Sally Gates, Zoh Amba, Brian Chase / Human Rites Trio
July 10, 2024
7:30pm doors, 8:30pm music
Full dinner menu available
Seating is first-come, first-serve
Laura Cocks & Frederico Isasti, DoYeon Kim & Henry Fraser
May 14, 2024
7pm doors 8pm music
Full dinner menu available, seating is first-come first-serve
live in the back room
LAURA COCKS & FREDERICO ISASTI
photo by Frank Schindelbeck
Laura Cocks is is a flutist with “febrile instrumental prowess” (The New York Times), who works in a wide array of environments as a performer of experimental music and “creates intricate, spellbinding works that have a visceral physicality to them” (Foxy Digitalis). Laura is the executive director and flutist of TAK ensemble, “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen) with whom Laura makes musics “that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (WIRE Magazine). Laura is also a member of Talea Ensemble, and SUN HAN GUILD and performs regularly as a soloist, an improviser, and chamber musician with ensembles such as International Contemporary Ensemble, DeCapo Chamber Players, Third Sound, Wet Ink Ensemble, and many others in NYC and abroad.
Frederico Isasti is a drummer, composer, improviser and audio visual software developer based in Buenos Aires. Having participated as a drummer and co-leader in more than 20 albums of creative music groups (Alan Plachta, Pía Hernández, Elias Stemeseder, Julián Mekler, NUDO, among others) and is internationally recognized by his musical work, Federico is interested in interdisciplinary practice and has composed music for dance and produced hybrid audio-visual performances.
DOYEON KIM & HENRY FRASER
photo by Peter Gannushkin / downtownmusic.net
DoYeon Kim is a traditionally trained Korean artist who plays the gayageum, a traditional Korean string instrument, and has developed a uniquely broad approach to music, which incorporates Korean music, jazz, and improvisation, among other influences. Importantly, she introduced the gayageum into the improvisational music scene worldwide. DoYeon has performed throughout the world leading the Kim Do Yeon Band, and alongside many improvisers, including Tyshawn Sorey, Joe Morris, Agusti Fernandez, Tony Malaby and Anthony Coleman. Her first album, GaPi (2017), intimately combined traditional Korean music and jazz, and was nominated for a 2018 Korean Grammy Award in the crossover album category.
Henry Fraser moved to NYC in 2014, and has has worked with such artists as John Zorn, Ka Baird, Uniform, Brandon Seabrook, Lea Bertucci, and Isa Crespo Pardo’s sinonó. He has toured throughout the US and abroad, playing such venues as the Panama Jazz Festival, Moers Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and Lincoln Center. Much of Fraser’s work is rooted in his music for solo double bass, which has culminated in three releases – his latest, Breath Line is scheduled for release in the fall of 2024 – establishing him as a technical and creative force among his generation of bassists.
photo by Peter Gannushkin / downtownmusic.net
plus CAKES XMAS SELECTS ONLY THE UPSETTER
Assembly No. 17 curated by Lester St. Louis & Luke Stewart
April 17, 2024
7pm doors 8pm music
Full dinner menu available, seating is first come first serve
performing live in the back room
KWAMI WINFIELD
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“A multi-disciplinary type who plays trumpet, drums, electronics, trash, Kwami creates collections of visual creations, rocks, pez dispensers. Her music can touch on the relationship of externalized sound and the ancillary, grotesque functions required to produce them. Looking for windows between noisy circuits and noisy bodies, both bubbling from complications to resource consumption and procurement.”
PHONG TRAN
is a Brooklyn-based composer and visual artist primarily working in digital and electronic mediums. His work revolves around emotional experience in digital and nonphysical spaces. Phong’s most recent work, The World We Left Behind, is a ballet made in collaboration with Troy Schumacher (NYC Ballet) and BalletCollective. The work was inspired by a newly commissioned tabletop roleplaying game by Samantha Leigh in which two players collaboratively explore an abandoned world and uncover shared mysteries and secrets.
SAM WENC
is a composer, improviser, and interdisciplinary artist working with sound, text, performance and installation. Wenc has released music on Where to Now, Moone Records, Noumenal Loom, Sweet Wreath, and Obsolete Staircases. He has performed throughout the US, Canada, and Peru. He’s been artist-in-residence at Elektronmusikstudion EMS (Stockholm, Sweden) and Art OMI (Ghent, NY). In 2022, he composed the score for artist Sophia Giovannitti’s short film “A Monopoly of Violence” presented at Duplex Gallery NYC.
