Free Music Archive - ISSUE Project Room Blog

Susan Alcorn plays Piazzolla + The Sleeping Utes and more

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

Susan Alcorn is a Baltimore, Maryland-based composer and musician who has received international recognition as an innovator of the pedal steel guitar, an instrument whose sound is commonly associated with country and western music. Alcorn has absorbed the technique of C&W pedal steel playing and refined it to a virtuosic level. Her original music reveals the influence of free jazz, avant-garde classical music, Indian ragas, Indigenous traditions, and other musics of the world. In anticipation of Susan Alcorn’s two day residency at ISSUE Project Room we’ve compiled some live recordings of past ISSUE performances and a selection of tracks from her albums. The first night of Susan Alcorn’s stay will include new arrangements of Astor Piazzolla songs performed with Ryan Sawyer, Steve Swell, Darius Jones, Michael Formanek, Maria Chavez followed by the world premiere The Sleeping Utes with Skulí Sverrison, Ryan Sawyer, C Spencer Yeh, Beverly Keys, Patrick Holmes. The second evening, Susan Alcorn (+)1 (-)1, will feature a solo improvised performance by Alcorn followed bythe priemer of (Minus)One, an ensemble curated by Janel Leppin, performing Alcorn’s original compositions featuring Janel Leppin with Eyvind Kang, Jessika Kenney, Doug Wieselman, Anthony Pirog and Skulí Sverrisson.

Buy Tickets: Here

String Theories: IPR & The String Orchestra of Brooklyn

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

This Saturday, March 17, St. Ann's Church will host the second installation of String Theories, the joint partnership between ISSUE Project Room and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn that provides artists with an opportunity to premiere new experimental works for orchestra. This year's commission features works composed by Anthony Coleman, C. Spencer Yeh, MV Carbon, and Eric Wubbels, which is awesome, because for most of these artists this is their first opportunity to compose works on such a large scale (check out this interview with Spencer regarding the transition from solo and improvisational work to composing for an orchestra). I'm super excited to see what these guys come up with--what does Burning Star Core sound like with 10 VIOLINS? Will all the musicians be equipped with circuit-bent TV instruments? These and more mysteries will be illuminated on Saturday night.

Until then, listen to this live recording of Katherine Young's composition from last year's program, titled Inhabitation of Time. Young is a bassoonist and composer who received an emerging artist commission from ISSUE last year, and this piece sounds like what it would be like to try to walk in a straight line on the quantum level--variables constantly shifting and rearranging, time stretching and compressing. What kinds of physical laws will this year's String Theories defy? We don't yet know. Get your tickets here.

Ted Hearne's Gaudeamus-Award-winning "Katrina Ballads" and R WE WHO R WE

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

On January 25, ISSUE Project Room will inaugurate its new space at 110 Livingston with Gaudeamus Muziekweek, a four-day festival celebrating groundbreaking and challenging new music by emerging composers from around the world. Working in partnership with Gaudeamus, ISSUE Project Room will present, for the first time in the United States, a series of performances highlighting some of the extraordinary talent that has emerged from the festival.

January 26 is dedicated to electronic music, featuring Dutch musician Wouter Snoei, an authority on 192-channel "wave-field" synthesis techniques. New York-based electronic artist Matthew Ostrowski will also perform, as well as the duo R WE WHO R WE, a collaboration between New York composer-performers Philip White & Ted Hearne.

Ted Hearne was awarded the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 2009 for his Katrina Ballads, a 65-minute dramatic song cycle adapted entirely from primary-source sound bites from the newsweek following Hurricane Katrina. Hearne chops and manipulates the utterances of politicians, celebrities, survivors and relief workers as broadcast by 24-hour disaster coverage and reworks them into an oratorio for 11 instrumentalists and 5 singers. Take a listen to the multistylistic "Brownie, You're Doing a Heck of a Job" (culled, obviously, from Bush's famous declaration to former FEMA director Michael Brown five days after the hurricane ripped through New Orleans).

R WHO WE R WE takes a similar course of lyrical and sonic reformulation of popular media sources but reapplies the critique to pop music. Hearne and collaborator Philip White deconstruct songs by Michael Jackson, Ke$ha, Eminem and others and reorder them into schizophrenic lyrical poems. Come see for yourself (and check out our brand-new space!) on 1/26! You can get tickets here.

