Wednesday 3 December 2014, 8pm
John Colpitts (aka Kid Millions) is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and writer who is perhaps best known as the drummer for Oneida. Man Forever, his vehicle for exploring the outer limits of drum performance, was created to overwhelm, to investigate the nuances that bloom in the midst of repetitive music, and to act as a pure sound experience.
"[Kid Millions] plays with a momentum and velocity that few can match and...a huge amount of soul." - The Quietus
The music of drummer John Colpitts as Man Forever is explorative, innovative and fearless. A musician and composer equally versed in the disparate musical languages of DIY rock, improvisation, and contemporary classical, Colpitts (aka Kid Millions) has made an album that defies genre classification. Propulsive, elaborate drum arrangements (created with TIGUE Percussion) remain essential to Man Forever - on the songs of Play What They Want, they are augmented by voice and melody with contributions from Laurie Anderson, Yo La Tengo, and Mary Lattimore to name a few. Play What They Want represents the culmination of 25 years of musical engagement by one of New York’s most acclaimed percussionists. The collaborative process, essential to Man Forever, requires the relinquishing of one’s ego for a greater purpose. In Play What They Want Colpitts leverages a vast and talented stable of diverse collaborators to create a work that transcends the sum of its parts. “You Were Never Here” kicks off the album with a gorgeous vocal performance by all members of Yo La Tengo and, like the transition from the black and white to technicolor, the piece becomes a driving, wild marriage of Max Roach’s “Garvey’s Ghost,” McCoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane and Steve Reich. World-class harpists Brandee Younger and Mary Lattimore join bassist Brandon Lopez, pianist Sam Yulsman and the Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble to create an experimental jazz and classical “dream team.” “Ten Thousand Things” resonates with TIGUE’s tense, virtuosic compound meters, a Moondog-esque vocal by Colpitts and singer Nick Hallett, and another intuitive performance by harpist Mary Lattimore. Finishing the side, “Debt and Greed” is a surprisingly wry pop tune that combines Colpitts’ Jaki Liebezeit-esque drum groove with CSN-style harmonies, guitar by Trans Am’s Phil Manley, and horn playing by Ben Lanz (Beiruit, The National, Sufjan Stevens). The second side leads with the evocative album centerpiece “Twin Torches.” Here Colpitts worked with the legendary multi-media artist and musician Laurie Anderson, who provided spoken vocals and violin on the nearly 10-minute tour de force. This composition also features arresting vocal atmospherics by Quince, which precede some of the most complex drumming Colpitts has ever recorded. The album closes with “Catenary Smile,” a prickly ballad featuring Nick Hallett’s cascading background vocals which buoy the lyrics: a contemplation of humanity’s problematic tendency to anthropomorphize inanimate things. While Colpitts’ previous albums have expanded on the possibilities and limitations of drums and percussion, this new album redefines the project in myriad ways. Building on a complex rhythmic foundation, Man Forever created an album that is innovative, imaginative and joyous. Play What They Want is a rare record of untamed ambition that hits all its marks.
Arrington de Dionyso (b. January 4th 1975) makes trans-utopian world music for a world that exists in fever dreams and hallucinations. Using performance and visual art, he traverses the nameless territories held between surrealist automatism, shamanic seance, and the folk imagery of rock and roll. He clarified his eccentric brew of ecstatic lunacy and prophetic madness during his 15 year tour-of-duty with Olympia’s Old Time Relijun (1995-2009).
De Dionyso’s most recent project, Malaikat dan Singa, is a trance-punk outfit featuring bass clarinet, guitars, multiple drummers and his trademark wild vocals (multi-spectral harmonic throatsinging combined with grunts, yelps, and barks) often sung in Indonesian. Malaikat dan Singa translates as “Angels and Lions,” and de Dionyso’s lyrics (both Indonesian and any other language he chooses to ply) fiercely combine mythology and fantasy. As a band Malaikat dan Singa ultimately defies a clean translation gaining power by crossing boundaries — both linguistic and psychic.
Arrington tours constantly both with Malaikat dan Singa and as a versatile solo artist. His visual art has been featured in exhibitions in Italy, New York City, Washington DC and Portland, Oregon and published in Yeti magazine, Prism Index and The Stranger. Arrington has staged his 24-Hour Drawing Performance at a variety of gallery spaces and other unusual spaces throughout the globe, in which he combines musical performance and video screenings with a live drawing marathon.
