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Black Dice / Wolf Eyes / Xiu Xiu (solo) / Liars (DJ)

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At this special release celebration for Mod Prog Sic, their 7th full-length LP, Black Dice will be joined by special guests Xiu Xiu, Hairbone, + more TBA.

For all 25 years of their existence, Black Dice have loomed as an unrivaled, unforgettable, and influential force. Their performances are forceful, full-body experiences, with listeners afterward describing the singular kink of feeling their skeletons vibrate. This understanding of the physical force of sound has endeared Black Dice to both the damaged youth of DIY warehouse shows and the erudite spectators of vaulted galleries. This specious contradiction carries through to their community, seeing them thrive equally on underground labels like Troubleman, on Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks, and with DFA Records. Black Dice’s recorded legacy reveals an obsessive focus, like loner teens taking objects apart to see how they work. This fixation on craft and composition exposes a restlessness that pushes each record to a distinct edge, impossible to conflate with any other entry in their discography, let alone with any other band. Black Dice’s disquiet, their relentlessness, their work ethic, their shimmering, howling, lurking thump

Mod Prog Sic is Black Dice’s seventh full-length, and their first in nearly a decade. It’s a wildly propulsive record. It never touches the disassociate state found across so much of their discography, working instead in the harried moments of euphoria that linger just before such breaks. Basslines strain at the end of their leashes, tones bounce like gravity is being switched on and off. Their command is absolute, a choreography performed upon listeners. Since their first show in 1997, working at the edges has taught Black Dice the bliss to be found there. Mod Prog Sic is the evidence. If it seems ridiculous to speak of these as pop songs, it’s even more ridiculous to speak of them as anything else.

Tickets on sale now: https://blackdice25th.eventbrite.com

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Wolf Eyes

Drawing from such disparate sources as Throbbing Gristle, Black Flag, and King Tubby, the Michigan trio Wolf Eyes create harsh and hypnotic electronic landscapes that merge the frenzied energy of hardcore with the nihilistic menace of early industrial and noise. Constant touring in the early 2000s brought the group a strong cult fan base and opened the world of the noise underground to a new generation of curious indie rockers, punks, and experimentalists.

Xiu Xiu (solo)

Xiu Xiu makes beautiful music for hard times. For nearly 20 years, the band has a track record of crafting experimental music for moments when life’s harsh realities meet its existential mysteries. On the latest album, Jamie Stewart explores a recent revelation and is reminded of the power of the band’s music to surprise and connect. Listening to the songs on OH NO, it is hard to feel truly alone. Instead, it is a reminder that even when we are alone, we’re alone together.

DJ Angus Andrew (Liars)

Angus Andrew is the founding member and driving creative of ever-changing band, Liars. A restlessly experimental act that never makes the same album twice, during the 2000s and 2010s, Liars evolved from arty dance-punks into a project that transcended genres with every transformation. As they moved from place to place and sound to sound, they swung between vulnerability and aggression on each album and sometimes within the course of a single song. No matter how their sound changed, their music exuded a sense of mystery and searching that was only heightened on 2017’s TFCF, Liars’ first album with singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Andrew as the project’s sole member. 2021 saw the release of Liars’ 10th studio album, The Apple Drop, which was hailed as a creative return to form.

M. Caye Castagnetto
(w/ Ciriza and James Caperton)

M. Caye Castagnetto is a composer, percussionist, and producer. Influenced by a life split between Lima, London, and Twentynine Palms, Peru-Born Caye Castagnetto have composed scores for theatre, performance and artists’s videos. Formerly a member of bands such as On Form, Antifamily, and Sonora. Caye released their debut album Leap Second on Cartleface  Records in January 2021. They have exhibited and performed in venues such as the Whitney Museum (US), Vivienne Westwood’s The Art of Elysium, the TBA festival in Portland, the Getty Museum (US), The Stedlik Museum (NL), Die Kagurazaka Theatre (JP), La Casa Encendida (SP), Cafe OTO, Whitechapel Art Gallery (UK).

James Caperton is a multi-instrumentalist based in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Formerly a member of Veronica Lipgloss and the Evil Eyes, and Judy Experience.

Ciriza is a multidisciplinary artist and musician.  Her performances are a theater of the primordial, a distillation of the raw and feral pulled through the throat of an unearthly dark-sea siren.  After travelling nationwide performances with art bands in San Francisco throughout a decade, she returned to Los Angeles with her visual art, as well as musical collaboration with Big Debbie, Houston-based Future Blondes, and her own solo performances.

“A truly interesting conglomeration of loose inspirations and conjurings.  A hard to decipher sound all together which makes it worth every moment,   A sprinkling of Catherine Ribeiro, Dr. John, Terje Rypdal & Nico.  Far out sun-soaked odysseys & moon dappled woodland night creepers..” – John Dwyer

Hairbone  

Hairbone is a New York-based power trio of artists Raúl de Nieves, Jessie Stead, and Nathan Whipple, formerly known as Haribo. Functioning mainly in the art world, Hairbone has inflicted audiences from museums to decrepit basements with their carnivalesque live shows for nearly a decade.

