Music City Review: SPEKTRAL QUARTET TOUTS NEW LISTENING EXPERIENCE

The Experience

First and foremost I will say this: the album is performed, recorded, and produced beautifully. It delivers – and exceeds – the promise of quality that you would expect from a group of this caliber. The dazzling performances of Claire Chase (flute) and Charmaine Lee (composition, voice, and electronics) add variety and push this project beyond a “par for the course” String record. The music speaks for itself, but the selling point of the album is the interactive experience.

When I first downloaded the album and sorted through the promotional material I was torn. The angel on my right shoulder was saying that it was an interesting idea; that I should give it a chance. The devil on my left was saying the only innovative thing they’ve managed to achieve is complicating a handy little invention commonly referred to as “the shuffle feature”. The premise is that you can listen to this album in a different order each time. Instead of going through the tracks numerically you can skip around and choose your own adventure. That idea, in itself, is not at all novel. As a matter of fact, you can already do that with any album you choose. Blood on the Tracks is around fifty-two minutes long, but sometimes I just want to listen to “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Shelter from the Storm”. The question that I kept coming back to was this: how is that any different than creating a playlist on Spotify?

We are all so used to streaming our music. That ease of access is a catch 22. Any song we want is at the touch of our finger, but that ease sometimes makes us lose the reverence we should have. Igor Stravisnky said, “For one can listen without hearing, just as one can look without seeing. The absence of active effort and the liking acquired for this facility make for laziness.” He was talking about radio and the phonograph, but it is shocking how much more accurate this statement becomes when applied to streaming.

I used to buy CDs. I would spend every cent of my Christmas money at Best Buy as a teenager. There was a ritual to unboxing the disk, looking at the album art, reading the liner notes, and intently following along with the lyrics for the duration of the album. That ritual has been replaced – and I hate to admit it, but I feel that I am not alone here – with absently listening to one movement I like from a Mozart Symphony, two or three Drake songs, and half of a podcast episode; all while cleaning my house, eating dinner, scrolling on Instagram, and texting. That is what makes this album so remarkable. The act of receiving those Tarot cards in the mail, opening the box, reading about the album, picking the order of tracks. The experience forced me to take a minute and be actively involved.

Will this revolutionize how we consume art music in the 21st century? No, probably not. Is it meant to? I don’t think so. I think it was meant to be an experiment, but it is an experiment with value that we should all take a part in. The experience is a truly beautiful thing.

Read the entire article here

Classics Today: Spektral Stimulation

Artistic Quality: 9
Sound Quality: 10

To be sure, more expansive and genial readings of Brahms’ C minor Quartet can be had (for example, the Alban Berg Quartett, the Quartetto Italiano), yet Spektral’s lean textured, contrapuntally clear outer movements and deliberately held-back Allegretto hold comparable validity. Shapely nuance and intelligent use of portamento and vibrato enliven Schoenberg’s still-foreboding syntax: compare Spektral’s conversational bounce in the Allegretto to the relatively stiff and clipped New Vienna String Quartet recording, or the specificity of their melodic pointing in the Adagio next to the Leipziger Streichquartett’s more generalized though impeccable execution.

Their interpretation of Ruth Crawford’s astonishing 1931 Quartet easily matches the Pacifica Quartet’s reference recording, especially in the finale’s nimbly phrased unison lines. By contrast, the Sam Pluta composition is all about percussive attacks and releases. It often evokes DJs employing scratching techniques at super speed. The music demands and receives as vivacious and hard-hitting a performance as one is likely to hear.

Anthony Cheung’s The Real Book of Fake Tunes amounts to a textural tour-de-force, where flutist Claire Chase’s amazing command of extended techniques assiduously integrate within the composer’s boundless gestural arsenal. The fourth movement in particular stands out for Cheung’s blending of pizzicato punctuations and sustained chording, and for the climactic cascading runs with instruments in all registers.

