Do You Believe in the Bystander Effect?
Genevieve Goffman
On display: September 7-29 2016
Opening reception: Wednesday September 7 6-8 pm
Do You Believe in the Bystander Effect? is the presentation of a small body of research. On the surface, it is a catalogue of the jumbled information available on the tragic and tragically misreported murder of Kitty Genovese, one that attempts in particular to trace the interlaced vines of convoluted racism, homophobia, gendered violence, fear and shame that shape the story.
The murder of Kitty Genovese laid the ground work for an entire school of psychological thought, and goaded the state into the creation of the 911 emergency call line, further cementing the mentality that ascribes public safety purely to state intervention. Although Do You Believe in the Bystander Effect? is nominally a question, it is not a project focused on the clear exchange of information between artist and audience. It hopes to be a forceful argument against reliance on the state, which is often the root of the fear and misinformation that prevents bystander from acting.
Genevieve Goffman is an artist living in Portland, OR. She graduated from Reed College, and her work has been shown in S1, The Melanie Flood Project, and HQHQ.
Much of her work involves the finding and reorganizing of fragments, in the hopes of comparing the stories that are remembered to those that fall through the cracks.
SMOOTH PSYCHEDELIC ROCK WITH 2016 ALBUM COMING OUT ON STONES THROW RECORDS
MILD HIGH CLUB
PSYCHOMAGIC, REPTALIENS
THU, OCTOBER 6, 2016
DOORS: 8:00 PM / SHOW: 9:00 PM
GET TICKETSTHIS EVENT IS 21 AND OVER
MOSTLY STANDING / LIMITED BALCONY SEATS
As long time, active participants in the Portland music scene, Bambi and Cole call on a number of talented musicians to guest on songs throughout the entirety of Reptaliens recordings.
Inspired by sci-fi art, cult mentality and deep connections, Reptaliens create low fidelity chameleon dreamscapes somewhere between abstract expressionism and surrealism. Reptaliens is a project of exploration. Reptaliens' first full length album "Recordings" will be available summer 2016.
1st Annual SUPERFAB YARD SALE
Featuring 15 designers/ XRAY.fm DJs/ Food Trucks & Beer!
Saturday, Sept 3rd
10am - 7pm
2524 SE Division St
Superfab is a design lab and fabrication house driven by craftsmen who think fluently in the languages of Architecture and Design. Wielding tools both new and old, we produce exceptional custom work in production level scales and orders of one, alike.
Over the last 30 months, we’ve produced both an exceptional amount of good work and a considerable lot of off-cuts, rejects and goof-ups in the process - materials which most of the time end up at a landfill somewhere far, far off-camera. Not being big fans of waste, we’ve saved piles and piles of these materials and this summer, the time has come to turn them into good things instead.
With the help of a select group of our favorite designers and makers we’re going to do just that and sell these good things at a late-summer Saturday parking lot party at our shop on SE 26th & Division Street. Proceeds from all sales will be split between the makers and our chosen charity, the one and only XRAY.FM. So come Saturday, Sept. 3rd, join us to collect a cool thing or two and take in some tasty food, cold drinks and good vibes from XRAY DJs in the process.
Featuring Designers: Nicholas Musso, Jason Rens, OMFGco, Mike McCoy, Brian Pietrowski, Nate Shapiro, Travis Edgar, Liam Drain; upstarts Conor Davidson, Sam Tucker & Cole Lendrum; plus Andy Powell, Dave Collins and the rest of team Superfab..
More info at www.SuperfabYardSale.org
Uchenna Ikonne is a Nigerian writer and DJ currently based in Boston. As one of the foremost authorities on Nigerian music and popular culture, he has curated and produced critically acclaimed music compilations such as Brand New Wayo: Funk, Fast Times & Nigerian Boogie Badness, 1979-1983 (released on his own Comb & Razor Sound label), Who Is William Onyeabor? (Luaka Bop), and Wake Up You! The Rise and Fall of Nigerian Rock, 1972-1977 (Now-Again). His music commentary has appeared on various outlets including NPR, BBC, VH1 and Red Bull Music Academy Radio. He is currently at work on a four-volume history of Nigerian popular music.
The final act in Mississippi Records’ 2016 Music & Film Series, Uchenna Ikonne brings to the Hollywood Theater a multimedia presentation focusing on the previous half-century in Nigerian popular culture. From psychedelic rock to highlife, boogie and soukos, he examines the country’s endemic music movements and pop products which have remained largely unseen in the West. An after-party of all vinyl Nigerian dj sets will be held at Dig A Pony immediately following the event (see poster below).
