7:30pm doors, show at 8:00pm. $15 adv., $18 door. 21+.
“Alan Licht returns to VDSQ with Havens, a sprawling double-disc set of exploratory guitar-based compositions forged from the myriad possibilities arising when strings collide with electricity & space. Licht is masterful and relentless in his negotiation of the often-unknowable intersections that exist between juxtaposing strands of sound. His work is marked by contrast & contradiction: maximalism versus minimalism; rockist inclinations versus avant, expanded-field expression; loose improvisation versus considered performance. What these dichotomies shouldn’t obscure, however, is the simple pleasure that transpires in his refracting of idiom, conjuring expansive pieces that collapse, stratify & convolve competing schools of music to wholly singular ends.
Havens documents a new sound for Licht, building on a previous VDSQ release "Currents,” his last major solo outing from 2015. Playing those solo acoustic tracks live on tour, their lyricism translated through the power of a PA, Licht was taken by the overtones surging atop those song-like pieces, transforming them into something new. The compositions here, particularly the mesmeric title track, luxuriate in that newfound sense of possibility, infused with a rock-born urgency by way of lightning-fast, urgent strumming gradually unfurling layers of phantom harmonics. Celestial punk, if you will; guitar soli of such ever-surging vitality as to blur & distend dense chord shapes to phantasmagoric effect. The record is rich with considered, contained explosivity, firmly minimalist in its patient pace & ear for hallucination but expressed in defiantly, deliciously rock terms, each piece its own lyrical hybrid built of scant elements unfurled with painterly grace. This is firmly a “guitar” record, despite what your ears mighttell you; barring a short mellotron intervention, Havens is almost unbelievably wrought from guitar alone, ably deployed straight or perverted into abstracted spectres & illusions
"Licht composes like the writer that he is. Ideas - simply stated and highly effective - emerge from a collage of everything from loops of raw guitar to radio weather reports." -- Christian Marclay, ARTFORUM
"Be it in indie rock groups, improv ensembles, or his solo compositions, guitarist and writer Alan Licht has spent his career smuggling ideas across the obscured bridge between harmony and noise." -- the WIRE
SHARKIFACE It's hard to believe that this is the first full-length release by Sharkiface, the solo project of Angela Edwards, whose trail of achievements and accolades began in the 90s, in Austin, Texas. Starting with her experience booking and doing tour management for Daniel Johnston, she then moved to the Bay Area and quickly became an important staple, collaborating with local exploding psychedelic stalwarts Hans Grüsel's Krankenkabinet, Tarantism, and (rumor has it), Caroliner Rainbow, among many others.
Sharkiface has toured the United States steadily, with some stints in Europe and Japan, and has been featured at fests such as San Francisco Electronic Music Fest, No Fun Fest, Colour Out of Space, and Ende Tymes, to name a few. Despite having done splits or collaborations with familiar names like Rodger Stella, Leslie Keffer, or Fletcher Pratt, and running a venue called Life-Changing Ministries, this is still her first truly solo outing as a recording artist.
For "Climax In A Process", Sharkiface brings out career-spanning material, but also newer tracks, freshly inspired by her experience achieving an MFA in Electronic Music at Mills College, where she studied under "expert noodle wranglers" such as: Zena Parkins, Laetitia Sonami, John Bischoff, Chris Brown, Tomeka Reid, James Fei and Kala Ramnaf.
Although Edwards' actual process remains somewhat mysterious, it is readily evident that voice is a main impetus for her work, which is, at times, processed through various extremely rare electronic instruments, tape delays, samplers, and other custom devices.