John Colpitts (aka Kid Millions) is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and writer who is perhaps best known as the drummer for Oneida. Man Forever, his vehicle for exploring the outer limits of drum performance, was created to overwhelm, to investigate the nuances that bloom in the midst of repetitive music, and to act as a pure sound experience.
 
Originally based on the idea of creating a sort of punk-infused Metal Machine Music for drums, Man Forever has evolved from a five or six full drum set ensemble to something a lot more stripped down. Based on two drummers playing single stroke rolls on a single drum and the patterns that emerge from that, Pansophical Cataract is propulsive
without a pulse. Patterns evolve and burst through the static surface of the material, much of which was produced by electric instruments, though “Ur Eternity” remains mostly drums with only a few bass tracks making an appearance. The sounds created by these instruments were based on the drones that Colpitts hears when he is practicing (the not fully conscious singing or humming that arises when one practices alone), and then augmented and enhanced by the other musicians on the record. The repetitive rolls create a phasing effect, a music in and of itself, and the dynamic shifts that occur when the other instruments enter become not mere notes, but grand events.
 
In the live environment, these shifts and phasing effects, are amplified through sheer volume and duration. “Surface Patterns” and “Ur Eternity” are 30 and 40 minutes respectively (though have been shortened to around 18 minutes per side on record), creating an even more dramatic effect. Past performances have included Brian Chase (Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs), James McNew (Yo La Tengo), Chris Baio (Vampire Weekend), Richard Hoffman (Sightings), Shahin Motia (Oneida, Ex Models), Sarah Richardson (Creeping Nobodies), Ryan Sawyer (Stars Like Fleas), Greg Fox (Liturgy, Guardian Alien), Christopher Weingarten (Parts and Labor), and many others.
 
Pansophical Cataract can be likened to watching Niagara Falls. You can’t expect to see every drop of water that crests over the ridge, but you are overwhelmed with the shear scale of the thing, and therein lies the aspiration for this record. Dive right in.

Sō Percussion official site | Sō Percussion on Facebook | Sō Percussion on Twitter | Sō Percussion on Soundcloud | Sō Percussion on Instagram

Our Mission:

Sō Percussion is a percussion-based music organization that creates and presents new collaborative works to adventurous and curious audiences and educational initiatives to engaged students, while providing meaningful service to its communities, in order to   exemplify the power of music to unite people and forge deep social bonds.

Our Vision:

To create a new model of egalitarian artistic collaboration that respects history, champions innovation and curiosity, and creates an essential social bond through service to our audiences and our communities.

Ensemble Bio:

Sō is: Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting

With innovative multi-genre original productions, sensational interpretations of modern classics, and an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam,” (The New Yorker), Sō Percussion has redefined the scope and vital role of the modern percussion ensemble.

Their repertoire ranges from “classics” of the 20th century, by John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis, et al, to commissioning and advocating works by contemporary composers such as David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Steve Mackey, and Caroline Shaw, to distinctively modern collaborations with artists who work outside the classical concert hall, including Shara Nova, the electronic duo Matmos, the choreographer Susan Marshall, Wilco’s Glenn Kotche, The National’s Bryce Dessner, and many others.

Sō Percussion also composes and performs their own works, ranging from standard concert pieces to immersive multi-genre programs – including Imaginary City, Where (we) Live, and A Gun Show, which was presented in a multi-performance presentation as part of BAM’s 2016 Next Wave Festival. In these concert-length programs, Sō Percussion employs a distinctively 21st century synthesis of original music, artistic collaboration, theatrical production values and visual art, into a powerful exploration of their own unique and personal creative experiences.

In the current season, Sō performs the New York premiere of David Lang’s man made with Louis Langrée and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra; tours a new work by Caroline Shaw with Dawn Upshaw and Gil Kalish to the Kennedy Center, San Francisco Performances, UCLA, Penn State, and elsewhere; returns to Carnegie Hall with the JACK Quartet in a program of new works by Donnacha Dennehy and Dan Trueman; tours the United Kingdon with its original production exploring the community and culture of English coal mining country, From Out a Darker Sea; and more.

Recent highlights include an acclaimed Trilogy portrait at the Lincoln Center Festival; appearances at Bonnaroo, the Eaux Claires Festival, MassMoCA, and TED 2016; international tours to Poland and Ireland; performances of man made with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil; Bryce Dessner’s Music for Wood and Strings at the Barbican in London; and an original score for a live performance and broadcast of WNYC’s Radiolab with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich at BAM.

