKE A FOX?
If there is to be a candidate in the Massachusetts US Senate race who inspires the sort of grassroots, progressive following that propelled Governor Deval Patrick into office three years ago — an insurgent candidacy, if you will — it figures to be idealistic public-service advocate Alan Khazei, co-founder of City Year and founder of Be the Change, Inc.

REVIEW: LAW ABIDING CITIZEN
If a thousand BostonHerald.com commenters chained to a thousand typewriters produced a movie script, it would probably read an awful lot like F. Gary Gray’s vigilante-revenge thriller.

BOSS'S DAY
How to tick off the Man

HOW GAY IS SOUTHIE?
Welcome to the gayborhood.

KHAZEI, LIKE A FOX?
If there is to be a candidate in the Massachusetts US Senate race who inspires the sort of grassroots, progressive following that propelled Governor Deval Patrick into office three years ago — an insurgent candidacy, if you will — it figures to be idealistic public-service advocate Alan Khazei, co-founder of City Year and founder of Be the Change, Inc.

BURN, BABY, BURN
The Phoenix opposed President Barack Obama's efforts to help Chicago win the 2016 Summer Olympics on the grounds that doing business with the International Olympic Committee is always bad news for the host community.

LATTER DAY TAINT
Fifteen years ago, Glenn Beck was a small-market DJ with a drinking problem, no friends, and bleak professional prospects. Today, he’s a Fox News superstar averaging 2.4 million viewers, an inexorably successful author, and the leader of a popular movement that condemns government in general and President Barack Obama in particular.

AFGHANISTAN: JUST SAY NO!
The idea that the war in Afghanistan has reached a critical junction, a “now-or-never” moment that requires an additional 40,000 troops to win, is rubbish.

HOT TOPICS

Bob Dylan , Johannes Brahms , Boston Symphony Orchestra , Simon Rattle , David Hoose , Dicky Barrett , Amy Winehouse , Carla Bley , Trent Reznor , American League (Baseball)

Music Features

Booked solid

Re-taking a leak

An unstoppable force

The Big Hurt: A healthy death

Grown man rap

Anything and everything