Buffalo Rising Online

Oct 7th 2005, 12:00am By queenseyes

Enjoy a night of duos @ Soundlab featuring, Scott Valkwitch & Siew-wai Kok; Michael Hermanson & Steve Baczkowski; Parallel Resolve's Sarah Weaver & Matt Field.

Inset Photo: Siew-wai creats poetry out of the ordinary, offering a refreshing perspective of everyday routine. She creates video within the tradition of performance, but utilizes the camera as an omnipotent source of visual and sonic documentation of emotions, thoughts, and sensations. Her aesthetics draws a sensual and meditative sensibility out of the viewer. Recording with electronic devices becomes an extension of diary writing where the author is the audience. An observer as well as a performer, Siew-wai is simultaneously in front of and behind the camera in most of her work, toying with the reflexive relationships among these positions. The human body (body parts, movements, the human voice etc.), both its physicality and its creative expressions has been her artistic exploration. Discovering new realms, feeling and seeing ordinary routines in new lights, Siew-wai pursues the place where a kind of transformation takes place: a place of transition and connection; a place that is vibrating; a place of being alive.

Parallel Resolve is the latest project of Chicago musicians Sarah Weaver (trombone) and Matt Field (guitar). Lucid, intense, honest, and flowing, their improvisations draw upon influences such as Pauline Oliveros, Eric Dolphy, Sonic Youth, Evan Parker, and Marilyn Crispell. Extended technique language is featured in their playing, as well as the use of drone, intricate counterpoint, subtle contrasts, and dense textures. The music is an expressive journey of contemplation, a happening of sound and soul.

Both musicians recently relocated to Chicago and met through Weave Soundpainting Orchestra, led by Soundpainter Sarah Weaver. Parallel Resolve has performed throughout Chicago, and is embarking on their Northeast tour and recording project titled Caverns, slated for October 2005. Sarah Weaver has performed nationally as a trombonist with luminaries such as Marilyn Crispell, Pauline Oliveros, Walter Thompson, Karl Berger, Joe Giardullo, and Francois Jeanneau, and with current collaborators James Ilgenfritz (Sound Infusion), and puppeteer Lisa Abbatomarco (In OVO). Weaver is the Artistic Director of Chicago-based Weave Soundpainting Orchestra, Music Director of In OVO Infinite Arts, and is Executive Director of the International Society for Improvised Music. Matt Field was raised in Nashville, Tennessee where his stepfather Bobby Thompson was a highly-regarded freelance banjo player. Field has played in the rock band God Star Social, the free jazz band Sacred Baboons, and in recent years he has focused on extensive solo improvisation performances incorporating electronics. Coming together as Parallel Resolve, Field and Weaver combine their talents and experience to produce this cutting-edge duo of a new generation.

Sunday, Octobert 9, 8pm, $5-7. Soundlab is located at 110 Pearl Street.