$9
The monthy Hiphop beat hangout, bringing you fresh sounds from local and touring headz-Live music from 8:45p-11:00p, Dj sets 11:00p-close, Doors 8:30p- $5- 21+
This month Portland collective is pulling together a vast array of styles from the droning to the danceable. Show up early to catch live ambient performances.
WXRD CALIGULA:
https://oligopolistrecords.bandcamp.com/album/colorwheel-cloudcastle
DESERT OF HIATUS:
https://oligopolistrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-healing-instrument
ITALICS:
https://oligopolistrecords.bandcamp.com/album/piecewise
TWO MOONS:
https://thisistwomoons.bandcamp.com/album/1087
AUVIE SINCLAIR:
https://soundcloud.com/spacexgnome
MYSTERY GOONS:
https://soundcloud.com/mygoonspdx/
SEMI//DEMI imagines an alternative transmission vehicle. In it, the artist is a conduit - a singular vessel through which particular identity narratives, chthonic frequencies, and sociocultural platforms are conflated, decontextualized and re-imagined. The premise of one body situating many functions and therefor, multiple realities - can be seen as a tangent to many works. For example, Holly Go Lightly can be seen as a recent example of an avatar or simulation narrative as much as Prometheus can be or the monster of Frankenstein - when examined as the journey of one vessel to reach for an identity outside of its own imagined parameters. SEMI//DEMI is about the sympathetic vetruvian man, more or less, through which the artist posits transmission to and from his own reality. Similar to the central character of Jane Wagner’s “Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” a transient woman named Trudy, who transmits to different feminist narratives in the conflated experiences of second wave feminism and the early aids crisis via a collander on her head, the artist simulates a possession narrative through which particular experiences are indicated or more resonant.
Bashir Naim A.K.A Fine Artist is a movement artist and actor based primarily in Los Angeles. His family founded a dance and performance art community in The Berkshire mountains. Naim was early acquainted with artists like Michael Clark, Pina Bausch. Naim has collaborated or performed with Love Bailey, Peaches, Yoyo Ma, David Amram, the Kronos Quartet, Sia, Devendra Banhart, Rose McGowan, Our Lady J, Millie Brown, Ryan Heffington, Zackary Drucker, Ellen von Unwerth, Mykki Blanco, Zemmoa, Trvst, Ron Athey, Alberto Cortes, Boychild, Dia Dear, Paula Nacif, Mecca Vazie Andrews, and Sofia Moreno. Naim was recently an Artist-in-Residence at Movement Research NYC and S & S Projects (Chicago). He can be seen opposite Anjelica Huston and Jeffrey Tambor on Amazon’s “Transparent," in Benjy Russell’s “Battlefield of Flowers," and the upcoming short film, “Raymond.” He has been featured in Bullet Magazine, Vice magazine - in print as well as on their docuseries with Ellen Page, “Gaycation." His solo performance work has been shown at the Hammer Museum, S & S Projects Chicago, the Tom of Finland House, Human Resources Gallery in LA, with Rhonda and Soho House International, Art Basel Miami and at dozens of nightclubs and warehouses across the world.
Eric Frye is a composer, artist, and curator, currently residing in Minneapolis. In his compositions for live performance and installation he uses a hybrid modular synthesizer and digital signal processing to explore the perceptual organization of sound objects. His latest recording, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities, which is centered around the concept of non-orientable sound surfaces, was released in November 2015 by Portland-based imprint, Salon.
