Big Ears Festival
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Big Ears Festival
The Big Ears Festival is an annual music festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, created and produced by AC Entertainment. History The festival was founded in 2009 by Ashley Capps, founder of AC Entertainment. The festival was originally organized by Ashley Capps in partnership with Jason Boardman of Knoxville's Pilot Light and Chris Molinski of the Knoxville Museum of Art. The 2009 edition, which took place February 6–8, featured Antony And The Johnsons, Burning Star Core, Nicolas Collins, David Daniell, Dan Deacon, Fence Kitchen, Fennesz, Fennesz/linkous/minor, Michael Gira, Philip Glass, Larkin Grimm, Neil Hamburger, Jon Hassell, Matmos, The Necks, Negativland, Pauline Oliveros, Wendy Sutter, Shaking Ray Levis, and Ned Rothenberg. In 2010, famed composer Terry Riley was named as the first "Artist in Residence" of the Big Ears Festival. The festival celebrated his 75th birthday year with three days of concerts by Terry Riley and a host of collaborators. In addition to Ril ...
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Matmos
Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore. M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their performances, including notably J Lesser. Apart from releasing twelve full-length studio albums and numerous collaborative works, Matmos is also well known for their collaboration with Icelandic singer and musician Björk, both on studio recordings and live tours. After being signed to Matador Records for nine years, Matmos signed with Thrill Jockey in 2012. The name ''Matmos'' refers to the seething lake of evil slime beneath the city Sogo in the 1968 film '' Barbarella''. Notable work In 1998, Matmos remixed the Björk single Alarm Call. Subsequently, Matmos worked with Björk on her albums ''Vespertine'' (2001) and ''Medúlla'' (2004), as well as her ''Vespertine'' and ''Greatest Hits'' tours. In November 2004, Matmos spent 97 hours in the ...
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Nicolas Collins
Nicolas Collins (born March 26, 1954 in New York City) is a composer of mostly electronic music, a sound artist and writer. He received his BA and MA from Wesleyan University, and his PhD from the University of East Anglia. Upon graduating from Wesleyan, he was a Watson Fellow. Biography In the 1980s Collins was "a pioneer in the use of microcomputers in live performance, and has made extensive use of 'home-made' electronic circuitry, radio, found sound material, and transformed musical instruments." Trained in the experimental compositional tradition of Alvin Lucier, David Behrman, and David Tudor, all of whom he worked with closely, Collins also immersed himself in the New York Improvised Music scene of the 1980s. Using home-built instruments that combined circuitry, simple computers and traditional instruments such as trombones and slide guitars, he collaborated and performed with Tom Cora, Shelley Hirsch, Christian Marclay, Zeena Parkins, John Zorn and others. Collins's c ...
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Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s, and served as its director. She taught music at Mills College, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Oliveros authored books, formulated new music theories, and investigated new ways to focus attention on music including her concepts of "deep listening" and "sonic awareness", drawing on metaphors from cybernetics. She was an Eyebeam resident. Early life and career Oliveros was born in Houston, Texas. She started to play music as early as kindergarten, and at nine years of age she began to play the accordion, received from her mother, a pianist, because of its popularity in the 1940s.Baker, Alan"An interview with Pauline Oliveros" January 2003. '' ...
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Negativland
Negativland is an American experimental music band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! track, while their record label (Seeland Records) is named after another Neu! track. The core of the band consists of Mark Hosler, David Wills (aka "The Weatherman"), Peter Conheim and Jon Leidecker (aka "Wobbly"). Negativland has released a number of albums ranging from pure sound collage to more musical expositions. These have mostly been released on their own label, Seeland Records. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they produced several recordings for SST Records, most notably ''Escape from Noise'', ''Helter Stupid'' and '' U2''. Negativland were sued by the band U2's record label, Island Records, and by SST Records, which brought them widespread publicity and notoriety. The band is also part of the Church of the SubGenius parody religion. History 1980s Negativland started in Concord, California, in 1979 around the core f ...
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The Necks
The Necks are an Australian avant-garde jazz trio formed in 1987 by founding mainstays Chris Abrahams on piano and Hammond organ, Tony Buck on drums, percussion and electric guitar, and Lloyd Swanton on bass guitar and double bass. They play improvisational pieces of up to an hour in length that explore the development and demise of repeating musical figures. Their double LP studio album '' Unfold'' was named by Rolling Stone as "one of the top 20 avant albums of 2017." In 2020, The Necks was listed at number 49 in ''Rolling Stone Australia''s "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue. History The Necks were formed in 1987 in Sydney by Chris Abrahams on piano and Hammond organ, Tony Buck on drums, percussion and electric guitar, and Lloyd Swanton on bass guitar and double bass.The Necks related entries at Australian Rock Database: * The Necks (1987–present):  * Chris Abrahams:  * The Sparklers:  * Stephen Cummings:  * Dynamic Hepnotics:&nbs ...
