Doors: 7:30 / Music: 8:00

Basement State presents r beny, Leandrul, and What We Talk About for an immersive evening of textural ambient soundscapes and melodic waves of sound. Interludes and Ambience: Planar Drift. Live Visuals: Former.

r beny is an ambient electronics project from Northern California-based musician Austin Cairns. It is an outlet for the processing of the volatile conditions of emotion and nature, primarily expressed through the use of synthesizers, samplers, and other electronic instruments. His most recent release, we grow in a gleam, is a 20-minute long deep listening experience self-released on BandCamp in April 2021.

Leandrul is Crosby Morgan, a folk artist and electronic music producer currently based in Seattle. She writes, produces, and performs her original songs, relying heavily on the vocal textures she creates, along with her poignant lyrics over a deeply melodic palette of synths and real instruments. Her latest release from March 2021, Psychosis of Dreams, is a chronological aural journey through her personal experience with mental illness. Crosby plans to release her next album, Exiled From Earth, in mid 2022.

Seattle-based What We Talk About utilizes synthesizers of all sorts to conjure up hazy illusions of past light and time. Drawing heavily upon his waking dream state, What We Talk About aims to create a space in which to bask in the golden aura of what we can no longer have. He is a co-founder of Basement State.

Basement State is a Seattle-based live electronic music collective that curates in-person and online events where resident artists and guests perform LIVE original music across an array of electronic genres. Their first compilation release, Vol. I, was released on cassette and in digital form in August 2021. 

SAFER SPACE: We do not tolerate actions or displays of sexism, bigotry, racism, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, and ableism. Any form of harassment will involve immediate removal from the show and a lifetime ban from future Basement State events. 

PHONE /TALKING: Out of respect for performers and other attendees, please silence and avoid using phones and minimize all conversations with other guests during performances.

COVID-19 Protocols: To help ensure the health and safety of those in attendance and vulnerable populations in our community, we will be requiring proof of vaccination and a mask for entry (can be a vaccination card or photo of vaccination card). A face mask covering your nose and mouth must be worn while in the building. You will be asked to leave without refund if these rules are not followed. Additionally, we will be limiting attendance to help provide space for social distancing. Because of this, we HIGHLY recommend purchasing a pre-sale ticket to guarantee admission. 

A daring program by the arx duo and Skyros Quartet mixes rhythm and melody in an intricate and beautiful tapestry. New works commissioned by the ensembles are featured alongside other wonderful pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries. Featuring new works from Michael Laurello and Christopher James Dietz, the combination of string quartet and percussion is powerful and unique.

Founded in 2011, Seattle’s Skyros Quartet (Sarah Pizzichemi, Brandon Vance, Justin Kurys, and Willie Braun) brings a bright and inventive style to the stage, having concertized extensively on multiple continents. Entering their eleventh season together, they have been heard at some of the most prestigious venues and music festivals including the Aspen Music Festival and School (Aspen, Colorado), Seattle Chamber Music Society (Seattle), Deer Valley Music Festival (Park City, Utah), the Sunflower Music Festival (Topeka, Kansas), Quartet Fest at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University and the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society (Ontario, Canada), and at the University of British Columbia concert series (Vancouver, Canada). Skyros has also performed on tour in Xi’an and Hangzhou, China. In 2019, Skyros had the honor of giving the West Coast premiere of the newly composed Piano Quintet by Philip Glass with concert pianist and commissioner Paul Barnes. In 2017, Skyros, along with cellist Eric Wilson (Emerson String Quartet emeritus), gave the Canadian premiere of Mikołaj Górecki’s Elegy for Cello and String Quartet at the University of British Columbia.

Mari Yoshinaga and Garrett Arney are the artistic force behind arx duo. Their mission is to forge new connections and artistic pathways, or “arcs,” through percussion chamber music. They are dedicated to expanding percussion chamber music by commissioning new creative works, educating and inspiring young artists, and inviting audiences across the globe to engage with new and vibrant musical experiences. Thriving on collaborative artistic experiences, arx has worked with countless composers, chamber ensembles, community ensembles, and symphony orchestras to bring new percussion music to life. They have premiered, performed, or taught new pieces for percussion instruments across the United States, in Japan, the UK, Canada and Ghana. Committed to inspiring the next generation of creative artists, their non-profit Arx Music Association seeks to provide musical opportunities for early career, student, and avocational musicians. They have served as guest teachers or artists in residence at universities and conservatories across the US, and currently serve on the faculty of the Curtis Young Artists Summer Program.