His most recent curatorial endeavor, Exploring Compositional Epistemologies, was a series of performances and lectures focusing on philosophy, sound, and linguistics, in addition to a five week installation of Florian Hecker’s Chimerization / Hinge, that took place during January and February 2015 at Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis. In April 2015, Frye recorded new pieces for multi-channel installation at Harvard University Studio for Electroacoustic Composition. During October and November 2015 Frye’s solo exhibition, a 12-channel electroacoustic diffusion, Zenzizenzizenzic, was installed at Rochester Art Center in Minnesota.. http://ericfrye.com/
RM Francis is a computer musician living in Seattle. Since 2011, he has offered a molecularized account of possibilities within digital synthesis through live performances and recorded output. Drawing upon contemporary techniques as well as strategies drawn from the history of computer music, his works interrogate the boundaries of musical form. His cassette release Hyperplastic Other is forthcoming on Nada. http://rmfrancis.tumblr.com/
Anon (Anna Sitko) started expressing her love for music as a DJ, as well as running record labels and importing music. She also co-founded the radio show Echolocation, which was picked up by Ninja Tune’s sister online hub, PirateTV. Simulteanously, her DJ career was expanding and she was playing with the likes of Richard Devine, Adam Freeland, L’Usine, Uberzone, Juan Atkins and more. Knowing that she was missing a vital element in her career, Anon turned her focus to writing her own material. Her first live performance took place in Los Angeles alongside Tipper.http://anon-music.com/
Chemtrails Jeff Host https://soundcloud.com/sequel-label/sq03-chemtrails-seismic-excerpt
9:30pm
All Ages, $8
CLAN OF XYMOX AFTER PARTY
With SPIRIT HOST
VOIGHT (Denver)
Post-punk http://voight.bandcamp.com/
JOCK CLUB (ASCETIC HOUSE)
http://jockclub.bandcamp.com/
SOMALI EXTRACT (ASCETIC HOUSE)
MEMORYMANN
21+ $10
Check out their page and support Black owned business: http://www.blackbusinessmonth.com/
Places, food carts, and take-out you can visit:
Dub's St. Johns-
Po'Shines Cafe De La Soul
Poshette's Cafe
Crown Q-
Dalo's 1533 NE Alberta
Enat Kitchen
Fuel Portland Oregon
Enjoni Cafe
Columbia International Cup
Cason's Fine Meats
Ella's kitchen / Bailey's & Bailey's Soul Food
Cannons BBQ
Dixon's Rib Pit
Horn of Africa
Queen of Sheba Int'l Foods
Alle Amin
Chez Dodo
Bete Lukas Eth Rest
Gojo Ethiopian 915 NE Alberta
Emame's Ethiopian SW 9th & SW Washington
Caribbean Kook Pot 625 NE Killingsworth Open Sunday for this event!!!!!
Portland Prime 121 SW 3rd http://portlandprime.net/
Sunday Table Kitchens
Sweet Street Bbq
Solae's Lounge
Amalfi's Restaurant
Taste of the Bayou
Stoopid Burger
The Oregon Public House
Right Bayou Cajun Cuisine at Bigfoot Growlers https://www.facebook.com/rightbayoucajun
Alberta St. Fish & Chips
Peaches Ready Spaghetti cart
Eliot e-Mat cafe
Sengatera on MLK http://sengaterarestaurant.com/
Rahel's Ethiopian in the Cartlandia Pod on SE 82nd
Aberus Ethiopian Restaurant
NE Creperie
the McDonald's at 82nd and Foster 82nd and Johnson Creek, 82nd and Sunnyside, Damascus and Oregon City. "My Mother in law was the first African-American owner in Oregon 25 years ago."
Olive or Twist in the Pearl
A Heavenly Taste cafe at the Miracles Club 4200 NE MLK BLVD
Wing and a Prayer, 4549 NE 60th Ave.
Norma's Kitchen in Jantzen Beach http://goodseeddesign.wix.com/normaskitchen
Spice of Africa
Mama San Soul Shack
Jamaican Homestyle Cuisine
Pink Rose http://www.pinkrosepdx.com/ 1300 NW Lovejoy-in the Pearl
Steakadelphia http://steakadelphia.com/
Q Burger
Safari Restaurant 7815 SE Powell Blvd
Vera James and Joyl Kitchen 131st and Sandy Blvd
Batter Up, (Coming Soon)
Deliciouis Texas BBQ Pit and Catering 4322 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy
Sante Bar 411 NW Park Ave Portland, OR 97209 971.404.8216
Deadstock Coffee
Abyssinian Kitchen (Ethiopian and Eritrean Cuisine) 2625 SE 22st Ave, Portland, OR 97202 Abyssiniankitchen.com
Mama's Kitchen 611 Main Street Vancouver
DaddyD's BBQ in Vancouver http://www.daddydsbbq.com/
Goldie's Texas Style BBQ
http://www.abbeycreekvineyard.com/
Gumbo Goddess Concessions
Fathers of Abstraction
Alisa Bones
Alisa Bones lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Alisa holds a BA from Reed College and an MFA from Yale University. This is Alisa's first solo show in Portland and is the culmination of Alisa's one month residency at S1.