Rooted in the belief that music is an essential facet of human life, a social bond, and an effective tool in creating agency and citizenship, Sō Percussion enthusiastically pursues a growing range of social and community outreach. Examples include their Brooklyn Bound presentations of younger composers; commitments to purchasing offsets to compensate for carbon-heavy activities such as touring travel; and leading their SōSI students in an annual food-packing drive, yielding up to 25,000 meals, for the Crisis Center of Mercer County through the organization EndHungerNE.

Sō Percussion is the Edward T. Cone Ensemble-in-Residence at Princeton University, where they offer educational work and present an annual series of concerts. They are also Co-Directors of the percussion department at the Bard College-Conservatory of Music, and run the annual Sō Percussion Summer Institute (SōSI, now in its ninth year), providing college-age composers and percussionists an immersive exposure to collaboration and project development.

Photo Credit: Evan Monroe Chapman

Tigue official site |Tigue on Twitter | Tigue on Facebook | Tigue on Instagram | Tigue on Soundcloud

Tigue is a group of three percussionists with a fluid musical identity. The Brooklyn-based trio (Matt Evans, Amy Garapic and Carson Moody) makes their own kinetic and hypnotic blend of instrumental minimalism while opening up the possibilities of their instrumentation through commissioning and collaboration. Tigue’s debut album Peaks was released in 2015 with New Amsterdam Records with highlighted performances at the Ecstatic Music Festival, Bric Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, and the Zemlika Festival in Durbe, Latvia. Recent commissions and premieres have included works by Molly Herron, Randy Gibson, Jason Treuting, Adrian Knight and Robert Honstein alongside collaborative ventures with Kid Millions and visual artist / sculptor Michael Mercil. These works have been presented in concert halls, galleries, black box theaters and universities throughout the country including EMPAC, Roulette, The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Noguchi Museum, Yale School of Music, and Princeton University.  Praised for their focused and “high octane” performances (New York Times), the Ohio-born band members have worked together since they were practically children.

Along with performing, the members of Tigue are dedicated to outreach and community projects. In collaboration with Make Music New York, the trio has led three 10-week music education programs with adult and adolescent inmates at New York City’s Rikers Island Correctional Facility, featured in both the New York Times and Rolling Stone Magazine. Working with inmates in both men’s and women’s facilitates, the trio shared the communicative nature of music through West African musical traditions and hand drumming culminating with inmate performances for the Rikers population.  Tigue has also presented workshops and masterclasses with collegiate universities, elementary classrooms and community groups across the globe.

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This past spring Tigue events included a Carnegie Neighborhood series performance in the Bronx premiering the latest movement of Jason Treuting’s piece 9 numbers, a trip to Boston, MA to perform on the Celebrity Series “Stave Sessions “ with fellow Brooklyn trance inducers Innov Gnawa, the premiere of Randy Gibson’s “The Four Pillars Appearing from The Resonating Discs invoking The 72:81:88 Confluence in a setting of Quadrilateral Starfield Symmetry ATS4 Base 6:81” with the Avant Media Festival, a weekend in Columbus, OH performing the latest version of Michael Mercil’s “Thoreau’s Desk” and a week long workshop and performance of new music for new instruments with composer Molly Herron and instruments designed by Dartmouth College engineering students.

2016 was a busy year for Tigue. The ensemble appeared as part of the Ecstatic Music Festival, Avant Media Festival, American Music Festival, and Celebrate Brooklyn! Festivals where they performed new music of their own along with composers Adrian Knight and Jason Treuting. The group made their first trip to the West Coast, with help from the Permutations Series and the Center for New Music, and they flew to Latvia for their first international performance as part of the Zemlika Festival. In between these projects Tigue played intimate shows with their friends in the Brooklyn community, presented workshops and master classes for elementary school classrooms and ivy league institutions, and started recording their second album. Most recently, this past February, Tigue hosted a three week Sunday night residency at local Gowanus music venue Three’s Brewing, presenting concerts with Brooklyn community talents Alice Cohen, J. Hoard, Qasim Naqvi, LADAMA, Wilder Maker and Innov Gnawa.

Photo Credit: Catalina Kulczar