Read the entire article here

New York Times: Orchestras Looking to Broaden Horizons? Start Improvising

And the Spektral Quartet’s new double album, “Experiments in Living,” juxtaposes works from the Germanic canon with newer, more experimental pieces — including the fully improvised “Spinals,” which the group conceived with the improvising vocalist Charmaine Lee, taking two weekends to train in Ms. Lee’s improvisational practice.

“We wanted Brahms on there; we wanted Schoenberg,” the violinist Maeve Feinberg said. “We just kind of liked the idea of the whole range there. And trying to make the statement that Brahms could exist in the same place as something being improvised in the moment.” (The album also includes a fully notated George Lewis work.)

Ms. Lee said in an email that while two weeks wasn’t enough time to fully ground the Spektral players in her style, the resulting piece succeeded in achieving “an honest engagement and representation of my practice.” She added that she was grateful to the quartet for its openness toward improvisers. Mx. Feinberg said that it was important to the group, as novices at improvisation, to do its best to learn Ms. Lee’s particular approach.

“If you’re going to try to do the thing and step out, you also don’t want to slight this tradition,” Mx. Feinberg said. “The worst thing I could imagine is sort of putting it on a bigger stage and doing it a disservice.”

That may have been what Bernstein inadvertently did in 1964. But with the New York Philharmonic committing to increasing its diversity of offerings over “a lengthy process,” there is yet time for the orchestra — and others like it — to catch up and branch out.

Read the entire article here

Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical: August 2020

One of the reasons Spektral Quartet have remained favorites of Chicago’s new music scene is their holistic interest in the trajectory of classical music and how it connects with contemporary repertoire. This superb new double album expands the way the group often programs its concerts. Yes, it’s strange to include a performance of Brahms’ String Quartet in C Minor in this column, but the group features the piece because the composer’s harmonic sense was celebrated by Arnold Schoenberg, the 20th century paradigm-shifter whose String Quartet No. 3 is also performed here. Also included is Ruth Crawford Seeger’s brilliant and perennially overlooked 1931 String Quartet. The second half of the collection zooms in on the present; the slashing intensity and radical dynamics of Sam Pluta’s “binary/momentary logics: flow state/joy state;” the transplanted harmonic language of jazz within a formal classical structure behind the splintered melodies of guest flutist Claire Chase on Anthony Cheung’s “Real Book of Fake Tunes;” the purely spontaneous electricity of the quartet’s splattery yet cogent collaboration with improvising vocalist Charmaine Lee on “Spinals;” and the, by turns, eerie, violent, serene, and percussive George Lewis work “String Quartet 1.5: Experiments in Living.” The second disc provides a potent sampler of some crucial threads in 21st century composition.

Read the entire article here

LA Times: Why George Lewis’ revolutionary ‘Shadowgraph, 5' can last 3 minutes or 4 hours

(Micah Fluellen / Los Angeles Times)

Through it all, Lewis has insisted on the crucial African American contribution to Western music — in particular improvisation in all its ramifications — and he has been critical of those who ignore or deny it. In an influential musicological essay, Lewis positioned the influences of Charlie Parker and John Cage on modern music, noting the difference between the revolutionary shock of Bird’s bebop and what he considers the more aestheticized aspect of Cage’s uses of indeterminacy. It is a nice touch that the newest recording of Lewis’ music, his quirkily imaginative “String Quartet, 1.5: Experiments in Living,” written for the Chicago-based Spektral Quartet, will be released Aug. 28, the day before what would have been Parker’s 100th birthday.

Read the entire article here

Floating Lounge On-Demand: Charmaine Lee (video)

It didn’t surprise us at all that improvisor/vocalist Charmaine Lee showed up to deejay The Floating Lounge on July 1st with waaaay more music than we could ever hope to squeeze into 90 minutes. She’s like that…bold, inexhaustible, and boiling with creativity. Charmaine has been an important mentor to us as we swim out further into the inky waters of improvisation, and our collaboration on our upcoming record – Experiments in Living – is easily on of the most cool, most scary things we’ve ever attempted. We know you’ll get lit up both by her exuberance and her playlist, so dig in!

