Audio Artist Voisey Returns to North Adams for New Year's Event
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — It's been a couple years since Berkshires art fixture Ven Voisey moved west, but this New Year's Eve he returns to his former creative stomping grounds for a one-night celebration with new work and performance, "New Object."
A presentation of the Freeman Grove Benevolent Society at 62 North Holden St., the 9 p.m. event promises two performances by Voisey, one along with collaborator Jamie Lee Mohr, music by Francesca Shanks, as well as spinning records and drinks.
"Tiros Won" has been Voisey's main audio project since spending a year's residency in Roswell, N.M., during which he focused mostly on sculpting, but also began writing songs, collecting sound and video, and pull from his background in sound art to do work with more song-structure than previous.
"Music's always been a really important part of my brain," Voisey said, "and figuring out how that fits as part of my creative brain, and trying to figure out how I want to deal with that, 'Tiros Won' is, right now, my attempt to deal with that."
Now based in Oakland, Calif., Voisey has recorded one record, "Dust In Light," which is available digitally while he works toward a 2016 physical release that will be accompanied by a series of cassette releases of other work. Despite the genre designation of drone, Voisey played with the parameters of that and created something that he thinks might surprise listeners.
"I think of it as a pop record," he said. "At the same time, there is a drone sensibility in that there's always a drone note throughout everything. Mostly the songs are one chord."
With that drone note and one chord, though, Voisey employs a mix of percussion, guitar, and even singing in the various tracks to sculpt a collection of eclectic earworms that is often shaped by the more subtle components that function as experimental foundations.
"I generally keep a recorder around with me," said Voisey. "Some of my favorite found sounds are that hiss of the world happening, and using those foundational textures of background sounds give an environment to the root of a lot of my own compositions. And they still tend to do that. "
Voisey's challenge has been to translate this to live performance. He likes to present the music with prepared video, with the idea that it and the sounds of synthesizer and guitar will add further elements to each other. And his live arrangements do affect his studio concoctions.
"The last few shows I've been playing drums, live drums, which I feel like is my home base instrument," Voisey said. "My first band, I was a drummer in a metal band. There's something that's visceral and raw about a live drum, and pairing that a synthesized environment that I've always loved that in other ensembles, so I think it's moving in a direction of percussion by drum and synthesizer. This evening will have some kind of elements of that first record, that had a lot of guitar, too."
Opening the evening will be Voisey's ongoing project with collaborator Mohr, Trust/Fail, which incorporates similar elements — music and video — into a performance that reflects not the process of one mind, but the dialogue of a long-standing creative partnership.
"There is some similar tie-in to 'Tiros Won,' " said Voisey. "They are bleeding into each other and they make sense together. Jamie and I have a unique conversation that is ongoing that pulls the work in a certain direction that is uniquely its own."
Voisey says the performance will feature drum and synthesizer with the accompanying video work, which he and Mohr have been concocting, built around notes from their exchanges.
"Our work together is a conversation around two people that's been going on for years," he said. "We have this notebook from the other night, and I have several notebooks like this, that is just lists of words like '#purityproblems.' It ends up being this conversation around image, sound, power, media, control, ownership, imagination."
Don't Cry from Trust/Fail on Vimeo.
Tags: musical performance, new year, video,