Rose Dickson: Slow Mask
August 26-October 2, 2016
Friday August 26, 6-9pm: Artist Reception
Tuesday September 20, 7pm: Poetry Reading with Timmy Straw, Erin Perry, Michele Glazer, and Ryan Mills
Sunday October 2, 11am-1pm: Closing Reception
Gallery Hours: Saturday, 12-5 and by private appointment
Melanie Flood Projects is pleased to present Slow Mask, an exhibition by artist Rose Dickson, exploring the masking effect of gradual change and the undefined boundaries within transformation. Dickson’s work rests in a space between digital and analog; her photography, sculpture, video, bookmaking, and performance draw tensions between an art historical foundation and new media’s influence on making. In addition to this exhibition, Melanie Flood Projects will host a night of poetry and Dickson will present a one-night, site-specific, outdoor performance, further details to be announced.
Beginning with stone, a material which holds great historical relevance in early expressions of making, Dickson photographs rock surfaces. She then works with and re-photographs the prints in her studio. Rather than manipulating the images post-capture, Dickson concerns herself with the physical process of manipulating by hand and utilizing the camera’s natural tendency to distort reality. She intentionally lights the sculpted print to apply both weight and form to its otherwise flat surface. In this series, Ruins, the photographs move between 2D and 3D, digital and analog, again and again. The line between fragment and whole becomes loose, and the boundaries between one form and another get lost in the slow narrative of simultaneous buildup and decomposition. The resulting images, which feel more like drawings or artifacts, are, like Yourcenar says of Greek statues, “so thoroughly shattered that out of the debris a new work of art is born.” By working and reprinting these photographs multiple times, a curious ruin is left, much like the natural habit of stone.
Central to Dickson’s artistic practice is an obsession with layers and boundaries. In Nothing Between Us, the barriers between artist and viewer are made physical while the possibilities of performance, object, and video are condensed. The many layers in this piece represent a synchronized process of revealing and concealing. As the layers are dissolved, the artist is revealed and the object in the video is destroyed.
As an interdisciplinary artist, Dickson engages in the conversation surrounding digital memory and its relationship to physical material by examining concepts of fragility and permanence. Slow Mask brings together works that explore the process of transformation and question defined boundaries between what was and is.
Slow Mask is the fourth in an ongoing artist series at Melanie Flood Projects, Thinking through Photography, an exploration of artists working with photography today. The series includes a comprehensive survey of contemporary photographic practices through programming that highlights experimental and diverse approaches to image making. Facilitated by exhibitions, artist talks, studio visits, interviews, and suggested readings which aim to expand the language surrounding photography, while also unveiling progressive work by local artists in the Pacific Northwest & beyond.
Rose Dickson is based in Portland, Oregon. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2012. Her work has been exhibited in cities internationally, including: Portland, New York, Paris, Rome, Helsinki, Chongqing and Fukuoka. Recently she has shown work with Humble Arts Foundation (New York), Surplus Space (Portland), Recess Gallery (Portland), Hideout (Paris), Organhaus (Chongqing), Opening Titles (New York) and Upfor (Portland). With the support of the Oregon Arts Commission, Rose has been awarded multiple residencies, including Taidelaitos Haihatus, Finland (2013), Organhaus, China (2014) and Studio Kura, Japan (2015). Currently she is participating in the artist studio program Neighbors, founded by Studio J and housed in the Yale Union Laundry Building in Portland, Oregon. Her work is in the collection of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
Mic Check is an every 4th Thursday hip-hop showcase that promotes and supports performing artists.
This month will host live performances from Hanif, Stewart Villain, and Karma Rivera.
Advanced tickets and information available at mcmenamins.com/events.
21+ / $5
Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, Zaïmph) and Samara Lubelski (Thurston Moore band) return with 110 Livingston. This is the second album from this weighty pairing of two of America's most audacious psychedelic drone proponents, following the stunning Sunday Night, Sunday Afternoon, released in 2012 on Graham Lambkin's label Kye. Bassett's guitar processing squashes otherwise raging howls into densely packed tones of feedback wail, and blends with Lubelski's long violin voyages into the drone zone to form a combination that's wondrous to behold. One side-long trip and three shorter but nevertheless expansive explorations of black magic meditation. Live visuals by: Mia Ferm (Cinema Project).
