Friday July 31 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15-25 * TICKETS
Grex:
Karl Evangelista - guitar, voice, drums, samples, misc.
Rei Scampavia - synth, voice, drums, misc.
Grex is an experimental music duo based out of Oakland, California. In biological terms, a "grex" is an entity composed of several smaller organisms. Grex (the band) explores the meeting point between surreal songcraft and the dark outer reaches of free jazz, industrial hip-hop, and art rock. The group has been called an "otherworldly experience" (Eugene Weekly) and "true genre warping music" (KFJC), recalling at turns the ecstatic energy of John Coltrane, the electronic squall of Death Grips, and the lilting songwriting of Mitski.
Grex has performed at Ars Nova Workshop, The Great American Music Hall, Slim's (SF), Myra Melford's New Frequnices Festival, The Switchboard Music Festival, The Sonic Circuits Festival (DC), and the United States of Asian America Festival, and organized multiple online Lockdown Festivals in the midst of the 2020-2022 coronavirus outbreak. Proceeds from Grex's work have been directed to numerous causes of conscience, including the Milford Graves Memorial Fund, Black Organizing Project, the Shuumi Land Tax, the Alameda County Food bank, and relief efforts for crises in the Philippines, Ukraine, and Palestine.
The band has worked with Fred Frith, Andrew Cyrille, Bobby Bradford, Tony Levin, Zoh Amba, Luke Stewart, and Asian Improv aRts, and Evangelista is an active improvising guitarist alongside the likes of Louis Moholo-Moholo, Oliver Lake, Ben Goldberg, Alexander Hawkins, and Trevor Watts.
Lesley Mok is a New York City-based percussionist and sound artist. Their work is guided by a continual search for the connection between the mundane and the divine, the experience and manipulation of time, and a desire to capture emotional dissonance and complexity. Lesley’s ongoing explorations with composition and improvisation are most notably documented in their debut album The Living Collection (released May 2023 on American Dreams Records). The album, described as “an exquisite and stimulating work” by All About Jazz and “a singularly personal statement” by Jazz Trail Magazine, was named International Debut Album of the Year at the 2024 Deutscher Jazz Preis. As a collaborator, Lesley has shared the stage with Tomeka Reid, William Parker, Ingrid Laubrock, Marilyn Crispell, Craig Taborn, Myra Melford, Mary Halvorson, and Rafiq Bhatia among others. They have performed throughout the Americas, Asia, and Europe.