Elastic Arts

This month’s Valentine’s Day CLEAT Series is packed with unique approaches to spatial audio, featuring four performances from a diverse range of composers. Chicago-based artists Lola Ayisha Ogbara and Andres L. Hernandez perform as the group Two Halves. They regularly employs improvisation, sampling, collage, and chance for their audio-visual experimentation, and taps into rich legacies of creative, intellectual, and spiritual practices across the African diaspora. Jack Hamill (he/him) is a multimedia artist focused on sound. His creative practice ranges across electro-acoustic music, noise, experimental film, digital visual art, and more. In this set he’ll be using a supercollider patch based on Frequency Modulation (FM) synthesis to create vibrant worlds of sound, resonating with electricity across the frequency spectrum. Felipe Tovar-Henao is a US-based multimedia artist, developer, and researcher whose work explores computer algorithms as expressive tools for human and post-human creativity, cognition, and pedagogy. His music is often motivated by and rooted in transformative experiences with technology, philosophy, and cinema, and it frequently focuses on exploring human perception, memory, and recognition. Born in Guangdong, China, Zouning Anne Liao is a composer, electronic music improviser, and sound artist whose work draws inspiration from nature and noise. She is passionate about DIY electronics and enjoys field recording in the woods. This CLEAT Series is one not to miss. A perfect Valentine’s Day date, or just come bask in the love of our CLEAT community. 8pm start!

TONIGHT! At this second edition of Pianist and a Partner (Perhaps) we have Justin Dillard w/ Anisha Rush, Anaiet Soul, Julian Davis Reid w/ Tramaine Parker, Angelo Hart, and hosted by the one and only Sharon Udoh. Sharon will perform a short set with experimental turntablist Allen Moore to open the night! 8pm!

THIS WEEK AT ELASTIC ARTS TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4 | 8:00 PM Pianist and a Partner (Perhaps) w/ Justin Dillard, Anaiet Soul, Julian Davis Reid, Angelo Hart THURSDAY FEBRUARY 6 | 8:30 PM Improvised Music Series: Wagner /Dessel/Taylor, Miller/Beisel/Carey

TONIGHT! Join us for a free reception celebrating ‘Sunday Mourning’, a beautiful new visual gallery exhibition from artist Allen Moore. His recent body of work investigates both the audio and visual element of black death and black grief. His conceptual premise is to analyze the signifiers of Blackness through performative Improvisation and experimentation. Moore is driven to nurture and expand the agency of the Black Imagination. The show will be up throughout Black History Month. We’ll open doors at 7pm and Allen will present an audio/visual performance at 8pm. The event is $FREE$

Hosted by composer Sharon Udoh, a pianist of 40 years, the series “A Pianist and a Partner Perhaps” highlights 3 or 4 genre-spanning musicians for whom the piano has been a long-time love. Each pianist can choose to bring one additional musician in a duo offering, if they wish (thus, “a partner perhaps”), or, they can go at it solo. Piano players, lovers, and nerds everywhere, come join us as we celebrate this magnificent instrument! At this second edition of PPP we have Justin Dillard w/ Anisha Rush, Anaiet Soul, Julian Davis Reid w/ Tramaine Parker, Angelo Hart, and hosted by the one and only Sharon Udoh. Sharon will perform a short set with experimental turntablist Allen Moore to open the night! This upcoming Tuesday 2/4 at 8pm!

This week the Improvised Music Series presents two bands crafting the perfect high-intensity balance of jazz and rock energies. The Tommy Carroll Trio is a subset of Calculated Discomfort, a rhythmic genre-bending ensemble lead by the drummer / percussionist / composer since 2018. Featuring Lyn Rye (electric and acoustic basses) and Marcos Rios (electric guitar), the trio performs a mixture of rock-inspired jazz fusion compositions and cinematic long-form improvisations. The compositions highlight Carroll’s percussive style, which creatively blends jazz and rock drumming with the techniques and textures of hand percussion from both folkloric and modern contexts. The groups goal is to be as heavy as possible while remaining graceful. Paul Abella’s Questionable Decisions is an exciting five piece ensemble from Chicago that could be referred to as “avant-garde jazz for the masses.” Picking up where the New York No Wave revolution left off, their sound finds the commonalities in the feedback fueled bliss of both Sonny Sharrock and Fugazi, Driven by the deeply held belief that Jazz is, at its core, subversive party music. Music at 8:30pm! 8:30 pm - Tommy Carroll Trio Tommy Carroll - drums Marcos Rios - electric guitar Lyn Rye - electric and acoustic basses 9:30 pm - Paul Abella’s Questionable Decisions Alex Wing - guitar Michael Levin - woodwinds Preyas Roy - vibraphone Chris Bernhardt - bass Paul Abella - cajon

THIS WEEK AT ELASTIC ARTS

TONIGHT!

THIS WEEK AT ELASTIC ARTS! It’s very warm in here, join us! THURSDAY JANUARY 23 | 8:30 PM Improvised Music Series: Heinemann/Baker/Davis/Frankel, Three Grebes w/ Floating Cave FRIDAY JANUARY 24 | 8:00 PM Elastro: Chris Pitsiokos, Anti-Soul Organization, BAKUDI Scream SUNDAY JANUARY 26 | 4:00 PM Visual Gallery: Lee Romero ‘the intimacies of a clover’ Closing Party

Elastro is back with an exciting first event of 2025 featuring Chris Pitsiokos, Anti-Soul Organization, and BAKUDI SCREAM! Chris will present a piece titled Irrational Rhythms and Shifting Poles which is an evolving project for saxophone and laptop that explores 4-channel audio, subjective listening, rhythms generated by irrational numbers, and polarity shifting. Aesthetically, the project is hard to pin down, but draws on minimalism, noise, free jazz, ambient music, and dance music. Rohan Chander (a.k.a BAKUDI SCREAM) is a media artist and electronic musician based in the United States. Described as “hypersensory” (Washington Post), “remarkably alive” (The Wire Magazine), and of “transcendent metamorphosis” (I Care If You Listen), Chander’s work considers questions of postcoloniality in the diaspora through hindoo historical research and speculative fiction. Built on the creative practices of DJs and long form composition, his work manifests as cyberpunk performance art pieces with costumes, dance, music, and light. Anti-Soul Organization is an industrial noise and techno trio based in Chicago, Illinois. Join us!

This Thursday the Improvised Music Series welcomes a group featuring saxophonist and composer Jorrit Dijkstra accompanied by a quintet of Chicago improvisers. They will combine to celebrate the jazz tradition in spirit and sound while crossing stylistic and cultural borders in order to express a strong, evolving vision. Beginning the night we will have a trio set by Emily Biesel, Ro Lundberg, and Norman W. Long weaving together their distinct sounds on bass clarinet, bass, and electronics. 8:30 pm: Emily Beisel - clarinet Ro Lundberg - double bass Norman Long - electronics 9:30 pm: Jorrit Dijkstra - saxophone Jeb Bishop - trombone Beth MacDonald - tuba Ishmael Ali - cello Michael Zerang - drumset

TONIGHT! Come celebrate 5 years of the CLEAT SERIES! We’ll have a special A/V performance from ‘trace/play’ and heavy electronics set from Jason Soliday. 8pm!