$ 7 Day of show
Please join September Session Houseguest Resident Libby Werbel for an Artist Talk at Likewise Bar (3564 SE Hawthorne Blvd) prior to her activation of Pioneer Courthouse Square. Webel will discuss her work as a Houseguest artist and give audiences a look inside her site specific installation of Portland Museum of Modern Art (PMOMA). This September activation of Pioneer Courthouse Square is co-presented by Houseguest and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art as part of the Time-Based Art Festival.
Werbel will install Portland Museum of Modern Art (PMOMA), a weekend-long, build-it-ourselves outdoor modern art museum. The installation will be on display Saturday & Sunday September 10th & 11th, 11:00am–7:00pm with a performance series on Saturday and Sunday starting at 1:00pm.
Through PMOMA, Werbel orchestrates an exhibition in the heart of the city, inviting an impressive roster of visual and performance artists to engage with the space. PMOMA is an investigative project focused on the lack of major contemporary and modern art institutions within a growing metropolis. Werbel aims to draw a direct link between Portland’s lack of a contemporary art museum and the impressive output of the creative community. Does Portland’s quickly shifting economic demands endanger the cultural equity essential to maintaining the quality of any major city? Is it possible to have a museum without an established infrastructure to support it? What does a museum look like when fashioned through our ideal ethical processes? Werbel hopes to inspire dialogue around the notions of the ‘museum’ itself and larger institutional modalities for exhibition. Throughout the weekend of September 10–11, PMOMA partners with Houseguest and PICA to investigate these ideas in Pioneer Courthouse Square.
About Libby Werbel:
Libby Werbel is an artist, curator, and social organizer living and working in Portland, OR. In 2012, she founded the Portland Museum of Modern Art project to create and instigate art and dialogue serving both artists and audiences. With an emphasis on accessibility and engagement, Werbel makes site-based works using community as her medium. Her investigation in space-making has included alternative exhibitions models in Barcelona, San Francisco, New York City, Joshua Tree and Santa Fe. Werbel has received public and critical acclaim for her DIY organization methods and creative mobility within the PMOMA project.
About Houseguest:
Houseguest is a new residency program hosted at Pioneer Courthouse Square (PCS), Portland, Oregon’s largest and most accessible public plaza. It’s an experiment in site-specificity, collaboration, and participatory public art. In 2016, Houseguest will host four artist residencies to engage the space, the public, and relevant Portland issues through participatory practices. Houseguest is made possible through the generous support of Oregon Community Foundation, The Miller Family Foundation, and Pioneer Courthouse Square, Inc.
Kingbanana.net Presents:
Elvis Depressedly / Teen Suicide
w/ Nicole Dollanganger
Molly Shannon, Molly Shannon
@ Analog Cafe & Theater (720 SE Hawthorne Blvd)
All Ages (bar w/ ID) / $12 adv - $15 dos / 7pm doors
adv tix:
http://www.holdmyticket.com/event/248370
X-ile On Ray Street - A Benefit for XRAYfm!
Lola Buzzkill
Psychomagic
Reptaliens
SECRET HEADLINER TBA!
XRAY DJs Chancie Chance & Theo Craig
Monday, August 22nd @ 7PM
$5 suggested entry, all proceeds go to XRAYfm
21+
Reptaliens has teamed up with Dig A Pony to raise funds for XRAYfm by throwing an amazing party stacked with some of Portland's most esteemed acts including: outer-space freakaholics of soul Lola Buzzkill; garage punk wizards Psychomagic; the smooth grooves of Reptaliens; and a secret headliner you likely won't be able to see for only 5 bucks ever again. Between sets, XRAY DJ's Theo Craig and Chancie Chance will keep the dance floor full and the party moving until close. Come enjoy great drinks and music all while supporting your favorite local radio station, XRAYfm.
This show has been curated by Reptaliens and will also act as their tour kickoff in support of their new album "Recordings"
Come out for a night filled with delicately blended electronic sounds, samples, and live instruments guaranteed to bring the electronic heads out of their basements and into this cozy sanctuary.
