VOLUME presents legendary composer, video artist, recording engineer, and multi-instrumentalist Maggi Payne (Oakland). Joining the lineup are Maria Chávez (NYC), Kaori Suzuki (Oakland), and Los Angeles local Joseph Hammer for what will surely be a night of focused and sustained immersive listening.

Payne will present several works from recent years, including Heat Shield (2018), Black Ice(2014), and Quicksilver (2011). Black Ice and Heat Shield will both be presented in four-channel audio. Of the works, Payne notes, “At times multiple spaces coexist […] There is always a sense of place, an atmosphere, in these acoustic constructs. The sounds are choreographed in an expanded three-dimensional space beyond boundaries, with no walls, ceilings, or floors to constrain them.” Payne’s work in electroacoustic and electronic media spans an historical era in California’s experimental composition. The three compositions she will perform tonight reflect both the technical and conceptual rigours and fascinations of our locale––explorations of land, light, and space; highly technical expressions of immersive experiences.

Kaori Suzuki returns to Los Angeles on the heels of her second solo record of the year out on Second Editions (Berlin), titled Conduit. This evening she will perform the record live as it was originally composed, for full, extended duration and high volume playback. The work is immersive, physically charging, and will magnetize listeners in a venue as reverberant as Human Resources.

Chávez’s work in improvised turntablism is also a special treat for listeners in a space as reverberant as Human Resources. Her approach examines the nature of the materials used––turntable, needle, vinyl, time, choice, chance, and accident. These interests in deterioration and generation are also reflected in her scholarly and visual work, which has been widely celebrated and internationally supported.

About the artists

Maria Chávez, born in Lima, Peru, and based in NYC, is best known as an abstract turntablist, conceptual sound artist and DJ. Her improvised solo turntable performance combines recorded sounds from vinyl records with the electroacoustic sounds of vinyl and needle in various deteriorating phases. Her conceptual sound installation practice tends to be site specific, allowing each space to highlight its own sonic qualities. Her solo exhibitions are often interactive, ranging from spatial sound presentations to turning an entire art space into a gigantic string instrument for the audience to perform.

Chávez has been a research fellow of the Sound Practice Research Department, Goldsmith’s University, a composer fellow with Civitella Ranieri in Umbertide, Italy, and an artist fellow at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Her instructional book of essays and illustrations, OF TECHNIQUE: Chance Procedures on Turntable, was published in 2012. She has participated in various artist residencies including the CEC Artslink/Back Apartment residency in St. Petersburg, Kunstmeile Krems sound artist residency in Austria, The Kitchen in New York and the Royal Academy of Music in Denmark. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at HeK – haus der elektronischen Künste-Basel, INKONST Art Center, Sweden, The Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Getty Museum, Black Mountain College Museum and Documenta14 in Kassel. More at www.mariachavez.org

In the field of found sound, Joseph Hammer is the master of survey and delay; with looped tape and a gloved hand, he taps a magnetic vein, coaxing fragments of occluded origin into a sonic sui generis. Hammer is longstanding contributor to the undulating Los Angeles experimental music scene. PAN, which released a record of Hammer’s in 2010, describe the work as a “journey into playful yet heavily focused idiot-savant infinite psychedelic inertia […] utilising consumer audio technology and 20th century detritus.” He is a member of the trio Solid Eye, a frequent collaborator and improviser, and member of LAFMS.

Maggi Payne is a composer primarily of electronic and electroacoustic music, a flutist, and a video and installation artist. She is a recording engineer/editor, archivist, and historical remastering engineer. She taught composition, electronic music, and recording engineering at Mills College from 1972-2018.

Her electroacoustic works often incorporate visuals, including dancers outfitted with electroluminescent wire and videos she creates using images ranging from nature to the abstract. Many works address issues around the environment, especially noise pollution. She has composed music for dance, theatre, and video, including the music for Jordon Belson’s video Bardo. She collaborated for several years with video artist Ed Tannenbaum in his Technological Feets performance.

She received Composer’s Grants and an Interdisciplinary Arts Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; video grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowships Program; and was awarded six honorary mentions from Concours International de Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges and one from Prix Ars Electronica. Her works appear on Aguirre, The Lab, Lovely Music, Innova, Starkland, Music and Arts, New World Records (CRI), Root Strata, Ubuibi, Asphodel, and/OAR, Centaur, MMC, Digital Narcis, Capstone, Mills, and Frog Peak labels.

Kaori Suzuki (b.1984) is a Japanese-born music maker currently based in Oakland, CA. She has toured and presented her work in various venues across the U.S., Japan, Mexico, and Canada. Her compositions combine electronics, bowed percussion and string instruments, resonating objects, computer, and others. Her feedback/synthesizer recordings are found on Newsun (Sounds et al), and her recent release of a durational composition for very high frequencies, Conduit, is out on Second Editions (Berlin).

In addition to her solo music, she plays drums in the Oakland-based minimalist psych-punk group Night Collectors, and collaborates with partner, John Krausbauer, on voice, amplified strings, bells, and immersive light/sound happenings. Her works have been presented at San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Debacle Fest, Berkeley Art Museum, CCRMA, The Lab, Mills College, Elastic Arts, and many others.

Please note that as seating for this event is limited, advance ticket purchase is recommended. For more info, and to purchase tickets, please visit https://volume.wedid.it/events/56