Farewell Party with Jonathan Kane's February, Talibam!, MV Carbon & Tony Conrad

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

ISSUE is starting off the New Year with a change of scenery. That's right, Issue Project Room is moving out of our space at the Old American Can Factory and into 110 Livingston in Downtown Brooklyn. We've had a great run at the Can Factory, so we're going to say goodbye to Gowanus in style on Friday, 1/20 with a Farewell Party featuring Jonathan Kane's February, Talibam!, and MV Carbon & Tony Conrad. BUT WAIT: not only does this promise to be a killer party with some insane performances, but we will also be debuting February's first live album, recorded in a two-day event at ISSUE last year. Here's a sneak peak--check out "Blissed Out Rag," which, despite its title, is way more blues than rag (but it may be the first time that straightforward guitars-and-drums blues has ever been "blissed out," thanks to Kane's unrelenting railway drive on drums and four layered guitars), and get tickets ($15 | $10 members) for the party here.

ISSUE Project Room: Best of 2011

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

Some of ISSUE Project Room's best music performances from 2011, recorded live at both 232 3rd Street and 110 Livingston in Brooklyn.

ISSUE Roundup 2011: Charles Gayle Trio & Acid Birds

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

We're wrapping up an incredible year at ISSUE Project Room by archiving a bunch of previously unreleased recordings of our favorite performances from the past year. Aside from two galas; four Artists-in-Residence; eight Emerging Artists Commissions; an amazing art auction featuring performances by Kim Gordon, Tony Conrad and John Miller; ongoing programs like Darmstadt Institute and Essential Repertoire; the landmark Minor Musics: Japan series; and the upcoming world premiere of Vidas Perfectas, a Spanish-language version of Robert Ashley's Perfect Lives (starting tonight through Saturday, 12/17; get tix here!); we've also presented dozens of performances of groundbreaking works by some of the most innovative composers and artists working today.

Let's kick things off with these recordings of Acid Birds and the Charles Gayle Trio playing some killer free jazz (one of the psychedelic variety, one disjunctive and spiritual) at ISSUE back in February, and if you like what you hear, consider becoming an ISSUE Project Room Member and receive a signed copy of a limited Acid Birds LP. Stay posted in the following weeks to find out what else has been going on all year long. Cheers, and happy holidays!

For 1, 2 or 3 People

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

ISSUE Project Room's annual Darmstadt: Essential Repertoire festival often focuses on works that are influential far beyond the audience that has actually heard them. This year, Ensemble Sospeso will perform Morton Feldman's marathon late work "For Christian Wolff," a three-hour duet for piano and flute, and Joe Drew of Analog Arts will give the U.S. premiere of Stockhausen's "Cosmic Pulses," for 8-channel electronics.

In 2010, the S.E.M. Ensemble was invited to perform at the festival, and one of the pieces played was the austere and yet unstable "For 1, 2 or 3 People," by Christian Wolff (Feldman's dedicatee). "For 1, 2 or 3 People" is, in some ways, the perfect piece to be played at Essential Rep. It's a piece that leaves a lot up to the performers, even things that would seem vital, such as how many performers should perform and what instruments they should play. But on another level, it demands so much interpretation and creativity from its constraints: commands to make "a sound in a middle place, in some respect, of the sounds around it," or "a sound involving stretched material." Christian Wolff has had a long history of collaboration with S.E.M., and the performers (Petr Kotik, Joseph Kubera, and Chris Nappi) take to the piece with the same familiarity as most musicians bring to someone like Mozart. Their interpretation of the piece, then, really becomes a sure, confident one, which is something required for music that has the potential for such sparseness.

And at the same time, the piece requires focus and sensitivity to the other performers—each page constitutes a score, and players perform different sections of the score simultaneously. A large part of the piece requires coordination among players, with commands such as "play after a previous sound has begun, hold till it stops." For 2 or 3 players, this may mean some degree of coordination; for 1 player, this may mean reacting to environmental sounds. Have a listen to this piece, which imagines its own world, redrawing the roles for performers and audiences.

