ISSUE Project Room : an open and versatile environment in which established and emerging artists conduct, exhibit and perform new and site-specific work

After much lead-up and anticipation, ISSUE Project Room’s Minor Musics: Finland series commences this evening (10.29) with rare U.S. performances from Tomutonttu and Kiila (revisit/remix their music here). A two-part event, the program concludes with a second concert on 11.6 from Kemialliset Ystävät in collaboration with an excellent cast of NYC improvisers: Raphael Lyon, Samara Lubelski, Marcia Bassett, Tom Carter, Michael Bernstein, Pete Nolan, Taylor Richardson and Dave Nuss.

In honor of tonight’s concert, the lovely and enchanting Lau Nau & Kuupuu have shared a recording from their July performance at ISSUE, which served to first inaugurate the Minor Musics: Finland series. As a finale to their respective solo sets, the two women joined forces for a darkly gorgeous, loop-based improvisation – masterfully paced and seamlessly woven into a hauntingly evocative sound environment. Working in tiny bits of self-contained sound – quivering hand percussion, floating wisps of vocal melody, quiet swarms of synth drone – the ladies sent spinning upwards a continual stream of hypnotizing fragments ever-drifting towards the top of the sound mix. The effect was that of a slow but perpetual ascending motion without end – the feeling of swimming from the depths of an enveloping water towards a surface that somehow remains forever just out of reach. And yet, amidst the beautifully swirling and seductive textures, escape seems hardly the desired end.

Minor Musics: Finland is made possible through the generous support of the American-Scandinavian Foundation; the Consulate General of Finland; and ESEK, the Finnish Performing Music Promotion Centre; and Luses, the Popular Music Committee of the Foundation for the Promotion of Finnish Music, and the Arts Council of Finland.