ELI LITWIN / JON BARRIOS / CARLOS SANTIAGO

DAVE SMOLEN

LIONSHEAD (JULIUS MASRI / BEN REMSEN)

plus a special screening of
CHARLES COHEN AT THE BUCHLA MUSIC EASEL: a new short film by Alex Tyson

* CD RELEASE SHOW *
Dan Capecchi- Drums
Matt Engle- Bass
Bryan Rogers- Tenor Saxophone
Dan Scofield- Alto Saxophone
Philadelphia, PA

Shot x Shots second album Let Nature Square, their first studio recording, is due to be released by High Two in May 2008.

Shot x Shot is a Philadelphia quartet that has forged a distinctive sound through five years of steady collaboration. Their work is based in collective improvisational compositions that run the gamut from delicate to ruthless. The band was formed in 2004 while the members were students at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. They began performing at local venues and gradually extended their range to include New York, Boston, Chicago, Montreal and other major cities. Shot × Shot has performed alongside Peter Brouml;tzmann, Jeb Bishop, Chicago Luzern Exchange, Peter Evans, Jack Wright and Pete Robbins among others. In 2007, the band showcased at South by Southwest. Shot × Shot’s self-titled live debut (High Two, 2006) was heralded in the pages of Downbeat, The Wire, Signal to Noise, All About Jazz;NY, and other publications. The Village Voice and All About Jazz;NY listed the album among the top debuts of 2006.

ELI LITWIN percussion
JON BARRIOS bass
CARLOS SANTIGO violin
Philadelphia, PA

Eli Litwin was born in 1983 in Morristown, NJ. He began playing drums at the age of 9 and started his first rock band at age 11. Through high school he continued to play in a variety of rock bands as well as the high school jazz band. Eli chose to attend the Esther Boyer College of Music at Temple University where he studied drum set with Erik Johnson. Since graduating with his Bachelors of Music in Jazz Performance, Eli has remained in Philadelphia to pursue music on both the performing and teaching ends. Though his area of expertise began largely in metal, Eli has gained significant experience playing in jazz, rock & avant-garde idioms as well. He is currently a member of Knife the Glitter, Normal Love, Time Is Like A Sword, Inzinzac, Bring It Inside, Tweeter, and Gun Muffs, (to name a few). In his own time, Eli composes a variety of music on the computer, ranging from ambient and experimental electronic music to “crazy metal MIDIís”

Jon Barrios was born in New York and at the age of six months moved to Japan for 6 years. Later he moved to Venezuela, South Korea and settled in Miami, Fl where he began to study the guitar with cuban guitarist George Aguirre. After 12 years in Miami and having found a musical plateu, Jon decided to move to his mother’s home town of Fayetteville, AR to develop his music in the quiet of the Ozarks. During his stay in Fayetteville, Jon switched to the double bass and met saxophonists Keefe Jackson (Chicago Luzern Exchange) and John Dikeman. At this time he became deeply involved with free improvisation much to the dismay of the locals. Currently Jon lives in Jack Wright’s house in Philadelphia and collaborates with house mates Alban Bailly, Evan Lipson and Dave Smollen.

DAVE SMOLEN solo electronics
Philadelphia, PA

Dave Smolen (processed percussion/analogue electronics) Smolen began playing music at age 10 on the trumpet for 2 years, then later switched to drums at 12. He went on to play rock music for 8 years. He then became interested in processing his drums with analogue phaser and ring modulator effects. After continued practice with this minimal setup, he created one that consisted of ring modulators, reverb units, equalized distortion,multi-modulation/oscillation effects, an open circuit board of a digital chorus pedal and additionally 2 loop pedals. The electronic configuration provides a pitch “mask” over the original acoustic sounds from snare drum and various bells as well as electric sounds including feedback, removed/broken inputs, flipped effect switches and circuit bending. Each sound is either left live or sent through 2 loop pedals, then reset at various tempos and/or enveloped in an overall reprocessed pitch.

Smolen collaborates mainly with Philly locals such as John Heron in a proc. perc./electronics duo and with Joe Lentini (Max/MSP) in Clown Food. He has toured with Evan Lipson and Alex Nagle performing Nagle’s piece, Flittermice of Eld. He was invited to perform in the 2006 edition of the internationally renowned High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music in Baltimore, where he performed with Stewart Mostofsky, Rose Hammer, Leonel Kaplan, Alessandro Bosetti, George Lewis, Max Eisenberg, Jake Freeman, Jenny Graf Bibulah, Michael Muniak, and Jackie Stewart. Smolen’s diverse improvisations and compositions have been documented on two recent solo CDs released by Sprout.

LIONSHEAD

Julius Masri percussion
Ben Remsen guitar
Philadelphia, PA

Lionshead is Julius Masri playing drums and Ben Remsen playing amplified acoustic guitar. Julius played in Kuru Kuru Pah (with members of Shot X Shot and Make a Rising) and Goldenball, and currently plays in Circles and Chakra Khan/Air Pirates. Ben plays in Little Ocean and Big Ocean.

CHARLES COHEN AT THE BUCHLA MUSIC EASEL
a new short film by Alex Tyson

This colorful video features sound artist Charles Cohen improvising on a 1970’s Buchla Music Easel. This extremely rare instrument is one of Don Buchla’s 200 series. Buchla (a pioneer of audio synthesis) only manufactured 14 of these units. The entire film (5’25”) was edited from an hour-long set of free improvisation, with audio was taken directly from Charles’ mixing board. All of the photography and editing was produced by Alex Tyson, a sound and video artist from Pennsylvania. The film was shot in 16:9 720p High Definition format, using the Letus35 Extreme and a 35mm LensBaby 3GPL.