Jeff Carey

Jeff Carey makes synthetic noise music with an physically controlled software based instrument of his own development called ctrlKey. His music is abstract and sculptural, full of shapes and gesture, colored by noise bursts, percussive glitches and shifting resonance. In recent work, he has incorporated lighting projection to explore the space between visceral and the external embodiment of sound. He builds physically controllable custom software synthesis instruments and is interested in exploring immediate and flexible sound production with virtuosity in electronic music.

"He's acting on raw instinct here - he refuses the clinical approach to programming software or composing music, and strives to throw himself bodily at his machines, replacing all mechanical moving parts with human flesh, blood, and bone. In pursuit of this all-organic goal, virtually everything else is jettisoned, starting with recognizable notes or melody." – Sound Projector magazine editor Ed Pinsent

He is an active member of Baltimore's music scene. He organizes local concerts for touring electronic musicians and is a co-curator of the High Zero Festival for improvised and experimental music and for the Diffusion Festival for electronic multichannel music.

Index[off], released on July 3rd is only available via https://jeffcarey.bandcamp.com/album/index-off

website: http://jeffcarey.foundation-one.org

merch: https://jeffcarey.bandcamp.com

Charmaine Lee

Charmaine Lee is a New York-based vocalist. Her music is predominantly improvised, favoring a uniquely personal approach to vocal expression concerned with spontaneity, playfulness, and risk-taking. Beyond extended vocal technique, Charmaine uses amplification, feedback, and microphones to augment and distort the voice.

She has performed with leading improvisers Nate Wooley, id m theft able, C. Spencer Yeh, and Ikue Mori, and maintains ongoing collaborations with Conrad Tao, Victoria Shen, Zach Rowden, and Eric Wubbels. She has performed at ISSUE Project Room, the Kitchen, Roulette, the Stone, and MoMA PS1, and participated in festivals including Resonant Bodies, Huddersfield Contemporary, and Ende Tymes. She has been featured in group exhibitions including The Moon Represents My Heart: Music, Memory and Belonging at the Museum of Chinese in America (2019).

As a composer, Charmaine has been commissioned by the Wet Ink Ensemble (2018) and Spektral Quartet (2018). In 2019, she was an Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room. Charmaine is currently a member of the Editorial Board of Sound American.  

website: https://charmainelee.com/

merch: https://charmainelee.bandcamp.com/

Bob Bellerue

Bob Bellerue is a sound artist, experimental musician, sound/video curator, and creative technician based in Brooklyn NY. Over the last 30+ years he has been involved in creating and presenting a wide range of sonic activities – experimental music, sound art, noise, junk metal percussion ensembles, soundtracks for dance/ theater/ video/ performance art, and sound / video installations. Bob’s electronic sound work is focused on resonant feedback systems, using amplified instruments, objects, recordings, and spaces, in combination with electronics and software written in the Supercollider audio synthesis programming language.

Bob's work has been presented by The Kitchen, Issue Project Room, MOMA/PS1, Pioneerworks, Experimental Intermedia, Cafe Oto, Fylkingen, EMS, High Zero Festival, the Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival, Centre de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona, LUFF Festival, Akouphene Festival, Sonic Circuits Festival, Living Arts of Tulsa's New Genre Festival, CEAIT Festival, Ende Tymes Festival, Denver Noise Festival, Olympia Experimental Music Festival, PDX Noise Festival, Cave12, Diapason Sound Gallery, Roulette, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Elastic Arts, Here Art Center, Radio Epsilonia (Paris), WFMU, WKCR, WNYU, KFJC, KXLU, East Village Radio, Oberlin College, NYU, the Art Institute of Chicago, Stanford University, The New School, UCSD, and UCLA.

Bob’s discography includes dozens of releases on Elevator Bath Records, iDeal Recordings, Banned Productions, Fabrica, P-Tapes, RRR Records, Love Earth Music, Prison Tatt Records, Los Discos Enfantasmes, Zelphabet, Peyote Tapes, No Rent Records, Important Records, and his own Anarchymoon Recordings and Sleepy Hollow Editions.

Bob has curated and produced events for the Che Cafe (1987-91), Naropa Institute (1992-95), Highways Performance Space (1999-2001), Beyond Baroque (2001-5), CalArts (2001-3), Il Corral (2005-7), Porhouse (2007-8), The Kitchen (2008-11), Issue Project Room (2011-present), Silent Barn (2011-18), Secret Project Robot (2012-19), Knockdown Center (2014-15), MOMA (2015-16), H0l0 (2016-present), and Pioneerworks (2017-present). His festival Ende Tymes was founded in 2011, and the 11th iteration is presently delayed due to the coronavirus.

Bob works as an audio engineer and technical director, working presently for Issue Project Room, and a handful of clients in the NYC area once the coast is clear.

website: bobbellerue.net, halfnormal.com

merch: https://bobbellerue.bandcamp.com/

Sandy Ewen is a sound artist, visual artist and architect who has recently relocated to NYC from Houston, TX. Ewen’s audio practice focuses on extended guitar techniques, improvisation, graphic scores and interdisciplinary collaboration. Her unique approach to guitar incorporates a wide array of implements – railroad spikes, sidewalk chalk, threaded bolts, steel wool and other items become an arsenal of abstraction. Ewen has worked extensively with film makers, dancers, poets and musicians to create films, audio recording, sound interventions and performance art. Ewen’s musical collaborations include trio Etched in the Eye, duo with Tom Carter called Spiderwebs, the trio Garden medium, and ongoing collaborations with percussionist Weasel Walter and bassist Damon Smith. For nearly ten years, Ewen has been the leader of an all-female large ensemble. The ensemble conceptualizes and performs sound and performance art, utilizing graphic and text based scores and improvisational constraints. The ensemble performed with an amplified bathtub at Diverse Works in 2016, and performed a suite of installation-specific compositions for Francis Alÿs’ Fabiola Project at the Menil. Sandy has spent much of 2017 touring, performing solo sets and in collaboration with Steve Jansen (tapes and electronics) and Maria Chavez (turntables) around Europe. In years past, Ewen has performed alongside Roscoe Mitchell, Keith Rowe, Lydia Lunch and many others, and has performed and recorded with Jaap Blonk, Henry Kaiser and more. In 2014 she performed at San Francisco’s 13th Annual Outsound New Music Summit, and she has made several appearances at Austin’s annual No Idea Festival.

Born in Toronto, Canada in 1985, Sandy Ewen received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. Since then she has resided in Houston, TX where she pursues musical and visual projects and her architecture license. Ewen has released several albums, including a duo with guitarist Tom Carter, a trio with bassist Damon Smith & drummer Weasel Walter, and a rock album with Austin’s Weird Weeds. Ewen’s visual work is closely tied to her work in sound; she uses both mediums to explore texture, composition and materials.

Ewen’s microcollages, enlarged through projection and digital printing, are an exploration of material and technique. Using a unique process pioneered by the artist, natural materials and polymers are torn, liquefied, scorched, melted, cut, and fused. When enlarged, the microscopic nuances of these manipulations are manifested in exquisite detail. Ewen has presented prints of her work at 14 Pews (2012), Spacetaker/Fresh Arts (2012), Khon’s (2013) & Galeria Regina (2014).

As an improviser in both art and music, Ewen sees herself as guiding materials and space rather than executing a preconceived composition. “I like to explore mediums and materials and tease out their essence,” says Ewen. “Working with slide projections has focused my eye on the subtitles of natural processes of decay and transformation. Through my work, I am asking questions of the materials rather than dictating answers.”

website: http://www.sandyewen.com/

merch: https://sandyewen.bandcamp.com/