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CHARMAINE'S PLAYLIST

* denotes tracks we ran out of time for last night....bonus!

Luciano Berio Sequenza III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGovCafPQAE

Erin Gee Mouthpiece I (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f76Hb6wV4oA

PHRASING AND LINE DEVELOPMENT

Cecil Taylor - Indent (1973) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOtMTgYCgTY

Evan Parker - The Snake Decides (1986) https://youtu.be/xXUAX-gBEY0

* Henry Fraser - your soul is the size of a thread (2018) https://henryfraser.bandcamp.com/track/your-soul-is-the-size-of-a-thread

FORM

Eric Wubbels - the children of fire come looking for fire (2012) https://soundcloud.com/eric-wubbels/album-preview-the-children-of-fire-come-looking-for-fire-12

* Bryan Jacobs - Dis Un Il Im Ir https://soundcloud.com/bryanjacobs-1/dis-un-il-im-ir

SOUND/AESTHETIC 

Robert Ashley (1930) - Automatic Writing (1979) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh_TC8j_JkE

Andrea Pensado - Without Knowing Why (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbztuglWap4

* Earle Browne - Octet No. 1 (1953) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTxX-7EAn94

SICKNESS - PostRock Harsh Electronic DSP (2004) https://youtu.be/bVKVUrsQqV4

SOPHIE - Lemonade (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdLvp630plc

Floating Lounge On-Demand: George Lewis (video)

Anyone who knows (or knows of him) could have predicted it, but George Lewis’s Floating Lounge listening party appearance on June 10th (2020) was off the charts amazing. With a stack of primo recordings set to melt brains, George treated his playlist as a kind of sonic autobiography. Below is the video of this unforgettable event. Just know that you are very likely to discover your new favorite music here…

Check out the links below to chase down the music, books, and references George shared that night. Enjoy!

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Here is George's playlist for your deep pleasure. We’ve provided YouTube and Spotify links where we could find them, but you also might find them on other streaming services. Also, please note that some of these were not played during the show for sake of time, but we include them here anyway.

PART 1 

• John Coltrane: Naima (1959, performance 1966) (Youtube) 

• Anthony Braxton: N-M488-44M-Z [Composition 6 D], for trio (1968) (Youtube) 

• Alvin Singleton: Mestizo II, for orchestra (1970)

• Roscoe Mitchell: Nonaah, for alto saxophone (1972, performance 1976) (Spotify)

• Muhal Richard Abrams: Roots, for piano (1975) (Youtube) 

PART 2 

• David Behrman: On the Other Ocean (1977) (Youtube) 

• Richard Teitelbaum:  Blends (1977, performance 2002) (Youtube) 

• Kees van Baaren: Musica per Orchestra (1966)

• Misha Mengelberg: Mooche Mix (1990) (Youtube) 

• Louis Andriessen:  De Tijd, for large ensemble (1980) (Youtube) 

PART 3

• Carola Bauckholt: Zugvo?gel, for reed quintet (2011) (Youtube)

• Bernhard Gander: o? , for mixed quintet (2005)

• Franck Bedrossian: Charleston (2005-07) for fifteen instruments (Youtube)

• Chaya Czernowin: String Quartet (1995) (Youtube) 

• Akiko Yamane: Dots Collection No 6, for orchestra (2010) (Youtube) 

And here are a few links for things that came up in the course of the conversation:  

• A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music by George E. Lewis 

• George Lewis: Afterword - The AACM as Opera + International Contemporary Ensemble 

• Alvin Singleton Et Nunc

• Interview with Alvin Singleton (by Ethan Iverson) 

• Talking Back: Performer-Audience Interaction in Roscoe Mitchell’s “Nonaah” by Paul Steinbeck

• Message to Our Folks: The Art Ensemble of Chicago by Paul Steinbeck 

• cat on the piano - filmed by Misha Mengelberg, 1967 (the original keyboard cat) 

• George Lewis: The Past is Prologue (Acornometrics) 