This month welcomes:
| EMS |
Psychedelic ur-drone synth-trance
https://emsmusic.net/
| Star Child |
Synthesizing earth and sky with sonic alchemy
http://www.celestialwindow.com/star-child/
| Pantøne |
Chopped and skrewed musique concrete
https://soundcloud.com/pant-ne/nocturne-5-pantone-guest-mix-for-kffp-lp-903-fm-05-29-2016
Tape Jockey:
Free
Booking/Promotions:
Coco Madrid - djchachapdx@gmail.com
PSIC: Women of Color Organizing (in the arts and beyond)
Project Space Industrial Complex de-centers and provokes the standard actions and motivations of independent art spaces. Co-taught by Chloe Alexandra, Carmen Denison, Eleanor Ford and Devin Ruiz, each class of PSIC will present candid discussions of standard institutionalisms alongside experimental constructions of space and community building beyond the heteropatriarchal white supremacy of the status quo. The subject matter of each course will build upon the last, with a resultant expanded discourse that includes space construction, art markets, social/political structures and the function of ‘alternatives’ within white supremacist institutionalizes.
The second class of PSIC will be a forum on the subject of Women of Color Organizing. Inspired by Andrea Smith's essay Rethinking Women of Color Organizing, and with a sharp awareness of the amount of work carried by women of color, we felt this topic would present an occasion to come together and recognize the necessary labor put forward by woc in the arts and beyond. Multiple speakers will join instructors to give short presentations on and around the topic of Women of Color Organizing – ranging from personal experiences to textual readings.
Cover photo: Where We At (WWA) Black Women Artists Collective (1973)
The class will be livestreamed and archived for those who can't join us at this place and time.
Origin stories can be fundamentally boring by nature, packed with non-essential details and overly stressed homilies to roots and influences. But the core nature of an artist that has produced some of the most beloved and emotionally-infused electronic music of this decade is deeply rooted in the constant desire to return to where his musical world began.
Gold Panda's first album 'Lucky Shiner' was written in a matter of weeks in the Essex countryside and titled after his impossibly-brilliantly named Grandmother, who is Indian by birth but a resident of Chelmsford since the late 1960s. Along the way she even ended up gracing the cover of a music magazine with Gold Panda in 2010.
His second album 'Half Of Where You Live' was written while living in Berlin for a couple of short years, but became to be a record that was about everywhere except that place he never identify as home. Gold Panda's third, and, for the sake of adhering to both truth and biographical tradition, his best album so far, squared the circle. Inspired into being while visiting Japan, the music was once again composed and recorded back in Chelmsford. This time, he was living with his Grandmother, Lucky Shiner, having created a small studio area in their house. Derwin set about spending 18 months piecing together 'Good Luck And Do Your Best' from the hundred or so tracks that he would begin composing and then either discard, keep or repurpose.
As a musician that has enjoyed both the acclaim and also the cognitive confusion of touring the world and selling out shows in LA, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris, London and many places in between, The past few years have seen Gold Panda concluding that the core of his life and resulting comforts are rooted at home. Driven by destinct desire for normalcy and structure, it's something that he feels he achieved while making this record. "I mean, probably most 35 year old people don't live with their Grandmother", he laughs, "but I could lead a somewhat normal daily routine. Which I really missed."
Stepping back two years though, the inspiration for the record and its creation are two distinctly different things. "Good Luck And Do Your Best' was initially planned to be something else entirely. Early in 2014 Derwin set out back to Japan for the first of a pair of trips -- the latest of many visits to the place he holds most dear. This time a photographer, Laura Lewis, accompanied him as Derwin's plan was to collect both audio -- field recordings from his trip across the country -- and visuals, with Laura tasked to capture what they saw and encountered together. The idea was to be able to put together something other than a traditional record; a sight and sound documentary of his time there, but the expedition ended up being the basis of a new record.
It began with an album title. "Halfway through the first trip we bought rail tickets and rode across the country and went to Hiroshima". Derwin explains. "One afternoon we had taken a taxi, and as we got out, the Japanese taxi driver's parting words to us as we left, in English, was 'good luck and do your best'.
"It was [the driver] speaking in English. He didn't know English that well, but there's a Japanese phrase called 'ganbatte kudasai'. And roughly translated, it basically means 'do your best', or it can also mean 'good luck'."
As a result of that chance interaction, Derwin says, he had the title for an album as well as a starting basis. "once you have a title, for me, things come together a lot easier for what it's going to be." Struck by the phrase, he ended up being led by the experience to make a record that was, to him "quite motivational, quite positive."