Everyday Experimental: Annea Lockwood, Alison Knowles, and bean sounds

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

This weekend ISSUE will feature a few awesome performances as part of our Everyday Experimental series. Drawing its inspiration from commonplace activities and inconsequential sounds of the everyday, ISSUE Project Room will present a series of performances and talks with Alison Knowles (FREE, 11/17), a new work by Moniek Darge followed by electroacoustic collaborations with Françoise Vanhecke and Graham Lambkin (11/18), and a sound installation by Annea Lockwood (11/14-11/19) along with a performance by Lois Svard of Lockwood’s Ear-Walking Woman and a multi-channel sound piece by Chicago based composer Olivia Block (11/19). Through an intergenerational dialogue, Everyday Experimental looks at the work of three historically significant female artists and maps relevant contemporary practices. A few recordings after the jump!

Prince Rama's UTOPIA=NO PLACE

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

As Issue's 2011 artists-in-residence, Prince Rama have harnessed the materials of time, place, and persons to crystallize their new UTOPIA. This September they further initiated their audience by enablement, providing them a hodgepodge of unmanned instruments strewn across sacred sand (yes, they imported sand into Issue!) and primal rhythms to provoke the everyman's urge to make music… together. Regardless of skill level or experience, many participates - including myself - found themselves immersed in a pulsing six-hour jam session of uninterrupted musical "democracy", or Prince Rama's UTOPIA of NO PLACE.

This 11/11/11, for the third and final installment, UTOPIA = NO TIME (FREE | RSVP), Prince Rama will herald in the end of the world by way of karaoke. Using the number one hit singles corresponding with the dates of eleven different predicted “apocalypses” such as Heavens Gate, Jonestown, and Y2K, they will “chop and screw” the songs to a point beyond recognition and invite anyone who wishes to participate to perform the resulting pieces.

Okkyung Lee, with Tom Rainey, Liberty Ellman, and Skuli Sverrisson

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

Okkyung Lee, one of Issue's 2011 Artists-in-Residence, performed back in April as part of a quartet that also included jazz guitarist Liberty Ellman, bassist Skuli Sverrisson, and drummer Tom Rainey. She's collaborating with the dancer Michelle Boulé this Friday in a free performance at Issue Project Room's 110 Livingston space in Downtown Brooklyn, in a piece called long white shadows (FREE | RSVP), where the two performers will constantly change their relationships within and toward the space.

A classically trained cellist born in Korea, it's not like Lee doesn't regularly work with jazz musicians. She's a staple of the New York free improvisation scene, counting as past collaborators Nate Wooley, Peter Evans, John Butcher (at Issue Project Room on 09/20, Buy Tickets), Tyshawn Sorey, and many more. But there's a certain vibe to this performance that distinguishes it from others, perhaps because the other musicians are laying down such a steady downtown-jazz-club riff that Lee's aggressive playing, focused more on sound than on groove or pitch, is almost out of place. There's a moment, about four minutes into the second track, where Ellman repeats a little lick and Sverrisson and Rainey join in, but then—what's that in the background?—a crazy, almost banshee-like scream that threatens to send this clean jazz groove off the tracks and into the woods. In most other free-noise improv settings, there would be a collective recognition and acknowledgement that things are now getting noisy and everyone would, somewhat safely, get noisy together. But something different happens here, which is that these two things—a steady post-bop jazz-rock groove and what could be Xenakis run through a half stack—coexist for a moment.

Minor Musics: Japan – Not quite silence

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

On September 16 & 17, ISSUE Project Room will present the series Minor Musics: Japan, highlighting a number of musicians associated with two geographically divergent but aesthetically related groups: Onkyo, in Tokyo, and Wandelweister, based primarily in continental Europe. Both of these groups are intensely invested in silence as a compositional and improvisational element, and the two-night event at ISSUE places them in solo and collaborative settings. The performers will include Taku Sugimoto, Taku Unami, Takahiro Kawaguchi, Moe Kamura, as well as Annette Krebs and Radu Malfatti.

The selection below is from the Annette Krebs and Taku Unami duo album motubachii, recently released on Erstwhile Records. In this album, seemingly musical sounds are juxtaposed with ambient noises, like sounds from a TV or radio playing in the background, or feet shuffling. It's ambient music by another means: rather than making making musical elements into furniture, the piece invites the listener to listen closely to the furniture of the everyday sonic world, placing it alongside manufactured and manipulated acoustic and electroacoustic sounds.

The duo will perform this Friday night (more info | Buy Tickets), along with a duo performance by Radu Malfatti/Taku Sugimoto and a solo performance by Takahiro Kawaguchi. Both artists will also perform Saturday (more info | Buy Tickets) in various other duos (Taku Unami & Takahiro Kawaguchi, Annette Krebs & Taku Sugimoto, and Moe Kamura & Taku Sugimoto). Be sure not to miss this rare chance for a glimpse into one of Japan's most vital underground artistic movements.