• Olivier Messiaen - Catalogue d'oiseaux (Book 2) (Youtube) 

• https://akikoyamane.com/

NewCity: Music 45 – Who Keeps Chicago In Tune 2020

#8

Spektral Quartet

Since we last profiled the indefatigable chamber ensemble, they’ve earned three additional Grammy nominations (for 2019’s “Yo Soy La Tradición” with Miguel Zenón and 2020’s “Fanm d’Ayiti” with Nathalie Joachim) and made its NPR Music Tiny Desk concert debut, all while keeping a full (pre-pandemic) calendar of tour dates and hometown concerts. One of its most memorable Chicago gigs was an event at the Music Box Theatre. “We presented an evening of queer voices through music and film,” says founding member Doyle Armbrust, “including Alex Temple’s ‘Behind the Wallpaper’ with vocalist Julia Holter, a commission by composer-performer Gene Knific, and the short ‘Uzi’s Party’ (shot in Chicago) by Lyra Hill (in partnership with the Chicago Film Society). It was an absolutely magical evening.”

Read the entire article here

Chicago Tribune: The Spektral Quartet takes philosophies online, rather than placing their performances there

What happens when one of Chicago’s most innovative contemporary music ensembles can’t rehearse or perform?

In the case of the Spektral Quartet, the musicians apparently go through several stages of reaction, including shock, acceptance and renewal.

“Like for most ensembles and most people in the arts, this has been frankly a scary time,” says Spektral violist Doyle Armbrust, referring to the shutdown of concerts due to the coronavirus.

“We had our biggest touring season to date coming up this spring, and we watched all of those dates and all of that income evaporate pretty much overnight. ... Of course, the reaction you have to having all of your work disappear – initially, that is just terrifying.

“And it’s a different experience than how we feel now. It’s still scary, but we’re more into: How do we navigate this mode?”

One thing the Spektrals didn’t want to do was instantly switch simply to presenting their events online. Considering the rather low technical and aesthetic values of many livestream performances deluging the Internet, that may have been a wise approach. There’s something numbing about seeing all those heavily edited Zoom “concerts” in which musicians are reduced to so many tiny rectangles.

Or as Armbrust puts it, “One thing that is important to us is that what we offer virtually is not some sort of square peg in a round hole – shoving something into a virtual format. To us that would be a giant mistake, to take the Chicago season we’ve had planned for a year now and try to shove that online somehow.”

So the Spektrals took a little time to figure out a more personalized approach. On April 17, they launched the puckishly titled New Music Help Desk, which their website bills as “an opportunity for composers and performers to get face time with Spektral – to ask pointed questions about notation, feasibility, tuning systems, and even (gasp!) string harmonics. Our aim is to use our skills to both build community and keep creativity flowing for artists hemmed in by this quarantine.”

In effect, the Spektrals were taking their philosophies online, rather than merely placing their performances there.

For in the residencies that the quartet has done across the country, “We get to have workshops, master classes, etc., with young and emerging composers,” says Armbrust. “This is a way of opening up that conversation, albeit virtually.”

In essence, the musicians realized that in order to form a personalized identity online, they needed to feature at least one key component that drives all their work: interactivity.

“For us, it’s all about community building,” explains Armbrust. “Our mission is really to demystify unfamiliar music and to strip away whatever preconceived notions people have of what a classical music concert is. I know that sounds a bit high-minded. But if the point is for us to make everyone feel welcome, for us to be online it needs to feel like a conversation. That’s what our concerts are like.

“We’re known as a talky group. Not as a history lesson, but to share why we love the music we’re playing, why we’re putting it forward.”

Thus they also created The Floating Lounge, described on the website as “a community-focused, online listening series produced by Spektral Quartet to bring curious listeners together during a time of isolation.”

The first one, on April 29, was an interactive listening party featuring the debut release from Sideband, a new Chicago record label.

And the next Floating Lounge, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. June 10, will be “George Lewis Plays the Hits,” featuring the singular composer-author-instrumentalist. Lewis, a MacArthur Fellowship winner and a Columbia University music professor, wrote the monumental study, “A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music” (University of Chicago Press).

