4 pm | TASHI DORJI
Ashville, North Carolina-based Bhutanese ex-pat, improvising guitarist Tashi Dorji is known for his avant-garde and experimental approach to music. Tashi’s idiosyncratic take on the instrument, one defined by movement and profound openness to technique, adds up to a post-colonial disembowelment of guitar traditions.
Dorji come to Asheville, NC to study in 2000 and discovered worlds of anarcho-punk and avant garde such as he’d only dreamed. Having made recordings of his newly-located improvisational conception, he intuited a desire to go deeper in his explorations of the recorded sound of the guitar, melding and colliding traditional music with his feeling for the range of textures within.
Tashi has released music both as a soloist and as a collaborator, notably with Mette Rasmussen, Aaron Turner (Sumac, Mamiffer), Che Chen (75 Dollar Bill), Aki Onda, Michael Zerang, John Deiterich (Deerhoof), C Spencer Yeh, Dave Rempis, Tyler Damon, Patrick Shiroishi, KUZU ( w/ Rempis & Damon), MANAS (w/ Thom Nguyen) on labels like Moone Records, Gilgonko Records, Bathetic Records, Trost, Cabin Floor Esoterica, Blue Tapes, Marmara Records, Feeding Tubes, UNROCK, VDSQ, MIE, Ultra Violet Light, Aerophonic Records, Medium Sound, Family Vineyard, Astral Spirits and Drag City.
5 pm | CLUTTERTONES
$25 advance tickets (for 3 acts) via Eventbrite
$30 door
$85 festival weekend pass via Eventbrite
No one is refused admission for lack of funds
Lina Allemano trumpet
Rob Clutton bass, composition
Ryan Driver human voice, analogue synth, piano
Tim Posgate banjo, guitar
Bassist Rob Clutton’s chamber jazz quartet that exquisitely synthesizes his diverse interests – song, long-form composition, lyricism, extended improvisation, extreme textures, and more – through his seasoned bandmates. Cluttertones music reveals itself slowly, making countless subtle, mysterious insinuations in place of bold declarations. Disarmingly gorgeous melodies emerge from the fog of thorny group playing, often evoking the simplicity of folk music.
The group has been playing together for over a decade, and each of the members have long associations with the others in various projects. This music plays at the edges between known/unknown, concrete/abstract, solo/group, expression/process. Drawing from a broad range of experience—which includes jazz, European classical music, electronica, improvisation, folk, singer-songwriter, experimental—the Cluttertones play what some have called “otherworldly chamber music.
Rob Clutton:
Memory of Light is a set-length composition for the Cluttertones. We played the first draft of the piece in February at Array space in Toronto. We are going to be performing a revised 2nd (possibly final) draft on June 22 at Something Else in Hamilton. It has evolved over the last couple of years, out of other compositional efforts for the group. I have heard it said that the song that was number 1 on one’s 18th birthday is the theme song for the life of that person. And, I have heard that John Hartford had a method of songwriting where he would take an existing song and change one element at a time, i.e. new melody, new chords, new lyrics, to arrive at a new song. I tried that with “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” and also with “Hot Water”, both from 1984, the year I turned 18. We tried these new songs with the Cluttertones and they were kind of interesting, adding to a large number of possible directions in recent years, not quite landing as something I felt right about pursuing. One thing that arose, though, was that some of the new lyrics alluded to a memory of an experience I had on my 18th birthday, of seeing a tree, and experiencing that tree as a fellow being, and there was “light” shared between us. Trees are also important because on my previous birthday my brother gave me a bluegrass album with Dave Holland playing bass alongside some Nashville musicians, and I had imaginative connections between the sound of that double bass, and a tree singing, that inspired me to play the instrument, to see if I could experience a singing tree on my own. Around the same time, between those 2 birthdays, I had been playing a 9 beat riff on guitar that has become the core of this new piece, “Memory of Light”. At one point I imagined this piece could be played all night but that hasn’t happened yet: the one set idea could be considered a representation of an “all night” experience. The piece is mostly instrumental, mostly staying with the pulse from the 9/8 motif, with various themes and structures to be explored by the Cluttertones, as featured improvisers, and as a band.
6 pm | EMMELUTH’S AMOEBA
Blazing Danish/ Norwegian quartet plays intense, creative music that navigates through free jazz to chamber music with such fierce energy and passion, that it is hard to feel unmoved.
"This working quartet reaches new heights and deeper depths by experimenting, searching and taking risks... Signe Emmeluth proves herself, again, as one of the most original and fresh voices in the Nordic scene. Provocative, mind blowing and emotionally engaging."
Salt Peanuts – Eyal Hareuveni
Pianist Christian Balvig has made a mark both as a musician leading his own group and playing with the colossal danish supergroup Efterklang as well as composing music for large orchestras such as Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra.
Guitarist Karl Bjorå is a strong voice on the scene of improvised music and has recorded and toured extensively with his own groups Megalodon Collective, Yes Deer and Aperture for years all around Europe, USA and Asia.
Drummer Ole Mofjell is a force of nature. Playing with ECM recording legends Jon Balke and Norwegian Powerhouse guitarist Hedvig Mollestad
Band leader, composer, saxophonist Signe Emmeluth has made a strong imprint on the scene in recent years, playing and collaborating with Mats Gustafsson, Kresten Osgood and Paal Nilssen-Love among others, as part of Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra and in different versions of Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. With a sharp and unique tone, her playing is easily recognized. Melodies with rapidly changing octaves and a shift between the naive and playful to brutal primal screams are some of what makes up Signe Emmeluth’s vocabulary.