A celebration of the life and works of Ashley Pær Svn. 

Doors at 7:30, music starts at 8 PM. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.

Please join us as we grieve, rejoice and share gratitude for Ashley Pær Svn. Ashley Svn’s contributions to the experimental music in the Northwest have ranged in scale from the individual level as solo performer (Paintings for Animals, HOM) to the community level as festival director (Seattle Occultural Music Festival). Ashley is also known as a beloved bandmate and collaborator in projects such as New Red Sun and Thee Source of Fawnation.  

We are those who are survived by Ashley Svn, and have had the rare privilege to collaborate with this short-lived brilliance. We come together as an ensemble to create sound and movement in tribute to our beloved community member.  

Joy Von Spain, vox + piano; Jackie An, violin + effects & Helen Thorsen, dance; Michaud Savage, guitar + effects & Vanessa Skantze, dance; Celadon, percussion + effects &  Briana Jones, dance

This event will be live-streamed through Zoom.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members will be required to wear masks. Additionally, proof of vaccination is required to attend. Chairs will be arranged to maintain social distancing (people who live together may group chairs accordingly). Windows will be open, weather permitting.

Libby Gray, flute, and Julie Ives, piano, present a recital of music chosen to reflect the turmoil and grace of the human experience during the recent pandemic. Featuring music from Sofia Gubaidulina, Cathy Collinge Herrera, Charles Ives, Allison Loggins-Hull, Joseph Schwantner, William Grant Still, and Toru Takemitsu, this program presents meditations on nature and the African American experience from a broad spectrum of 20th and 21st century composers.

Libby Gray is a versatile and experienced performer and teacher of the flute.  She has held Principal Flute positions in the Fort Collins Symphony and the South Dakota Symphony, and has played with the Colorado Symphony, Cheyenne Symphony and other orchestras in the west. She is currently co-principal flute of Philharmonia Northwest and performs with the Seattle Wind Symphony. She holds a Master’s of Music from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), and a Bachelor’s of Music Performance from the University of Washington. She teaches the flute at Kirkland Academy of Music and Performance.

A graduate of Cornish College of the Arts, Julie Ives is known for her dynamic performances of new and contemporary music for solo piano and chamber ensemble, including numerous premiers of new work by local composers. Julie maintains a busy teaching studio, with students throughout Central and South Seattle.

Donations will be gratefully accepted via cash, check, PayPal or Venmo.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Additionally, chair seating will be arranged to maintain social distancing; people who live together may group chairs accordingly. Windows will be open, weather permitting.

What Is Man and What Is Guitar?, a short film about iconic abstract musician Keith Rowe (U.K., France), directed by Bob Burnett and Seattle-area musician Alan F. Jones, is presented in its first Seattle screening.

“…one of the best films about a musician I’ve seen. ” — Sasha Frere-Jones

Keith Rowe has spent a lifetime exploring the relationship between sound and physical objects through what can only be loosely described as the guitar. What Is Man And What Is Guitar? Keith Rowe is a short film that probes the thinking of Keith Rowe and the fascinating way he approaches art, the guitar and himself.

The film documents passages of Rowe’s ongoing journey, from playing jazz through early years of poverty in Britain, to exploring the unexplored with the ensemble AMM, to his groundbreaking solo, duo and ensemble work from beneath the small umbrella of fringe music. Across six decades, Rowe’s body of work has functioned as a signal for the parameters, signposts, and permissions for the unorthodox in improvised music.

On this occasion the film will be presented by sound designer and co-director Alan F. Jones, and Rowe’s biographer Brian Olewnick, author of The Room Extended. Includes short featurettes with Oren Ambarchi and Sandy Ewen, surrounding Rowe’s influence. A 30-minute Q&A will follow.