To spend time with Lewis, online or off, is a privilege not easily passed up.

“Interacting with George, which some of us have done personally and which we have done as a group, is just an eye-opening experience,” says Armbrust. “He’s such a font of knowledge, and his way to cross-reference things that were never connected in some way is pretty outstanding. And he has a great dry sense of humor. So it made sense to ... ask him to come and bring some music with him.”

For the event, the Spektrals will converse with Lewis via Zoom, perhaps listen to “at least a snippet” of the quartet he wrote for them, says Armbrust. “But the thrust is whatever music he decides” to play. “We’ll listen to a track and open it up” for discussion.

“We’ll have questions for him.”

And, of course, those who tune in can ask their own.

Read the entire article here

WQXR: Hear Me Out – Fanm d’Ayiti

“It’s difficult to describe — in a single word or overwrought analogy — how Haitian-American composer / flutist / vocalist Nathalie Joachim’s Fanm d’Ayiti makes me feel. So, I’m going to tell you something about myself that, somehow, encapsulates the emotional journey I have when I listen to Famn d’Ayiti.

I used to cry a lot, until I was about 14. Unsurprisingly, this was a source of frustration and confusion and annoyance for my parents, presumably because no one wants to be out in public with a 12-year-old boy prone to breaking down and weeping at the slightest emotional disturbance. The weird thing about those tears was that they weren’t (always) from genuine sorrow or pain. They just showed up, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was a wave of emotion that was less “this is very very bad” and more “I just gotta wash out these vibes so I can get on with my day.” I’m bringing this up because that feeling — the one that used to precede a deluge of tears onto my boyish cheeks — is exactly what Joachim does to me on this album.

The first part of the album is bright and comforting; the sound of Joachim’s voice is what I imagine a cloud to feel like (refreshingly vapor-y). The strings of the Spektral Quartet in the opening track, “Papa Loko,” are restless, as if they’re waking up from the most rejuvenating of slumbers, but don’t actually need to be awake at the moment. They take their time getting ready, emphasized by the cello walking ever-so-slightly behind the beat, but then catching up right before the bar ends.”

Read the entire article here

Meet Our Exceptional Interns!

There are so many people beyond the four of us who make Spektral Quartet float and soar – people who aren’t on stage with us, but without whom being on stage wouldn’t even be a thing.

Started in the 2018/19 season, our paid internship program involves production support, concert promotion, data entry (yay!), and fundraising assistance. Benefits includes career guidance, free admission to concerts, score proofing, and opportunities to sit in on rehearsals…or head downtown and play ping pong, for instance.

We’re lucky that our roster of interns is not made up of just some board member’s nephews, but outstanding creatives in their own right. Folks who get what we’re about, aren’t afraid to get weird, and who are already making some of the most thoughtful and searing art you’re likely to encounter.

Today we celebrate them and thank them for being an essential part of our team…and tomorrow, you go seek out their shows and the beautiful things they’re making.

This year, we brought on these three outstanding humans:

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Leslie Allison (photo credit: Willow Reese)

Leslie Allison is a queer interdisciplinary composer working in music/sound, language, movement, and textiles. A graduate of the Wesleyan University Music MA program with a specialty in composition, she recently relocated to Chicago where she writes music, performs, and teaches private somatic singing and piano lessons.

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Autumn Selover

Autumn Selover is a freelance harpist, improviser, and music educator based in the Chicagoland area who is passionate about engaging artists and audiences in a dialogue of learning and crafting. An advocate of new music, she has performed with groups such as Fifth House Ensemble and the Chicago Composers Orchestra, is a member of the conductorless orchestra, Unsupervised, and co-founded the improv-based Sonder Trio and genre-hopping deaf rabbit duo. Autumn is an associate of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and recently received her M.M. in Harp Performance from Northwestern University, studying with Lynn Williams and Liz Cifani. 