Sonically, Derwin characterised the record by way of the visual inspiration he took from his Japanese trips. "I went over twice. Once in April, once in October, and they're the best times to visit, because the weather is calm -- it's not too hot or too cold. In April the cherry blossoms are out so it looks beautiful, and there's lots of festivals and places to go. October is great because the leaves are starting to change. It's just a good-looking country."
"The album was recorded at home in Chelmsford, but I had that visual inspiration or documentation from Japan. So it was a look back. If you go in those months, Japan has this light that we don't get here. It's hard to explain. You know how LA has this dusk feeling? -- that orange light that makes the place glow, and the neon signs? Well, Japan has this... at certain times of the year, It has this filter on stuff. So when we went the first time, there was a lot of pink and green colours -- pastel-y pinks and greens. Mainly the buildings and cars and the people, and I think Laura captured those colours really well.
Those sights and colours translated to a record that differs notably from his previous album, 'Half Of Where You Live'. Whereas that record was occasionally taut, perhaps harder and more piecing, the 11 songs that comprise 'Good Luck And Do Your Best' have a distinctly warmer palate, one that echoes 'Lucky Shiner' a little more, albeit with a clearer range of sounds, and also, to Derwin's mind, one where "the tracks aren't popping out against each other. It's a [complete] record."
"I was initially worried about not having that connection between the tracks", he confides. "I made the last two albums in a fairly short period of time -- the first one was a couple of weeks, the second one was a couple of months. This was made over the period of a year or maybe more." The longer recording period lead to his concern that "I wouldn't be able to make tracks that went together, but actually it was better, because I could find the ones -- maybe that one in every ten -- that fit, because you would always return to a certain style."
"You don't control the music you make, he continues. "The tracks need to reveal themselves, or something needs to reveal itself to you, by making the track. So over the course of making 100 tracks, eventually the album you're going to make is revealed through listening back to them and finding the ones that go together. You get a sound that reveals itself to you."
Derwin pauses to consider the process, before adding, "personally I don't think I can choose to make records how I want." But you've tried? "I always try to", he smiles wryly.
Having finished recording his album, Derwin took the songs to fellow musician and producer Luke Abbott, wherein Luke "made it sound good, he put it into his magic smelter", Derwin laughs. Mixing it at Luke's studio, which similar to Gold Panda's place of work, resides in his parent's house in Norwich, reinforced the nature of the record in Derwin's mind. "It has a homely feel. The tracks were made at home and they were mixed at Luke's studio, so throughout the process, there's always been access to family and your local surroundings. And banana bread."
An artist's desire to change or reinvent themselves and their sounds, or to work beyond their original musical scope is a time-honoured tradition amongst musicians and no differently, is something that Derwin has considered and ultimately, had to make peace with.
"It's a curse and blessing because, your music always sounds different to you in your head and you think it's going to sound great. And then you have to face what you've made", he grins. "But then you look at in another way -- no-one else could make the music I've made, I don't think. I'm not sure anyone else would make those tracks in the way that I've made them. In that way it's good.
After seven years of trial and error, and having discovered that the best way he could make music was by doing so rooted in the place where he always felt most familiar with himself, does Gold Panda see his long term future where he is now? "I don't think so", he muses. With Chelmsford. I don't love it, but I do feel really comfortable there. I don't know if will ever be 'gentrified' it's already too expensive to be gentrified. I don't think it can be rescued. It's fucking dull. You'd think somewhere so close to London would be more affected by that, but I don't know how it's avoided it. It's in it's own cultural bubble."
"I don't think I'll be there when I'm sixty, but then I'm assuming I wouldn't want to live in London anymore either... but maybe not. Perhaps I could live in Soho. I could live out my last years in vice. Full of sin and drinking", he laughs, shaking his head.
One night only performance event featuring three contemporary dance performances with live music.
Jmy James Kidd and Tara Jane O'Neil perform the dance "Magical Diagonal."
Jin Camou perfoms her latest solo performance.
Featuring Ayako Kataoka and Jesse Mejía, Takahiro Yamamoto presents "Circuitous," a duet dance performance with live sound.
*******
Jmy James Kidd
http://openspace.sfmoma.org/2016/07/afterword-jmy/
Tara Jane O’Neil
http://www.tarajaneoneil.com/
Jin Camou
https://vimeo.com/97685051
Ayako Kataoka
http://www.ayakokataoka.com/
Jesse Mejía
http://jessemejia.net/
Takahiro Yamamoto
http://takahiroyamamoto.com/