Monday, April 9, 2012

Saturday, April 21st - Kevin Harris Premiers New Works at Fort Gondo

Photo By: J.J. Lane

Local modular synth hero and Floating Laboratories founder, Kevin Harris, will be presenting three exclusively new pieces to the public at his opening at Fort Gondo on Saturday, April 21st at 8pm. The concert is put on by local experimental enthusiasts, The HEARding Cats Artists Collective. Here's what they have to say:

"HEARding Cats is proud to present St. Louis artist Kevin Harris in a solo concert! Harris is a longtime advocate and performer of synthesized music. His career as a working artist has taken him on tours of the U.S. and Europe over the last two decades. While he’s perhaps best known as the proprietor of the south city concert space, Floating Labs, his talent and abilities are not to be underestimated. Harris is an accomplished synthesist using multiple formats ranging from self invented instruments to old analog units, and even computers for digital music creation. For this concert, Harris will premier three new pieces which each take an entirely different approach to music creation: one for keyboard synthesizer, one for solo computer, and a last for modular synthesizer.

With piece names such as “D2Y9k301” and “A1Z3k302,” Harris’ aesthetic can on the surface appear robotic and emotionless. However, a quick conversation reveals both light-hearted humor, and a deep seriousness in his approach to creation. Harris cites “ice cream,” and “the inferiority of squares to circles,” as “food or ideas, which may be important to the music being presented.” Yet he also considers “the disadvantages of rational thought,” and “interpersonal information selection and distribution (the process by which humans distribute information about their thoughts, ideas, and experiences to other humans,” as keys to his artistic process. With such dichotomous influences, Harris is at once complex, sophisticated, and highly creative. A truly strange and wonderful St. Louisan."

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