Lake Black Town was chosen as the Nashville Scene’s Best Historical Project. Thank you to @achatterbird and Celine Thackston for the opportunity to call myself composer. As the NEA grant period appeared Celine asked me if I had an idea and I sent a thing over. During this period I have realized I am a confronter, per Kamal Sabran . Confronting America’s apartheid and its proclivity to disappear and erase whole towns in the name of hydroelectric or recreational progress, I listened. I listened to the lake air push the water thru binaural microphones and hydrophones to the point of waves sounding like ancestors crawling back to shore. I listened to the land thru seismic geofòns, capturing the low voices of stories that take decades to tell themselves. I listened to lake side plants play the resonance of emptiness like a celestial organ built by reparations. I listened to my mitochondrial dna tell the stories and play the sounds the audience needed in the moment.
Thank you to those who invited me to present the Lake Black Town powerpoint presentation; on a whim and a suggestion, Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design’s Residual Noise Conference spent money to hear my idea and I am forever grateful to Ed Osborn for reaching out, thus initiating the presentation’s existence. Thank you to Northwestern University’s Slippage Lab and Abstract Black Symposium for providing a space for Black Abstraction to Be. Thank you to Will Faber’s introductory sound class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for allowing me the timespace to show how I got from your seats to the front of the class. These talks helped me formulate and focus my ideas and solidify the format of incorporating my artist statement with my career works.
Thank you to the venues and programmers who hosted the sounds and performances thus far;
Lindemann Hall at Brown University; MaybeItsFate and Chris Davis for inviting the project to open for TAKAAT, Louisville; Darkhorse Theatre; and Random Sample, where the weekly for a month culmination yielded improvised discoveries beyond imagination.
Continued below…
sound as memory. receive as epigenetic tonalities. we ask: how long does a sound last? earth reconfigured. black bodies. out of sighting. beneath belly of boat. o how the - water/treatment/cycles. touching dousings. what still breathes? how deep will you be drowning? in histories. time surfaces. shallowed acknowledging. fishing for? no intellectualized prize. leave with this hollowing. beneath you. ask? above you. what this place saying? listen long. drone down your tin’d ear. beyond colonized intelligence. mmhmm. rock your boat. return to mud. this movement makes messy. sink your ship with buried chimney. where’s buried chimney? sink your ship. these here soil. turn’d swimming hole. why are you here? one’s ‘vacationing. another’s forced vacancy. cycles of memory. we wade in this listening. elemental hearing. who’s in whose-element? soak in drowned’s sound. splash freely. what wets ears here? collective memory. remembering: to remember: lake black town(s).
—most excitedly(!) celebrating my partner @abstractblack and a national endowment for the arts grant opportunity he’s been vesseling his ongoing research, meditation on memory, and sonic experimentations on lake black towns (drowned towns) across the country through. this latest invitation to share in this work was gathered around at @baibrownu , thanks to @cormorantaray ’s ear of curiosity. also, joyous shouts to @jmm3rs for the extra time/space-knowledge-gear gift of generosity (and more on the others we made sweet connection with, soon). thank you all for being open to challenge each ear to soak into the spaces required for these layers of listening. and for sharing your inspiring sonic practices with us, too.
September 11, 2024 solo. Bringing this eternal flame to @talklowfest in Cincinnati this weekend opening for Joy Guidry and Niecy Blues in trio formation with @chaz.prymek & @airportpeoplemusic . Laraaji and Maria Chavez are gonna be there too- perfect chance to catch them both along with their opener Shermvn.
Last image: The Plantation Model of American Economics persists. Study it and know America.
Happy Birthday to @lareisa . A woman of wonder and whimsy. I am blessed to be a witness to the love she is and the life she leads. Here are some photos from ‘25/26 of life following her around just to know beauty.
Join us Monday, April 27, as we welcome renowned percussionist and composer Tatsuya Nakatani for a duo exchange—their fourth in Nashville with saxophonist/multimedia artist JayVe Montgomery. Their sonic unions are always unique and revelatory, two master musicians in abstract dialogue with concrete results. You will feel different after their performance and the space will also seem transformed. Valued Customer, an exciting and catchy synth- and guitar-driven postpunk band will open the show. 7 pm doors; 8 pm show. Tickets in bio.
