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THE AMBiENT PiNG http://www.theambientping.com Tuesdays @ HACiENDA - 794 Bathurst Street at Bloor (directly across from the Bathurst subway station) - Toronto Doors open at 9pm - 1st set at 9:30 - PayWhatYouCan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This Tuesday August 9th - Nilan Perera and CJ Boyd Toronto experimental guitarist Nilan Perera has been an active member of the Canadian creative music and performance scene since 1983 and has been involved in some of the most forward-looking, influential and radical ensembles of the past 19 years including NOMA, Bill Grove's Not King Fudge, Handslang and the Excalceolators. He has also performed and recorded with Vinnie Golia, Don Preston, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Glen Hall, John Oswald, Vinx, Al MacDowell and Michael Ondaatje. Perera is currently a member of trip-hop group Lal‚ prepared guitar trio Ferrobaci (with Wiens and Bill Parsons), electroacoustic/improv duo Smash and Teeny (with Sara Peebles) and radio art duo FaMished America (w/Susanna Hood) as well as performing & composing as a soloist on guitar. http://www.sarahpeebles.net/cinn_bio_perera.htm Visiting the PiNG from Nashville, Tennessee using just a bass and a loop pedal, solo bassist CJ Boyd creates oceans of sound - melancholic, pensive, evocative. Virtuosity is balanced by a sense for the unlocked emotional powers of the bass used as a solo instrument. Tending toward teary and haunting strains, the music will melt, hypnotize, and heal you in one sitting. http://www.cjboyd.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Coming Tuesday August 16th - THE AMBiENT PiNG's 6th Anniversary Special featuring Zoë Keating & mara's torment http://www.zoekeating.com http://www.marastorment.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ||: IN THE LOOP :|| by Luna Tek GeekWeekend (Rob Hoare and Steven Sauve) arrived at THE AMBiENT PiNG on the heels of the August long weekend, delighting their audience with a playful approach to improvisational performance. The duo used elements of chance - such as rolling dice - to direct their responses to word-structures extracted from Rob’s upcoming CD (due to be released this fall). Rob and Steven presented two gorgeous sets of music that defied – or perhaps redefined – typical attempts at categorization. Their electronica-meets-bebop stylings were the all the more sublime for Rob’s haunting flute sections. As Sauve's Absynthe creations drifted across his keyboard rhythms, Hoare processed his saxophone though Reaktor patches in his laptop, transforming its sound into didgeridoos and utterly unexpected tonalities. Tonight's performance belied the veneer of cool lurking beneath GeekWeekend's pocket protector façade. More info: http://www.robhoare.de + http://www.karmafarm.ca *** iPOP PING magazine is shaping up to be a wide ranging, whimsical collection of ambient thoughts, experimental attitudes and innovative art. Articles, poetry and art submissions are welcome until August 19 at this address: luna@theambientping.com - Luna Tek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . rik maclean's *ping things* CD Reviews "Settings" by Thinkbox Thinkbox describe themselves as "a self-curating media collective, created to explore technological works and contemporary media". I find this to be a fascinating and noble ideal, one that they manifest to great effect in their release "Settings". Using tracks created independently by individual members of the collective, "Settings" is a powerful display of the Thinkbox aesthetic. Chris McNamara's "Martahaus" is a sparse drone based piece that pulses and flows with it's own internal rhythm before leading into radio transmissions from distant broadcasts. It's a very cool and very haunting piece in an industrialised way. Bill Van Loo checks in with "A Glimpse", a lovely chill piece based around simple bell and piano textures and forms. He takes a very minimalist approach to environment, which comes out surprisingly effective nonetheless. "No Good Way to Say it But I'll Try" by Mark Laliberte is a fascinating sound collage, an interesting blend of tones and shapes that evokes an image slowly coming into focus. I very much like the way this piece progresses and develops. "Convergent" by Christopher Bissonnette reminds me of grainy Pixelvision movie footage, perhaps something out of a Wim Wenders film. Melodies swim up to the surface and then duck back down again beneath the waves of sound. It's haunting and beautiful & altogether cool. A second track by Mark Laliberte, "Diagram of a Cell", is a lovely showing of glitchy abstract forms and shapes laid overtop a slight pulse. Another excellent piece by Laliberte. Steve Roy checks in with "Miscommunication", a cleverly applied collection of telephone based samples. It's a nice example of soundsource work sure to attract the attention of the legion of Aube fans out there. "Your Reply (One Year Later)" by Rob Theakston is a very beautiful & fragile piece, a delicate weaving of sounds broken by a brittle latticework of clicks and scratches. Beautiful, but regrettably too short for my liking. I would have really enjoyed seeing this piece stretch out and develop. Steve Roy also contributes "Doppler" an interesting take on spatial dynamics. It's a clever and well-presented track that I found thoroughly engaging. "Untitled Bass Improv" by Bill Van Loo is a quivering gelatinous mass of a song, shaky notes burbling and gurgling and shifting in & out of synch with each other. This is a good thing by the way and I find the track thoroughly enjoyable. I feel that saying "Oblique" by Christopher Bissonnette is a study in oblique motion is both an understatement and redundant. Suffice to say that it's a very well presented piece that explores movement and space within a confined environment. Very satisfying. "Williamsburg, Tuesday" by Chris McNamara closes the disc, a wall of sound where a thousand different ideas (or maybe only a few...) come together at the same time. Listen closely and you can distinguish specific noises, or listen less attentively and let them all surround you at once. I can't help but feel a sense of exploration and discovery listening to "Settings", a feeling that previously existing environments and atmospheres exist independent of our awareness, but through the efforts of Thinkbox they are ours to be found in our own ways, in our own time. Truly inspiring and truly inspired, "Settings" is a very strong work by a very talented group of artists. rik maclean - rik@pingthings.com http://www.pingthings.com = ambient + electronic + chill things Send an e-mail to pingthings-subscribe@yahoogroups.com for updates on *all* the latest releases on sale at ping things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE AMBiENT PiNG is a social sound/art event presenting live performances by Toronto's finest ambient, chillout, improv and experimental music artists plus performers from across the continent, every Tuesday evening at HACiENDA - 794 Bathurst Street at Bloor. http://www.theambientping.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Please forward this e-mail to any friends who may be interested in live ambient, chillout and experimental music performances or to any of your appropriate newsgroups. Thanks.