YUKO NEXUS6 KITAMURA 10/24, Museum of Contemporary Art; 10/25, ARTEMISIA In an essay published in Xebec SoundArts in 1996, computer musician Yuko Nexus6 Kitamura asserted that using computers to make music “has come close to being as easy as it used to be for a young rock fan to borrow the electric guitar her or his older brother had gotten tired of and tossed aside to start a band”–a claim that may have been true in Japan, where she lives, but is only becoming plausible here as the price of technology continues to drop and the gray-box mystique to fade. Kitamura got her start playing on a company computer at a job in San Francisco and says her first public performance, on a Macintosh plugged into a guitar amp, was “an extremely sloppy affair.” She has recently released her first CD, Bit Diary (on the Tokyo label Kaeru Cafe), and also written a book, Cyber Kitchen Music, about how to make computer music with the sound source built into a Mac; however, it’s currently available only in Japanese. Kitamura makes several appearances this weekend: On Saturday, as part of the Asian American Jazz Festival, she’ll collaborate with Yasuhiro Ohtani, guitarist Jeff Parker, and drummer Dave Pavkovic in the Chicago/Tokyo New Music Ensemble. On Sunday, she’ll perform with local vocalist Carol Genetti, one of the organizers of the Artemisia gallery’s ongoing “Mixing: Women In Sound Art” series; the bill also includes performances by composers Olivia Block of Chicago and Sarah Peebles of Toronto. And if you’re reading this on Thursday, October 22, you can catch Kitamura at the Empty Bottle on another Asian American Jazz Festival bill with the stellar Japanese turntablist and electronicist Otomo Yoshihide.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
ASTEROID #4 10/27, EMPTY BOTTLE This Philadelphia quartet isn’t coy about the kind of music it plays: the cover of its debut, Introducing… (on its own Lounge label), features the members’ faces floating in a cheesy Lava lamp-esque swirl that reminds me of those antidrug films they used to show us in junior high (you know, the ones that never managed to make psychedelics look anything but fascinating). The music is pure nth-generation drone ‘n’ trance, with organ fills and electric sitar and guitar freakouts in all the right places. It’ll carry anyone weaned on Syd Barrett imports and Spacemen 3 12-inches into the usual realms, but it won’t take you where no man has gone before.