MON. 4.27: Tatsuya Nakatani + Jayve Montgomery / Valued Customer
Tatsuya Nakatani is an avant-garde percussionist, composer, and artist of sound. Originally from Japan, he makes his home in the desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Within this contemporary work, one can still recognize the dramatic pacing, formal elegance and space (ma) felt in traditional Japanese music.
With the ever increasing ability to be anywhere and everywhere else, now remains an elusive destination.
Reconciling the past with the future, JayVe Montgomery's work is time traveling to the pre(-) sent, the gift of now. His work reveals his adherence to improvisation and chance as a way to explore evolutionary learning, dreams, democratic polylogue and unintended subjective meaning through randomized being.
Valued Customer is a project led by Nashville-based songwriter and producer Alex Miller. The synth-pop of Valued Customer is less the dreamy soundscapes usually associated with the genre and more a stew of clearly defined and sometimes jagged individual sounds that somehow fit together.
$15 adv / $18 day of
Pre-sale available on Resident Advisor Cash and card accepted at the door
NOTAFLOF
All ages
Video by @gong_slayer
MON. 4.27: Tatsuya Nakatani + Jayve Montgomery / Valued Customer
Tatsuya Nakatani is an avant-garde percussionist, composer, and artist of sound. Active internationally since the 1990s, Nakatani has released over 80 recordings and tours extensively, performing over 150 concerts a year. His primary focus is his solo work and his large ensemble project, the Nakatani Gong Orchestra. He teaches master classes and lectures at universities and music conservatories around the world. Originally from Japan, he makes his home in the desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. With his activity in new music, improvisation, and experimental music, Nakatani has a long history of collaboration.
Nakatani's distinctive music centered around his adapted bowed gong, supported by an array of drums, cymbals, and singing bowls. In consort with his personally hand-carved Kobo Bows, he has spent decades refining and developing his sound as an arrangement of formations of vibrations, incorporated in shimmering layers of silence and texture. Within this contemporary work, one can still recognize the dramatic pacing, formal elegance and space (ma) felt in traditional Japanese music.
With the ever increasing ability to be anywhere and everywhere else, now remains an elusive destination. Reconciling the past with the future, JayVe Montgomery’s work is time traveling to the pre(-)sent, the gift of now. His work reveals his adherence to improvisation and chance as a way to explore evolutionary learning, dreams, democratic polylogue and unintended subjective meaning through randomized being.
Valued Customer is a project led by Nashville-based songwriter and producer Alex Miller. The synth-pop of Valued Customer is less the dreamy soundscapes usually associated with the genre and more a stew of clearly defined and sometimes jagged individual sounds that somehow fit together.
$15 adv / $18 day of
Pre-sale available on Resident Advisor
Cash and card accepted at the door
NOTAFLOF
All ages
Flyer by @crittledee
TUES. 3.3: Maria Chavez / Jayve Montgomery + Abstract Turntablism Workshop
Born in Lima, Peru and based in NYC, Maria Chávez is best known as an abstract turntablist, sound artist and DJ. Coincidence, chance and failures are themes that unite her work across mediums, including improvised performance, sound and marble sculpture, visual art, book objects and an extensive history with multi-channel installation. Her approach is rooted in Deep Listening, a form of embodied listening developed by her late mentor Pauline Oliveros. Maria’s relationship with Oliveros was recently covered in a BBC3 radio episode of Afterwords, chronicling the late composer’s impact on a new generation of artists. She also graced the cover of The Wire in April 2023 with The Turntable Trio.
With the ever increasing ability to be anywhere and everywhere else, now remains an elusive destination. Reconciling the past with the future, JayVe Montgomery’s work is time traveling to the pre(-)sent, the gift of now. His work reveals his adherence to improvisation and chance as a way to explore evolutionary learning, dreams, democratic polylogue and unintended subjective meaning through randomized being.
WORKSHOP INFO:
Abstract Turntablism workshops are hands-on workshops using turntables and vinyl records as an instrument. All students will receive a free .PDF of Maria’s book, Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable and learn 3 basic abstract turntablism techniques (per 2- 3 hour class), break a record and perform a recital in front of an audience.