Minor Musics: Japan is made possible, in part, by generous support from Japan Foundation NY.

Prince Rama: UTOPIA=NO PLACE

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

Back in February, Prince Rama emerged from a haze of smoke and mylar mirrors to assume the guise of The Now Age, a pseudo-utopian cult eager to lead their followers through a transformative series of rituals and initiations. Having reincarnated ISSUE's loft space as a cosmic aerobic center, glittering and psychedelic, the Larson sisters woke the sleeping audience with generous sprinkles of perfume and chakra water to lead them through an 8-hour marathon of body- and mind-altering exorcise/exercise routines -- part Jane Fonda, part Jodorowsky. Below, view some highlights from the exhausting rituals that left me cleansed of demons and self-identity (and unable to walk the next day).

This Thursday (September 8), Prince Rama will return as The Now Age to guide us through the next cycle of transformation, taking the form of a free-for-all, 4-hour jam session. With the aid of roughly 400 pounds of soil, ISSUE will again metamorphose into a sacred space -- removed from time and space and yet inextricably connected to the present moment -- for housing advanced rituals in which the audience and their shamanic leaders engage in utopian musical creation as "a poetic reenactment and microcosmic creation of an ideal democratic society." All participants are encouraged to please bring along their instrument of choice. Read more about the free event and RSVP here.

To ready your mind and body for the next stage of the journey, Prince Rama have shared their new single "Rest In Peace," off their forthcoming LP Trust Now (dropping on Paw Tracks on October 4). If you find yourself in need of more preparation, you can revisit their fantastic in-studio from Brian Turner's show here.

Immediacy in a reverberant space

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

This past week, ISSUE held a reception and short concert by our Artists-in-Residence Nate Wooley & James Ilgenfritz [Artist-in-Residence Nate Wooley with MIVOS Quartet + Peter Evans: Saturday, 6/18, FREE | RSVP] at our future home at 110 Livingston in Downtown Brooklyn. This space, which has previously hosted more than a few string quartets, William Basinski, Ellen Fullman, and a solo acoustic (amplified) performance by Elliott Sharp, had still barely touched the performance style that makes up a healthy portion of our programming: free improvisation. Both Nate and James seem to approach improvisation as an act of listening. They leave ample space for silence, and even when playing solo don't merely rattle off licks learned in middle school. The immediacy of their playing and their mental and emotional presence in the room is always felt.

This performance at 110 Livingston (their first public performance as a duo) seemed to amplify the artists' awareness of their own sound. This highly reverberant space has not yet been acoustically treated, and when there are few other people and no furniture it's difficult to even have a conversation in the room; any word spoken just bounces around the room for 7-8 seconds. So a duo performance by these two virtuoso listeners cannot help but include the room in the equation. The sounds are held, or blasted into the room. But they always step back to listen to the full sound. It's always about the result, and about the aggregate of sounds heard, not only spoken; it's not about the player.

Wet Ink Ensemble @ ISSUE Project Room

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

If Wet Ink Ensemble existed when "uptown" and "downtown" still had meaning, much of their programming would seem to land them decidedly north of 34th St. But like the capital-D Downtown groups, the bread and butter of their programming comes from the ensemble members themselves, with composers such as Alex Mincek, Kate Soper, Eric Wubbels, Sam Pluta, playing vital roles in the group. Lately, inching toward its teenage years, the ensemble has started to program ambitious portrait concerts of underheard-in-America European composers like Peter Ablinger and Matthias Spangler, usually in places like Columbia's Miller Theater or various cultural centers.

However, Wet Ink always seems to make two or three appearances a year at ISSUE. Tonight, for the annual Darmstadt Institute, Wet Ink Ensemble will play new works by composer, trombonist, early AACM member, and Columbia professor George Lewis, vocalist Kate Soper, and pianist Eric Wubbels, with older works by Rick Burkhardt and Alex Mincek. The tracks below are saxophone & piano duos from the group's March 2010 concert at ISSUE: "Pendulum III" by saxophonist and Artistic Director Alex Mincek; and "this is this is this is" by pianist and Executive Director Eric Wubbels.