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Nick Zoulek

The Wall Street Journal writes, “…Dr. Zoulek’s performance, on saxophones in every range, is stunningly virtuosic, whatever the genre… None of that would matter much (except to saxophonists) if Dr. Zoulek were a less imaginative composer.” His influence on the fields of contemporary music has added color, energy, and light to the enigmatic world of the saxophone.  An artist of “pure mindfulness and talent” (PopMatters), Nick’s craft encompasses solo performance, composition, videography, improvisation, and commissioning new works. All facets of his work can be seen on his 2016 project Rushing Past Willow (Innova Records).

'Perhaps I was possessed by the film'–An Interview with Sir Lyra Hill

Six and a half years ago and I found myself on the set of Uzi’s Party, cooking lunch for the cast and crew. Although there was technically only one star in the film, the Roger’s Park home was crowded, everyone working diligently under the direction of friend and fellow School of the Art Institute of Chicago alum, Lyra Hill. To be honest, I volunteered for this to get in on Lyra’s magic. 

Sir Lyra Hill is a force—their transition from filmmaker, to Master of Ceremonies, to comic artist, to performer, is entrancing and seemingly effortless. Their method is thoughtful and meticulous. Lyra is the kind of artist and organizer that we all admire, and I’m very excited to have had the chance to connect with them again over this serendipitous showing of Uzi’s Party.

Join us this Sunday (02/09) to catch Lyra’s film, Uzi’s Party, which has never before been shown on 16mm film – as Lyra says, “its true and best form” – in Chicago.

Alyssa Martinez: Your sister, Johanna co-wrote and starred in the film—what sparked the idea for the film and your collaboration with one another? 

Lyra Hill: The technical challenge of the movie was actually my first inspiration. Then, the setting of a group of adolescent girls having a Ouija party. I experienced a pivotal, terrifying sleepover around age 12, where my friends and I lost our shit over (what seemed to be) Ouija possession. My sister was 19 when I wrote the film. I consulted heavily with her in developing the signature of each character. I saw her in my mind's eye when I imagined the film, and I knew I could trust her with such a grueling project. I never considered anyone else for the role.

AM: How did she prepare to embody each of these five different characters during filming? 

LH: Months of discussion and play familiarized us both with the characters. And Jojo did amazing work in the short time before we started shooting. A lot came together in the week preceding production. I flew her out to Chicago and we collected all the costumes, wigs, accessories and color palettes of each character, with a lot of help from Marjorie Bailey and Jenna Caravello.

 In order to film shots with dialog between visible characters, we had to pre-record the dialog at the pace we desired, so that we could be sure each character, filmed separately using multiple exposure, spoke at the right time. This technical necessity meant that Jojo and I stayed up late nights running through every scene. On set, I would listen to the recordings during takes and whisper the lines back to her to keep her in sync.

A while after filming was done, she told me that making Uzi's Party required her to pull her personality apart. Many people watch the film and don't realize that she plays every role. When she put herself back together, she said, it was in a new way with new knowledge. I am still in awe at how quickly she transformed, again and again, every day on set.

 AM: All effects for Uzi's Party are done in camera – which is amazing. What were the reasons, both technically and thematically, for your decision to work this way? 

LH: I love to do things that are almost impossible! Haha, it's true and it's very painful. I was heavily invested in optical printing and in-camera matting at the time, and I wanted to use my skills for a narrative picture about possession. Perhaps I was possessed by the film. I'd never filmed sync sound or written a script before. Once the task became clear, the world opened up to me. I dove into concepts of multiple selves and split personalities. The dark and spooky backdrop provided cover for the matte lines, where different takes overlap on screen. I knew, based on my limited resources, that it would be a scrappy, imperfect image, not slick like a studio production. I wanted to create the feeling that not only the story but the material itself might fall apart at any moment. I actually expected it to come out much stranger than it did. It casts a glamour!

AM: As a fellow alum of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I know from experience that the community really encourages students to work in different artistic disciplines—your work is especially interdisciplinary. Will you talk briefly about your experience at SAIC and how it shaped you? 