***A certain amount of tickets have been allocated at a more accessible price point for lower income attendees.***
Workshop - Doors at 2:30 / Start at 3
$25 - GA / $18 - Low Income
Performance - Doors at 7 / Music at 8
$23 - ADV / $25 - DOS
Tickets available on Resident Advisor (fees apply)
Cash and card accepted at the door
All ages
The first night of #dumpsterFyreFest is kicking off with the always wild and eclectic Abstract Black!
(That bubbling sound is literally a water bottle with a mic in it run through a looper!)
We are blessed to mind the solstice with a concert of “Marvin Tate in Outer Music City”— the duo expression by world-renowned poet, visual, and performance artist, Marvin Tate, with JayVe Montgomery, a polymath audiovisual artist and sonic reseacher whose series of multimedia Lake Black Town performances were easily among the year’s best local concert series. The duo met while performing together in visual artist Theaster Gates’ musical group, The Black Monks of Mississippi, back in 2008.
Marvin Tate is also known as a Chicago musical institution with an Angel on each shoulder. In this case Angels -Bat Dawid and -Olsen, who were among his many collaborators in his group D-Settlement, a funkadelic performance vehicle whose rotating cast of participants included Mike Reed, members of Tortoise, Wilco, Bitchin’ Bajas and too many others to mention. Their work from the ‘90s and early Aughts is documented in an epic American Dreams box set.
Throughout his artistic career, Marvin Tate has continued to write poetry. His award-winning poems have been anthologized in collections alongside Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lou Reed, and Mark Strand. In performance, Tate uses multiple devices including, but not limited to, personae, storytelling, and, occasionally, humor to expose hard truths about black life in America. His humor is a deliberate device and his cadence is as precise as a percussionist’s and is working from inside the form, not as embellishment but as a coequal musical element.
Some of Tate’s most recent musical work has been in The Separatist Party (feat. Ben LaMar Gay and Bitchin’ Bajas) and with Grammy award winning British songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae on her amazing 2023 album “Black Rainbows.”
If you love George Clinton, Reggie Watts, Boots Riley, Amiri Baraka, Bob Kaufman, and the operatic vocalising of ODB, or if you just love great art that makes you smile and feel good in your body, even while acknowledging uncomfortable truths, you don’t want to miss this show.
We Cherry Blossoms are honored to share this bill and open the evening.
Join us at Betty’s Grill, 407 49th Ave. N., Sunday, Dec. 21. Doors 8 pm; music 9 pm. $10 requested donation. NOTAFLOF.
SAT. 12.20: Sean Hamilton + Jayve Montgomery / Klimchak
“One of those holding the torch of progression of drumming” (Adam Arritola/Miami Psych Fest), Sean Hamilton is a percussionist, composer, improviser, and audio engineer whose creative practice focuses on moments, juxtapositions, and sonic opportunities. Primarily working in hybrids of the improvised and the composed, his work is rooted in avant-garde and experimental music, free jazz/improvisation, electronic and electroacoustic music, noise, punk and metal, design and photography, and sound art. His work often exists through performance, composition, multimedia projects, and the meshing of analog and digital mediums.
Multi-instrumentalist Klimchak is known for his compositions and performances for dance, theater and live solo performances. These usually incorporate improvisation & playing of over 100 instruments in a single show. He’s received many awards & honors for his work, including the 2009 Loridans Artist Award, often called “Atlanta’s MacArthur Genius Award.”
Recently, Klimchak has been performing solo shows featuring a unique percussion instrument called the Marimba Lumina. Only about 100 of this very rare instrument were made. The Lumina was created by legendary synth inventor Don Buchla.
With the ever increasing ability to be anywhere and everywhere else, now remains an elusive destination. Reconciling the past with the future, JayVe Montgomery’s work is time traveling to the pre(-)sent, the gift of now. His work reveals his adherence to improvisation and chance as a way to explore evolutionary learning, dreams, democratic polylogue and unintended subjective meaning through randomized being.
Doors at 7 / Music at 8
$15 ADV / $18 DOS
Advance tickets sold on Dice
Cash and card accepted at the door
All ages
