photos by Greg Cristman

Master Musicians of Bukkake @ Issue Project Room

Much like its inspiration, the Pan-devoted, beatnik-adored Master Musicians of Joujouka, the floating infinity conjured by the Master Musicians of Bukkake draws on a tradition that echoes across millennia. Around in various formations since 2003, the Seattle entity has coalesced into a seven-piece in time for its first East Coast performance, headlining a marathon tribute to avant-everything label Important Records in the Issue Project Room courtyard. MMoB's collaborative web includes psych-trance-ritual ecstatics from Earth, Sun City Girls and the free-improv world, which makes each new project a mutable feast of electronic drones, Buddhist temple bells, gamelan breakdowns, fuzz-box meditations, and innovations like "Rag-Dun Tibetan trumpet" and "leprosy synth." -[Time Out]

Despite the rain and subsequent relocation indoors, Important Records strutted like a peacock at Issue Project Room, showing off their roster with performances by headliner The Master Musicians of Bukkake, as well as Cave, Chord, Helena Espvall & Fursaxa, Kouhei Matsunaga, New Monuments, Duane Pitre, and Diane Cluck (no Ocean, unfortunately)).

More pics from the show are below...

Continue reading "Important Records showcased @ Issue Project Room - pics (Master Musicians of Bukkake, Chord, Cave & more) "

PS1 (more by Zach Dilgard)

One more chance to get down in Long Island City this summer...

September 12
Timmy Regisford (Area) Code & Club Shelter)
Monique Bingham (King Street, Defected, Wave)
Duane Pitre (live)

More info & directions HERE.

P.S.1 has announced the lineup for its annual series of Saturday afternoon dance parties in Long Island City. Last year's program featured live music and DJ sets by James Murphy, James Chance & the Contortions and Tony Conrad to name a few.

This year, we get the Arthur Russell ensemble Arthur's Landing, Talibam! and The Phenomenal Handclap Band (on the same bill), Xeno & Oaklander, Growing, Glenn Branca and more. Full schedule, and more info, below...

Continue reading "PS1 'Warm Up' 2009 - Long Island City music series lineup"

by Andrew Frisicano

April 11th will be ISSUE Project Room's 6th anniversary. We're amazed at how much has happened in this period of time. ISSUE started on East 6th street as an impromptu and spontaneous music, experimental cinema and performance venue...quickly gaining attention and expanding from 60 performances a year to over 250. By 2005, ISSUE had to leave the East Village and migrated to an iconic and beautiful silo along the banks of the Gowanus Canal. This unusual and extraordinarily fun location was voted "Best Art Bayou" by the Village Voice and named "New York's Best Kept Secret" by the Whitney Museum.

Producing amazing performances by Rhys Chatham, Anthony Coleman, Marianne Amancher, Elliott Sharp, Jandek and WFMU's own Kenny G, ISSUE Project Room enjoyed its stay at the silo immensely but then had to move once again. This time to its current location at the Old American Can Factory at 232 3rd Street in Brooklyn. This room, the "sanctuary", was formerly a rehearsal studio for a circus troupe. Instead of trapeze artists, we've now got Stephan Moore's 16 channel hemispherical speaker system hanging from the ceiling, enabling us to move sound over and around the heads of the audience.

This past year we found out that we were awarded a rent free, 20 year lease on the elk's club room at the former Board of Education building at 110 Livingston Street. It's a pretty amazing room and an amazing opportunity to build a kind of "Carnegie Hall of the Avant Garde" for the next 20 years. It's up to us to bring it up to code and move in, though...so we'll be fundraising for the time being...getting ready for the future. [ISSUE Project Room via Free Music Archive]

To celebrate (and raise money), the Brooklyn venue has lined up some special benefit performances for the month of April.

One highlight (of many) is Moby's "first-ever live electronic/ambiant performance" on Friday, April 24th. Tickets for the show are on sale now - regular and VIP. The full package includes: "an intimate pre-performance cocktail party with Moby [to] hear advance tracks from his forthcoming album, meet and talk with the artist, and enjoy a sneak-preview of his new music video directed by David Lynch." Not surprisingly, Moby was one of many artists who recently appeared at Radio City Music Hall to help raise money for the David Lynch Foundation. Moby was also a part of the Issue Project Room fundraiser that took place at Santos Party House last year (that Tony Conrad also performed at).

On ISSUE Project Room's actual birthday, April 11th, Pitre, with special guest avant-composer/filmmaker Tony Conrad, will perform original composition ED09 "with a 17-piece string/woodwind ensemble". Tickets are on sale. ISSUE Project Room is where Tony teamed up with Genesis P-Orridge (of the reunited Throbbing Gristle) for two shows earlier this year. Video from one of those shows below.

The IPR schedule also has a Tuesday, April 21st show with producer and SNL music supervisor Hal Willner featuring Sean Lennon, Yuka Honda, Chloe Webb and special guests. Tickets to that are on sale. One of the albums Hal recently produced is the new Marianne Faithfull. Still waiting to hear if he'll be back at Prospect Park this year.

Noveller/Sarah Lipstate (who is playing Cinema 16 at the Bell House on Sunday, April 19th) performs at the ISSUE Project Room on Saturday, April 25th as part of artist-in-residence Duane Pitre's Bowed Harmonic-Guitar Ensemble.

Some videos and the venue's full April schedule, below...

Continue reading "Issue Project Room is 6 -- April (pre-move to Livingston St) benefit/birthday schedule w/ Moby, Hal Willner & more"