Darmstadt "Classics of the Avant-Garde" Institute 2011

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

ISSUE Project Room's annual Darmstadt Institute — which borrows the name (if not polemic) of the famous incubator of post-WWII difficult music — runs throughout the month of June, with imports like John Moran & Saori, Terre Thaemlitz (aka DJ Sprinkles), and Jennifer Walshe; Darmstadt stalwarts like TILT Brass, Claire Chase & Rebekeh Heller, and the Wet Ink Ensemble; and some revivals of underrepresented American artists such as David Borden's Mother Mallard Portable Masterpiece Co. and Larry Austin. Almost all of these artists are represented in the mix directly to the right of these words, in works ranging from late-70s pieces by Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co. – one of the first-ever synthesizer ensembles, counting Robert Moog and David Tudor among its members – to an improvisation by inimitable pianist Thollem McDonas, recorded last year in the Can Factory.

We'll continue adding to this mix, as we excavate more recordings from the seemingly endless ISSUE archive, and feature tracks from artists once or twice a week. For now, though, check out the full Institute schedule and, if you're in town, check us out.

Jooklo Duo + Bill Nace

2017-07-05T04:34:50-04:00

Tonight (5/26/11) at ISSUE, we're bringing together two artists of ecstatic noise. The Italian group Jooklo Duo, having recently played in Philadelphia, Somerville, and around the U.S. in support of their new album The Warrior on Northern-Spy Records, and guitarist Bill Nace will each play their own sets, followed by a collaborative trio set. Also worth mentioning: Jooklo Duo will be on Scott McDowell's show The Long Rally tomorrow morning from 9 am.

The first time I heard Jooklo Duo (not until recently, unforutunately) I thought there was something wrong. This recording sounds a little like someone turned a microcassette recorder to full amplitude and dropped it down a saxophone. But, in that way, it sounds perfect—capturing the greater spirit of a live performance, without the inclination to make the instrument sound like it's in a real room, or to soften the edges. Instead, it's like an early bop track with so much to say and very little time to say it all. And after four and a half minutes, although there's an impression that they could have gone on longer, the track ends with a hit that seems like, even though they're getting cut off by the recording engineer, they'll finish up their allotted time and leave no room for a response. Bill Nace, always driving his guitar past the point of drive into a distortion, detaches from the solo electric guitar drone-set playbook. It's all about nearly breaking the instrument, or the amplifier, or your ears, and shaping a wall of sound that lacks the spectral coherence of Stephen O'Malley or Glenn Branca's open strings while still containing an internal logic.

Ten Thousand Hours: Vinny Golia

2017-07-05T04:34:49-04:00

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and record label enterpreneur Vinny Golia discusses his unlikely entrance into improvised music, going from his cover artwork for albums by Chick Corea (The Song of Singing), Joe Henderson, and Dave Holland / Barre Phillips (the seminal Music From Two basses), to his acquisition of a Selmer Mark VI soprano saxophone, replete with metal mouthpiece to match the setup of his idol John Coltrane. He then goes on to discuss some experiments in Grand Central Station, his emigration to the west coast, and the gradual expansion of his staggerinly diverse collection of woodwind instruments. He discusses the development of his improvisational and compositional style, and his recent set of recordings featuring compositions for Like Instruments (one CD each for music featuring flutes, clarinets, Eb saxohpones, and Bb saxophones). He discusses his work with his record label Nine Winds and his stint curating half of April’s concerts at The Stone in New York. Also included are a handful of duo improvisations with host James Ilgenfritz.

As a composer Vinny Golia fuses the rich heritage of Jazz, contemporary classical and world music into his own unique compositions. Also a bandleader, Golia has presented his music to concert audiences in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United States in ensembles varying dramatically in size and instrumentation. Mr. Golia has won numerous awards as a composer, including grants from The National Endowment of the Arts, The Lila Wallace Commissioning Program, The California Arts Council, Meet the Composer,Clausen Foundation of the Arts, Funds for U.S. Artists and the American Composers Forum. In 1982 he created the on-going 50 piece Vinny Golia Large Ensemble to perform his compositions for chamber orchestra and jazz ensembles. Vinny has been a featured performer with Anthony Braxton, Henry Grimes, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Joelle Leandre, Leo Smith, Horace Tapscott, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Bertram Turetzky, George Lewis, Barre Phillips, The Rova Saxophone Quartet, Patti Smith, Harry “the Hipster” Gibson, Eugene Chadburne, Kevin Ayers, Peter Kowald, John Bergamo, George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennick, Lydia Lunch, Harry Sparrney and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra amongst many others. He currently teaches at California Institute of the Arts.