Alan F. Jones (Dallas, TX, 1971) is a Washington-based audio engineer, performing musician, and composer. He owns and operates Laminal Audio, where in addition to mastering and production he works frequently as a sound designer and supervising post audio for film. Jones is a member of the Seattle-based ensembles, ‘what’ and Telescoping, favoring pedal steel and lap steel guitar in performance. He also runs the Marginal Frequency record label. Jones resides in Tracyton, WA.

Brian Olewnick is a new music writer and visual artist. He helped run the avant-garde jazz loft Environ from 1976-1980 and was eventually seduced into writing about contemporary music in various forms from jazz to modern classical, free improvisation and beyond. He has written for All Music Guide, The Wire, Time-Out New York and other publications in addition to his blog, Just Outside, one of the principal sites for analysis of new music, where he has published over 2,000 reviews since 2006. He has given talks on the craft of writing about contemporary music in Philadelphia, Västerås, Sweden and Sokołowska, Poland. He lives with his wife Betsy Wallin, in Kinderhook, New York.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Additionally, chair seating will be arranged to maintain social distancing; people who live together may group chairs accordingly. Windows will be open, weather permitting.

Improvisations and Meditations for Julius Watkins

Join top French horn improviser Tom Varner for a series of works with Neil Welch, Greg Campbell, Samantha Boshnack, Jim Knodle, and more. In the concert’s second half, these improvisers will be joined by ten French horn players in a “sound meditation” honoring Tom’s hero, the great French horn pioneer Julius Watkins (1921-1977), who would have turned 100 later in the week. Beautiful sounds all around — literally, in the wonderful Chapel space. The French horn players will include Addison Kotulski, John Turman, Matt Shevrin, Josiah Boothby, Suzan “Zen” Anderson, Jeffrey Snedeker, and Hayden Douglass.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance over age 5 will be required to wear masks. Chair seating will be arranged to maintain social distancing; people who live together may group chairs accordingly. Windows will be open, weather permitting. Audience should be aware that the performers will be playing wind instruments.

Puget Sounds Wind Quintet members perform with Village Theatre, Fifth Avenue Theatre, Symphony Tacoma, Seattle Symphony/Opera and other groups, and come together to produce their own music in the form of a quintet representing the winds of the orchestra.

The Living & Breathing Wind Music program presents an array of contemporary classical selections by five living composers, ranging from the literal representation of nature sounds in Eric Ewazen’s Roaring Fork to the aleatoric In C Dorian by Frank Ticheli, and styles in between. Hear the atonal and abstract, yet alternatingly angry and lyrical 5-4-3 Miniatures by Don Bowyer; Valerie Coleman’s upbeat work named after the Swahili word for unity, Emoja; and a world premiere by northwest composer David P. Jones that stretches the technical limitations of wind instruments.

This program is free and open to the public, with gracious support provided through the Music Performance Trust Fund and the Musicians’ Club of Seattle.

Online reservations are strongly recommended, as attendance will be limited to facilitate social distancing. We can not guarantee seating for walk-ups

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance over age 5 will be required to wear masks. Additionally, all audience members must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Proof of vaccination will be required for entry. Chair seating will be arranged to maintain social distancing; people who live together may group chairs accordingly. Windows will be open, weather permitting. Audience should be aware that the performers will be playing wind instruments.

A night of spontaneous compositions from three of Seattle’s finest musicians and longtime members of the creative music scene.

Internationally recognized composers Sam Boshnack (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Amy Denio (alto sax, clarinet, accordion, voice) join renaissance man Greg Campbell (drums, percussion, gongs, french horn) for a night of spontaneous composition and musical exploration.  Working with loose themes, these accomplished beacons in Seattle’s creative music scene will join forces for the first time as a trio.

Whether blasting through the sonic explorations of her alternative chamber orchestra, B’shnorkestra, or leading Seismic Belt or her quintet, Samantha Boshnack’s musical voice pulses with vitality. She is part of the acclaimed composers’ collective Alchemy Sound Project. She has toured extensively in the zany, postmodern Reptet.  Boshnack is an alumni of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (GLFCAM). In 2021, she participated in Mutual Mentorship for Musicians’ (M3) 2nd Cohort (an international network of underrepresented gender identities providing new ways to connect, support and create) for which she premiered a collaboration with Fay Victor. 

