Covering The Surface


Marcia Bassett and Sergej Vutuc – Recordings from a multimedia installation with live/sound performance by Marcia Bassett, Ursula Scherrer and Sergej Vutuc at The Film Gallery, Paris 3.22.2022. Recent press for Covering The Surface, reviewed by Byron Coley in the Jan/Feb issue (479 + 480) of The Wire!  A few cassettes of my collaboration with Sergej Vutuc and Ursula Scherrer at The Film Gallery, Paris, are left! Performing schematic gestures printing to light transmission. Overlay Actions Parallel Projections. Visual Marking Variations. Illuminated Light Exchange Form. Expanded Performing.
See the Bandcamp link to purchase.

A LA MAISON LIVE & Sonoscopia Residency with Ursula Scherrer

In the last week of April 2023, Ursula Scherrer and I had the incredible opportunity to collaborate at a week-long residency at Sonoscopia in Porto. The entire experience was a whirlwind of activity, filled with setting up equipment, gathering materials for our collaboration, and exploring the surroundings for inspiration. It was a zig-zag dance of explorations, connections, and a short mid-week trip to Lisbon for a show Ze dos Bois Gallery. We are immensely grateful for the opportunity. 

Sometimes we say two lines crossing another word jumped beside itself. Ursula Scherrer 2023, verso of A La Maison edition 8/20 of handmade CDrs.

Limited edition handmade covers ed of 20 (sold-out), released during the Sonoscopia Residency, Porto, Portugal, April 2023.
Limited edition professional archival-quality, Grade-A CD-R, cover empty chair comes with a copy of the performance poster (mini-size). Edition of 30
Images, words, and actions blend and transform space into an immersive environment created by Marcia Bassett and Ursula Scherrer. LIVE documentation from 2022.03.19 recorded at à La Maison Residency, Paris, as part of the Maison d’hôte monthly program.

West Coast Live with Samara Lubelski

Marcia Bassett / Samara Lubelski West Coast LIVE cassette on Feeding Tube Records is out!

Marc Masters featured it in his column The Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp: November 2022 on Bandcamp!

Over the last decade, guitarist Marcia Bassett and violinist Samara Lubelski have been one of the most reliable experimental duos around. Through many releases and performances, the pair have consistently created dense improvisations, melding noise, drone, feedback, and volume into music that’s sometimes harrowing, sometimes uplifting, and always stimulating. West Coast Live offers four recordings from a 2019 tour, and all of them are deep and resonant enough to get lost in. Best is “PDX,” a 10-minute swath of vibrant sound in which Bassett and Lubelski merge into a single voice, one powerful enough to reach the stars but subtle enough to seep under your skin.

We’ll be hitting the road for shows at Jerry’s On Front in Philly on Dec 2 and the Catalytic Sound Festival at Rhizome DC on Dec 3! See ya there!

New Solo Releases Artsy Records & Krut

Now available  – Undulating Akrasboning cassette released on Artsy Records, edition of 100

”Undulating Akrasboning” was recorded live in my Brooklyn apartment in early 2022. Improvised sound and language shapeshift thought and space.

Mesmerizing gestures deviate, repeat and dissolve into an undulating spectrum of sound colors that never stop moving and breathing.
Tones, patterns, and reverberations morph through the present. A complex play evolves, slowly rising and falling through space, fragmentary text is spoken, and an abstracted voice rises within the energy of the chaos as if in a destabilized landscape hovering between reality and fiction. *** Akrasboning = the spirit who lives inside of humanity *** Hilma Af Kilnt

and Altering The Form a digi EP on KRUT

KRAAK FESTIVAL 2022 KRUT SPECIALS: Vertigo-inducing swooshings from Marcia Bassett’s modular discordia ~ chaos sputters, collapses and repurposes itself.

“Brooklyn’s Marcia Bassett has been an influential, nay, integral part of the international underground for the past 20 years at least. Co-founder of seminal bands Double Leopards, GHQ, Hototogisu, frequent partner in crime of Samara Lubelski and head runner of the Yew label, Marcia Bassett’s solo output pursues the always-curious, always-experiential trajectory that she’s traced thus far. Her dexterous and inventive use of everything from synthesizers to field recordings to guitar to her own handmade instruments results in droney sonic landscapes that broach planes beyond time itself. ”
credits
released August 29, 2022

Midnight Xpander


The long-awaited MIDNIGHT XPANDER LP is finally available for purchase! Recorded at the EMS Studios Stockholm during my fall 2019 residency there with further mixing during the COVID-19 lockdown. I’m delighted to have the physical copies finally! I’ve been hand-embellishing each cover, so every single LP cover is unique!  I shipped 50 LPs overseas to Soundohm, who highlighted the LP in their Best of 2022! Bradford Bailey, the writer behind The Hum, wrote a fitting description of which I’ve highlighted a small excerpt here: “Veteran experimentalist, Marcia Bassett, returns with “Midnight Xpander”, easily one of the most exciting entries into the field of drone and contemporary minimalism that we’ve encountered in a good while. Predominantly recorded with a Buchla 200 system at EMS in Stockholm, Sweden, and imbued with abstraction and the bristling tension of punk and noise, its subtle structures and intertwining harmonics immerse the mind in a deeply organic, hallucinatory realm that places Bassett at the forefront of the field.” I still have some LPs left via YEW Recordings, and for those of you overseas, you might want to head over to Forced Exposure to place your order.

And a special bonus with the Bandcamp purchase is a video Sean Julian shot on his Digital Harinezumi set to Glacial Scar. Many thanks to Andrew Lafkas for contributing bass to Glacial Scar as well!

 

Portugal / Spain mini-tour with Samara Lubelski

A lot has been going on, and I have not done the best job keeping up with my website!
The mini-tour in Portugal and Spain with Samara Lubelski was fantastic! We started in Porto at Sonoscopia, followed by a concert in Lisbon at Igreja de Santa Isabel. Next, we flew to Spain for the incredible Kaiola Festibala in Galdakaon on the outskirts of Bilbao; next up was Tabakalera in San Sebastian, where we created a sound improvisation set to my 40 min abstract film! Thank you to everyone who hosted, supported, and graciously showed us their wonderful cities! More coming up post-tour!

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