Ellen Fullman's Long String Instrument

2017-07-05T04:34:49-04:00

In the early 1980s, Ellen Fullman began developing the "Long String Instrument," stringing tuned piano wire across her Brooklyn studio. In the last thirty years, she has moved this instrument all over the country, and for one day she'll perform in ISSUE Project Room's new space at 110 Livingston, in Downtown Brooklyn (May 22: 3 pm & 7 pm: brand-new ISSUE members get two free tickets). It's been compared to standing inside an enormous grand piano, or "some cyclopean subterranean grotto" (The Wire). She has an upcoming release on Important Records, Through Glass Panes, and the mix below includes a few of these tracks as well as collaborations with the artists she'll be joined by later this month.

These comparisons, like "standing inside an enormous grand piano," don't quite convey the symbiosis between Fullman's instrument and her way of playing it. It's true, the audience is sitting in a room with seventy 80-foot, precisely tuned wires strung across it, but the comparison seems to fall apart when you realize you've never quite heard a piano that sounds like this. Instead of playing digitally, Fullman's playing seems to live on the threshold of audibility. The on/off of the piano seems distant — can a light brush on a single string be counted as a "note," in the same way that pressing a key constitutes a note?

The careful tuning of the strings causes sympathetic resonances among them. The wire is strung between resonator boxes made of Sitka spruce, built by a harp builder, and the sound is entirely acoustic. This setup, which on the surface seems simple, like a giant guitar with no frets or a harp with no pedals, creates infinitely complex resonances and acoustic effects. In a resonant space, the line between the instrument sounding and not sounding could be blurred.

The uploaded tracks include collaborations with the musicians she'll be performing with on May 22. Through Glass Panes, her new CD on Important Records, includes a duet with Theresa Wong, "Never Gets Out of Me," and other tracks include a duet with percussionist Sean Meehan ("untitled 3," out on cut), electronic musician David Gamper, and trombonist Monique Buzzarté ("Fluctuation 5," from the album Fluctuations on Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening label).

The Rat Bastard Experience

2017-07-05T04:34:49-04:00

Weasel Walter is involved in a number of different projects, including an upcoming set with Paul Flaherty, C. Spencer Yeh, and Steve Swell at ISSUE Project Room on Friday. But The Rat Bastard Experience, led by Cecil Taylor Unit drummer Marc Edwards, is unique. The band played at ISSUE Project Room on January 29th. A partial transcription of their performance follows.

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Table of the Elements: The Copernicium Festival

2017-07-05T04:34:49-04:00

The label Table of the Elements lives up to its name: nothing more than elemental, and nothing short of encyclopedic. They’ve released a 4-CD box set by Tony Conrad titled “Early Minimalism,” and they’ve kept available a number of truly foundational works by Rhys Chatham, among them “Two Gongs” and “Die Donnergotter.” The concept of cover art was reinvented in the early age of the CD; a 128 page book was included with the 7-disc Charley Patton revival collection “Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues,” where used copies fetch around $200 on Amazon. The list goes on and on, with a dual focus on the avant-garde and on so-called primitive American musics: from John Fahey’s fingerpicking to Zeena Parkins’ electro-acoustic harp.

But the periodic table is only so large, and eighteen years later the label has reached the end of it. To celebrate this occasion, the label has assembled a three-night Copernicium Festival (May 12 – 14, $20 a night or $15 for ISSUE members) as a massive sendoff, with artists ranging from Stephen O’Malley, to Jonathan Kane’s February, to Tony Conrad, to Zeena Parkins, to a performance of Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio with a small guitar army. It’ll traverse minimalism, blues, death metal, free improvisation, film, and visual art (with projections of Robert Longo’s Pictures for Music from 1979).

I’ve uploaded tracks from Jonathan Kane’s February releases February and Jet Ear Party, as well as a recording of Zeena Parkins’ March 2010 duo with violinist Jon Rose. The mix also includes a track from Peg Simone’s performance at ISSUE which later appeared on her Table of the Elements release Secrets from the Storm, and a live performance by death-sludge-metal artists Sunn O))), whose Stephen O’Malley will headline the final night of the series. Check out the attached mix, and come by any or all of the three nights to celebrate the conclusion of a great label.