+ all night selector JUSTIN FRYE
…is a musician and visual artist from Virginia Beach, VA, who has been based out of New York City since 2003. Frye has released 5 LPs + countless tapes, 7”s and EPs with his project PC Worship, which also acts as a vessel for his visual art, photography & writing.
$20 at the door, cash/Venmo, no advance tickets
Assembly #16 curated by Lester St. Louis & Luke Stewart
March 17, 2024
doors 7pm
full dinner menu available
seating is first-come, first-served
performing live in the back room
Music Research Strategies + andrea haenggi + Luke Stewart
drums + movement + bass
WINDSCOUR
Joe Moffett – trumpet
Zach Rowden – electronics
image by Peter Gannushkin / Downtownmusic.net
Jessie Cox
expanded percussion
$20 at the door (cash/Venmo, no advance tickets)
Heavy Florals VII curated by Shara Lunon
7pm doors 8pm music
Full dinner menu available; seating is first come, first served
HEAVY FLORALS is a series that creates space for a community of POC musicians & their allies to exhale, curated by Shara Lunon
performing live in the back room
ALIYA & JAVEN
Aliya Ultan (she/her/hers) is a cellist, singer, and composer-improviser from Brooklyn based in New York. Growing up in a car with her mother and sister, Aliya’s music channels the energies one might associate with escape via catharsis or witchcraft. Throughout her time in NYC, Aliya has become deeply involved in the experimental music scene as both a performer and facilitator of creative happenings. The Wham Jam series in Redhook is one of her ongoing projects as well as an upcoming rooftop series starting May. With a passion for collaboration Aliya plays in three bands; GNR8RZ with Simon Hanes, Calvin Weston, and Anthony Coleman, Wicked Bush with Matt Bent and Kevin Eichenberger, and SEVEN which she co-leads with violist-singer songwriter Javen Lara. Aliya also performs on Broadway in Hadestown and with Yoshiko Chuma’s School or Hard Knocks. Come this Fall, Aliya will be releasing multiple records including a debut album with SEVEN produced by Randall Dunn, GNR8RZ produced by Marc Urselli, and a live album of her most recent solo tour across the States. For information about upcoming events and releases please follow @nocturnal_cellist on IG.
Javen Lara (she/her/hers), also known as Jae, is from Harlem, New York City. She attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School as an instrumental major. Jae has performed at Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall and more. Graduating from Bard College and Conservatory, Jae was one of two of the first African-American graduates of the Conservatory. Upon her return to New York City, she started “Javen’s House Concert Series: Through the Seasons”, where she hosted a fusion of classical chamber music favorites, improvisations, and original songs. Emma Kato, Christina Jones, Alyssa Yuge, Dharshan Chandrakumar. Gigi Hseuh, Alissa Mori, and Alec Manasse were collaborators playing works by Shostakovich, Tchiakovsky, Mozart. The improvisations were created by Jae and eclectic violinist, Scott Li. And original songs with her Manhattan-based band, The Slippers. Dharshan and Jae also started an improvisatory viola duet, using electronics and voice to expand the capabilities of their instruments. Lastly, Jae is the violist as well as co-lead vocalist with cellist/vocalist/one of Jae’s greatest inspirations, Aliya Ultan, in the Brooklyn based band, SEVEN. They have performed at Public Records, Chaos Computer, and look forward to collaborating with Pioneer works as well as more renowned venues around New York City. This Autumn, the band will be releasing their debut album, produced by Randall Dunn, through Applehead Studios in Woodstock and Circular Ruin Studios in Brooklyn. @sexistential_crisis and @seventimesinfinity on IG
BongoWattZ
Shamar Watt is an experimental multidisciplinary artist born in Kingston, Jamaica, raised in Miami, and based in Miami and New York City. He has worked as a multidisciplinary performer with Nora Chipaumire since 2015. He was nominated as one of the top 25 performers/choreographers to watch for 2019 Dance Magazine. Watt was the recipient of the prestigious Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance 2019. Watt collaborated and worked alongside Matthew Barney in ‘SECONDARY’ premiered in 2023. Watt challenges the way we perceive form through sound and the Body. He interrogates the forms of spiritual entertainment. Watt is currently pursuing an MFA at NYU Tisch in interdisciplinary research.
+ all night selector DJ SAGE LOVES NY
$10-20 sliding scale at the door