LH: The fact that SAIC encouraged me to bounce around departments was life changing. I didn't have an easy time in school, but I did make a plethora of connections that blossomed into years of successful collaborations after school, and I had the freedom to wander down several paths I never expected. Some of those paths became big parts of my artistic identity. In my last year, I co-organized workshops and screenings for the Experimental Film Society, which turned out to be the first year of my still-growing career as an event organizer and emcee.

Good relations with staff and faculty at SAIC allowed me the resources I needed to shoot and finish Uzi's Party. They have incredible 16mm facilities. I spent hours and years after graduation borrowing equipment and sitting in editing rooms, cutting my negative. I could not have made this film without such strong support.

AM: When you moved to LA a few years back, you began the “ritual variety show,” MULTI CULT. Will you tell me about how performers participate in this show as well as what your role is as facilitator?

LH: Yes! MULTI CULT is the work of my life! I am putting everything I learned in Chicago and more into this project. There is a submission form for every show, it's always open and free to apply. Sometimes I reach out to artists as well. The event happens quarterly, and each show features 3-4 different performances after grounding, casting, intention and a sermon by yours truly. I am the host, curator, and producer. I have a great team. Because it's a group ritual where the audience participates in creating the magic, I also priestess the show, meaning I hold and conduct the proceedings as sacred. The title that says it all is Master of Ceremonies.

AM: Do you see this role at MULTI CULT as an evolution of your role at the performative comix series BRAIN FRAME (which I and so many Chicagoans loved), a totally different thing, or somewhere in between?

LH: I think about BRAIN FRAME a lot while I'm working on MULTI CULT. My role is very similar, but the content and the context for the show is different. Los Angeles is a different context than Chicago. A ritual variety show invites a lot more artistic diversity than a performative comix reading series. In a way, it's much more difficult because I'm constantly focusing on paradox and multiplicity, both of which are impossible to focus, by their very nature. I thought that BRAIN FRAME was difficult to describe while I was doing it, but I've really done it now.

AM: Ha! Anyone who’s had the pleasure of attending one of your events knows what an incredible host you are—you have a spellbinding way of engaging the audience. When you host, how do you become that person? Do you feel different within yourself when you’re hosting vs when you're not? 

LH: Aww thank you!! Hosting comes naturally to me, not to understate how much I've practiced and studied to become better. I started out as the people-pleasing mediator in a volatile family, growing into an exhibitionist control freak in my spiritual community, and by the time I found myself hosting live events I was actually deeply shocked at how much I liked it, since I avoided performance in art school. Now I understand that when I am MC, I go to a raw place more true to myself than the version I'm playing in my day-to-day life. I channel the powers I generally repress in polite company.

AM: What are you working on now or what’s next?

LH: It's all MULTI CULT all the way! I have a show coming up in LA on the same night as this event, unfortunately, but I will be in Chicago at the end of February to perform at the fourth anniversary of Zine Not Dead! Which means I need to write a new comic this month. I've been releasing videos on YouTube: documentation of MULTI CULT as well as anarchist diatribes. I'm working towards sustaining myself with Patreon (patreon.com/multicult) so I can make all the things that are clamoring to be made inside my head and heart. MULTI CULT is a recurring show, but it's also an ethic, a framework, and a production foundation for an infinite variety of magical ideas. It's the only container that can hold me.

Chicago Reader: The best Chicago albums of the 2010s

Chambers is the 2013 debut of Spektral Quartet, a Grammy-nominated string ensemble that often operates in the classical realm and just as often redefines it. The album is an entirely Chicago affair, released on Parlour Tapes (a local cassette-focused label dedicated to contemporary art music) and featuring works by six local composers—which Spektral Quartet attacks with Windy City grit and passion. On the LJ White piece Zin Zin Zin Zin (credited to Liza White and inspired by Mos Def's wordless freestyling on the Roots song "Double Trouble") the musicians get about as percussive as possible while mostly bowing their strings—you can hear them strike their instruments while making sonic booms of downstrokes.

Read the entire article here