Greg Campbell plays drums, percussion, French horn, and other instruments. He works in the broader jazz and classical traditions, performing with groups ranging from the Seattle Modern Orchestra to Wayne Horvitz’s Electric Circus, and with artists such as steel pan virtuoso Ray Holman, Eyvind Kang, Ali Birra, Vinny Golia, Lori Goldston, Christian Asplund, Nels Cline, and James Falzone. His studies with Asante palmwine guitarist Koo Nimo led him to Ghana in 2017; he has worked with Koo Nimo’s son Yaw Amponsah in the traditional Asante drumming group Anokye Agofomma for more than twenty years. Greg teaches at the Cornish College of the Arts and at Cascadia College.

Amy Denio (Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame) is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist (guitar, bass, alto sax, clarinet, accordion) singer, commissioned composer, audio engineer, record producer and teacher. She has created over 500 works for film, television, theater and modern dance for the last thirty years, working solo and also in collaboration with artists worldwide. Her audio installations have been featured at the Venice Biennale and Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. She is a versatile composer, working in folk, jazz, pop, rock, metal, and many world music genres ~ Balkan, Latin, and a variety of indigenous styles from obscure corners of this globe. 

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Additionally, chair seating will be arranged to maintain social distancing; people who live together may group chairs accordingly. Windows will be open, weather permitting. Audience should be aware that some performers will be singing or playing wind instruments.

Obscure & Terrible presents a dual cassette release show featuring Orgone Donor and RN White with an opening set from John Saint-Pelvyn.

Originally assembled as an aural complement to a paranormal-themed museum opening show, Orgone Donor (V.Vecker, Dustin WIlliams, Riley Reasor) are a dense fog of electronics and saxophone. After their first show slated to take place March 13th, 2020, was cancelled and much of the world went into lockdown, the improvised synth trio morphed into a remote recording project. The temporal suspension induced the members of the group to exchange and layer their home recordings, creating a shared imaginary space which expanded from synthesizers to include tenor sax and electric piano. Their debut album Two Maps as Parallel Mirrors collects the results of these collaborations and reclaims a landscape of dislocated phrases and drones that triangulates the cities of Vancouver, B.C., Seattle, and Bellingham circa fall of 2020. 

RN White is the harsh noise scraped from the mind of Seattle’s Rachel N LeBlanc. LeBlanc served as a longtime booking agent and organizer in the Seattle noise and experimental community, chiefly for Debacle Records and Hollow Earth Radio. Though RN White is her first outing alone conjuring brutal chasms of sound, she was previously half of guitar-torturing duo #tits and the snotty-voiced guitarist of improv noise ensemble WaMu. There’s also her solo hymnal-drone project Blessed Blood. On her debut album Cerebral Split LeBlanc connects to her own personal darkness, drawing out the blackened soundtrack from within.  

John Saint Pelvyn is one of the singular voices of underground music in the Twin Cities. A regular tour-mate of legendary denatured banjo exorcist Paul Metzger, Pelvyn is someone who sounds unmistakably like only himself the second he picks up his instrument. His combination of behind the bridge picking, rapid whammy bar shaking and churning feedback is a subtle dance that rivals the abilities of many greats, from psychedelic improvisational noise to piedmont-picking fingerstyle acoustic—but one he alone inhabits. 

(Art by Sean Waple/Rachel LeBlanc)

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Additionally, chair seating will be arranged to maintain social distancing; people who live together may group chairs accordingly. Windows will be open, weather permitting. Audience should be aware that some performers will be singing or playing wind instruments.

Tamara Zenobia will share her work as Vocal Alchemist using her voice to transcend space and time and bring you galactic messages from within her self-built pyramid. In this performance she will be using singing bowls, pan drum, and other world instruments to bring her stories together. 

Seating will be primarily on the floor, with chairs arranged for those who would like them. Listeners are encouraged to bring blankets, cushions and items to make the space more comfortable for them. A space for those who would like to move and dance will also be cleared.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Additionally, chair seating will be arranged to maintain social distancing; people who live together may group chairs accordingly. Windows will be open, weather permitting.