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Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell (March 22, 1937 – June 26, 2021) was an American trumpet player and composer. He was best known for developing the concept of "Fourth World" music, which describes a "unified primitive/futurist sound" combining elements of various world ethnic traditions with modern electronic techniques. The concept was first articulated on '' Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics'', his 1980 collaboration with Brian Eno. Born in Tennessee, Hassell studied contemporary classical music in New York and later in Germany under composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. He subsequently worked with minimalist composers Terry Riley (on a 1968 recording of ''In C'') and La Monte Young (as part of his Theatre of Eternal Music group), and studied under Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath. His association with Brian Eno in the early 1980s would introduce Hassell to a larger audience. He subsequently worked with musical artists such as Talking Heads, David Sylvian, Farafina, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears ...
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Neil Hamburger
Neil Hamburger is a fictional standup comedian and singer created by Australian-American entertainer Gregg Turkington. Distinguished for his misanthropic jokes and anti-comedy style, Turkington has released a number of albums as Hamburger and has appeared as the character in various films, television shows, and other media. In 2015, the act inspired the feature-length film ''Entertainment'', which stars Turkington as a "variant" of the character. Turkington developed the character in the 1990s and originally envisioned the concept as a "weird recording project". It originated from a prank call that had appeared on the album '' Great Phone Calls Featuring Neil Hamburger'' (1992). He followed the LP with three more albums issued on Drag City Records before he began receiving offers to perform as the character for live shows. His albums '' Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners'' (2009) and ''First of Dismay'' (2014) feature original songs and cover versions backed by "The Too Good ...
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Larkin Grimm
Larkin Grimm (born September 18, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter and musician based in New York City. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Early life and career At age 20 Grimm dropped out of Yale University and moved to Alaska, where she hiked and began to experiment with singing. Several months later she was convinced by a friend to return to Yale and graduate with her degree in Studio Art. Before leaving Yale, She began recording her first album ''Harpoon (album), Harpoon'', which was partly influenced by Grimm's experiences performing with the Dirty Projectors. Grimm then moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where she has since produced another album called ''The Last Tree (album), The Last Tree''. Larkin's third album ''Parplar'' was released October 2008 by Young God Records. In 2017 Grimm released her album ''Chasing an Illusion'' on Northern Spy Records. ''Chasing an Illusion'' was recorded in a natural cave featuring raw vocals and working from live recordings laye ...
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Philip Glass
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped evolve stylistically. Glass founded the Philip Glass Ensemble, with which he still performs on keyboards. He has written fifteen operas, numerous chamber operas and musical theatre works, fourteen symphony, symphonies, twelve concertos, nine string quartets and various other chamber music, and several film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for an Academy Award. Life and work 1937–1964: Beginnings, early education and influences Philip Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on January 31, 1937, the son of Ida (née Gouline) and Benjamin Charles Glass. His family were Lithuanian Je ...
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Michael Gira
Michael Rolfe Gira (; born February 19, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, author and artist. He is the main force behind the New York City musical group Swans and fronted Angels of Light. He is also the founder of Young God Records. Biography Early life Michael Rolfe Gira was born February 19, 1954 in Los Angeles, California to Alice (née Shulte), originally from Iowa, and Robert Pierre Gira. His mother was an alcoholic, and Gira spent much of his early life caring for his younger brother. Gira has commented that his parents were "not around much" during his early childhood. As an adolescent, Gira was arrested in California several times for petty crimes. Facing the risk of being incarcerated in a juvenile hall, he relocated with his father to Germany following a short stay in South Bend, Indiana. While in Germany, Gira ran away and hitchhiked across Europe, lived in Israel for a year, and spent four and a half months in an adult jail in Jerusale ...
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Fennesz
Christian Fennesz (born 25 December 1962) is an Austrian producer and guitarist active in electronic music since the 1990s, often credited simply by his last name. His work utilizes guitar and laptop computers to blend melody with treated samples and glitch production. He lives and works in Vienna, and currently records on the UK label Touch. Fennesz first received widespread recognition for his 2001 album '' Endless Summer'', released on the Austrian label Mego. He has collaborated with a number of artists, including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jim O'Rourke, Ulver, David Sylvian, and King Midas Sound. Biography Fennesz was born and raised in Austria and studied music formally in art school. He started playing guitar around the age of 8 or 9. He initially performed as a member of the Austrian experimental rock band Maische before signing to electronic music label Mego as a solo artist. The influence of techno led him to begin composing with a laptop. In 1995 he released his first EP ' ...
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