Spring Roll
Sylvaine Hélary Quartet
Oct. 20, 2016
Studio Z: 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200, St. Paul 7:30 p.m. $15 |
French free-jazz quartet Spring Roll stops by Studio Z on their U.S. tour performing music from their new double album on Ayler Records.
Sylvaine Hélary, flutes, voice; Hugues Mayot, tenor saxophone/clarinet; Antonin Rayon, piano/Moog synthesizer; Sylvain Lemêtre, vibes/percussions/metals. Sylvaine Hélary (France) is a composer, and flutist, active in a multitude of endeavors, from performance art, composing for large ensembles, to improvised engagements with Chicago figures such as cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and percussionist Mike Reed. Her most recent ensemble, working under the title Spring Roll, covers a span of styles in an almost collage-like manner. Spring Roll's thematically dense surrealist arrangements with percussive counterpoint warrant comparison to composers like Ornette Coleman and Harry Partch, as well as underground-rock greats Henry Cow and Captain Beefheart. "In this new project created in 2014, I wanted to explore a way of composing that drew its inspiration as much from my contemporary music education, my encounters with musicians from New York (Tony Malaby, Tim Berne, Kris Davis, Matt Mitchell, Ralph Alessi) and my wild years playing unclassifiable pop music (Martine à la Plage, Fantazio). Spring Roll’s instrumentation is pretty uncommon. Flutes, a saxophone, a clarinet, a piano, percussions in profusion, mostly bells or keyboards. To which we can add an analogic synthesizer, a loop modulator and the manipulation of magnetic bands. The partition takes us between the most stripped-down minimalism and an orchestral maelstrom. Many improvised pieces take part in the composition. 'Writing and organizing music sometimes bear sign of an electroacoustic experience. Such piece, written in a tight stretto reveals, with strictly acoustic means, a tone unimaginable before the invention of the electronic delay, but which is not quite exactly similar to it, therefore producing a most troubling impact on our senses.' " --Sylvaine Hélary Co-presented by Zeitgeist. Tickets can be securely purchased by credit card or through your PayPal account in advance, or by cash, check, or credit card at the door. Tickets purchased online will be held at the door.
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