Poster: Josh Levi
Thursday June 6 * 7pm * $20-25 * TICKETS
Bill MacKay celebrates the release of his new record Locust Land. MacKay is a guitarist, composer, singer and improviser based in Chicago. A renowned solo artist and accomplished collaborator with projects that include solo albums and recordings with cellist Katinka Kleijn, Nathan Bowles, and Ryley Walker, all released on Drag City Records, MacKay has pursued his musical investigations with obsessive rigor.
A deep radiance envelopes even MacKay’s most dissonant explorations, and his trajectory travels seamlessly from the avant-garde to folk modes, and further. In his music, tradition is invited to be reinvented. MacKay is also a poet, visual artist and polyglot, and is a member of both the avant-garde rock outfit Black Duck (with Douglas McCombs) and the experimental groove-drone project BCMC (with Cooper Crain). His work has received praise in the Chicago Reader, New York Times, Mojo, Uncut, Downbeat, Paste, Pitchfork, and NPR.
Tenor and soprano saxophonist, improviser and composer Catherine Sikora has devoted her life to researching the magic of that sound with her saxophones, particularly in her solo work, which forms the main backbone of her creative output. In addition to her solo work, Sikora works frequently in duo and larger settings, with Eric Mingus, Brian Chase, Ursel Schlicht, Ethan Winogrand, Ross Hammond, Christopher Culpo, and Matteo Liberatore. She is proud to be one third of the joyful rowdiness that is Eris 136199. Sikora is active as an educator and writes extensively on the subject of practice.
David Menestres is a bassist, composer, and writer currently living in Richmond, VA. David's collaborations include the Polyorchard ensemble, OS, and Tamarisk. And he's the host/producer of Tone Science, a weekly two-hour radio show since 2010.
Dave Heumann is a guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer based in Baltimore, MD. Known for his work as a founding member of Arbouretum, Human Bell, and many other projects, he has been active for over two decades as a bandleader and collaborator, writing, recording, and performing music in North America and Europe. Improvisation, which has been foundational and central in Heumann's music ever since he started making it, has as of late taken on an even greater role in his solo guitar performances, with entire sets created as they are being played. His recent albums, the 2022 Sun Cru release Guitar Tapes Vol 1, and the self-released Themes From Blue Honey, are evidence of this, with the latter being the product of a single evening's spontaneous composition. In this music, motifs are created, expanded, reconstructed, and dissolved, while tones shift from clear and bell-like to harmonically distorted and heavily modulated, with the effect of taking the listener on a transportive and often meditative journey.