Sonic Front Performance at Front Room Gallery for Williamsburg Second Friday



sonicfront at Front Room Gallery 
147 Roebling Street Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Friday, May 8th 8-10PM
http://www.frontroom.org

INSECT ARK
SEYHAN MUSAOGLU
THE SENSORIUM SAXOPHONE ORCHESTRA


sonic front is an exploration of electro-acoustic improvisation, electronic music, and sound art.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

INSECT ARK started as a the one-woman solo project of bassist/multi-instrumentalist Dana Schechter. Formed in late 2011, Insect Ark has been building a following in the experimental/doom/drone scene in both her hometown of NYC and internationally.
Starting in Jan 2015, San Francisco-based drummer Ashley Spungin (Taurus) joined on drums and synthesizers. Schechter will perform solo when Spungin is on the west coast.
Creating a personal soundtrack to the human psyche’s underbelly, Insect Ark weaves a brooding, textural landscape, a starless night spiked with light and flash. The music braids together delay-drenched lapsteel, drums, distorted bass & synths to create a sonic mural both uncomfortably intimate and icy cold.
Schechter has a history working with other projects, notably as bassist in M. Gira’s Angels of Light (Swans) and her own band Bee and Flower. Spungin is known for her work with Portland based bands Taurus and Purple Rhinestone Eagle. Schechter is also an animator and video artist working in the film business by trade.
Insect Ark’s first full-length album, “Portal/Well” will be released  on CD with Autumnsongs Records, June 2015.
Previous releases include the 10” Vinyl EP “Long Arms” (2013, Geweih Ritual Documents) and the 7” Vinyl “Collapsar” (2012, Lancashire and Somerset Records).
On these first three releases, Schechter played and recorded all the instruments in her Brooklyn studio.
The new duo incarnation of Insect Ark recorded their first single together, “Windless”, to be released as a lathe cut 7" for Utech Records and will be touring in June 2015 in support of Portal/Well.

Insect Ark Photo Credit: Caroline Harrison

SEYHAN MUSAOGLU is a multi-media artist whose work spans the fields of live performance, sound art, film and video, and 2-D media. Drawing inspiration from diverse sources ranging from science fiction imagery, to fashion, to modern dance choreography, her work investigates the gap between sound production and music composition, contemporary feminist theory, and the history of avant-garde filmmaking. She has been performing widely with collaborations celebrated internationally in genres of sound and experimental noise. She is also an innovative independent curator, and is the founder of the multi-purpose art space SPACE DEBRIS. Seyhan holds an MFA from Parsons the New School for Design. Some of the venues her work has been presented at are: The Kitchen (NYC), New York Studio Gallery (NYC), Lit Lounge (NYC), Curta 8 Film Festival (Brazil), and Istanbul’s famed venue, Babylon.
THE SENSORIUM SAXOPHONE ORCHESTRA formed in 2008 as NYC's first full-on Saxophone Orchestra. Since then, SENSORIUM has enchanted NYC audiences at Douglas Street Music Collective, Goodbye Blue Monday, Issue Project Room, Brooklyn Lyceum, Gershwin Hotel, Shea Stadium, House of Elders, White Box Gallery, 17 Frost Gallery, Midtown Manhattan Library, Spectrum, The Front Room Gallery and The WAH Center.
Their unique single-timbre take on Terry Riley's minimalist classic "In C" is available on Living Records, Wayside Music (Cuneiform Records), and Downtown Music Gallery. The Pulse was provided by a Snare Drum rather than the traditional Piano Pulse, suggested by Roger Miller. The orchestra performed IN C numerous times including at the Midtown Manhattan Library without a Pulse.

"...a haunting dissonant swoon like that of battling church organs, or a swarm of bugs."
- Village Voice, Christopher Weingarten, 2009