Roy Ayers (live) / Ron Trent / Belinda Becker

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Roy Ayers is among the best-known, most loved and respected jazz/R&B artist on the music-scene today. Now in his fourth decade in the music business, Ayers, known as the Godfather of Neo-soul, continues to bridge the gap between generations of music lovers. In the 60’s he was an award-winning jazz vibraphonist, and transformed into a popular R&B band leader in the 70’s/80’s. Today, the dynamic music man is an iconic figure still in great demand and whose music industry heavyweights, including Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu, 50 Cent, A Tribe Called Quest, Tupac and Ice Cube.

Ron Trent is considered to be one of the architects of the Chicago music scene. A perennial presence in music since the early 90’s, Roy is largely regarded for producing and playing an eclectic range of music.

Belinda Becker is a Legendary DJ, dancer, journalist, activist, Mother, and actress. Originally from Kingston, Jamaica, Belinda is well known on the New York City DJ scene and has been inducted into Paper Magazine’s New York Nightlife Hall Of Fame.

The Blessed Madonna / Mike Servito

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A Sunday open-air party with two icons in their own right.

The Blessed Madonna ― Panorama bar mainstay and Mixmags “DJ of the Year” ― walks the line between disco and techno, with the emotional weight of the former and the driving momentum of the latter.

Mike Servito has perfected a jacking style that is equal parts house, acid, and techno… a sound that pays homage to the past while being very much of-the-moment.

Wrecked w/ Leeon

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Wrecked outdoor summer series continues with Leeon, August 8 in the Ruins at Knockdown Center.

MFF 2021: Sheff G & Sleepy Hallow, Fousheé +++++

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TWO DAYS:
DAY ONE TICKETS (AND TWO DAY TICKETS)
DAY TWO TICKETS

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The first day of the festival, September 16th, is curated strictly for R&B vibes, with breakout stars and New York natives, Fousheé, and Audrey Nuna atop the line-up. Day 2, September 17th, turns up with a hip-hop bill anchored by Brooklyn’s own Sheff G & Sleepy Hallow, as well as viral stars Yung Baby Tate and Doechii, and the prolific street lyricists Stove God Cooks and Rome Streetz, among others.

While last year’s inaugural Move Forward Fest was strictly virtual, this year we are back in the building, live and In-Person, AND also broadcasting the vibes to audiences around the globe via Twitch, and inviting you to virtually sneak backstage in between sets, and hang with the artists and ask them questions via the Twitch chat.

Outline: Summer

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Outline: Summer will take place Knockdown Center’s backyard space, “The Ruins,” across the last weekend of August, Saturday the 28th and Sunday the 29th, 2021, featuring headline performances by NYC post-punk icons ESG, and Canadian dance-pop favorite Jessy Lanza, and specially selected daily lineups for a cross-genre party that pays honor to club music’s past, present, and future.

Joining the legendary Bronx pioneers ESG on Saturday’s lineup will be an exciting group of young performers that span pop, hip-hop, and R&B, including: rising L.A. synth-pop duo Magdalena Bay; Minneapolis-based songwriter, rapper, and poet, Dua Saleh; Philadelphia’s beat innovator Body Meat; and wildly prolific rapper Pink Siifu, performing with DJ Ted Kamal and special guest appearances from members of associated crew GKFAM.

Sunday’s lineup surrounds Jessy Lanza with an eclectic collection of artists from different corners of dance music. It will include: NYC house and hip-hop producer Galcher Lustwerk, performing a “100% Galcher” set of original material; mysterious left field pop artist Doss; Miami bass-music duo Basside, whose SOPHIE-produced, Fuck It Up EP, was released earlier in 2021; Cibo Matto founder and prolific solo artist, Miho Hatori; and L.A. synth-punk newcomers Provoker, whose debut record for influential Swedish label YEAR001 is expected later this year.

Two-day passes and single-day tickets for the Saturday and Sunday shows are on sale now.

Resuming a regular schedule from this Summer relaunch, Outline will return inside the Knockdown Center hall for Outline: Fall in November of 2021, and then continue with Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall events throughout 2022.

[Conclusion and Findings] Readings

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This event will take place over Zoom at 7pm EST on Thursday, October 22.
Event Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83299492489
Zoom Event ID: 832 9949 2489

In conjunction with Catalina Ouyang’s exhibition it has always been the perfect instrument, writers K-Ming Chang, Lara Mimosa Montes, Thylias Moss, Arisa White, and Keith Wilson, will share their poetic translations contributed to Ouyang’s ongoing project [Conclusion and Findings].

For [Conclusion and Findings], Ouyang pollutes the email inboxes of hundreds of strangers and friends with a 2016 legal document that weaponized institutional language to exonerate an act of violence. The recipients are then invited to appropriate, handle, and “translate” the contents of that document back to Ouyang. While the exhibition presents Ouyang’s reordering of the nearly 40,000 words generated by the contributions to [Conclusion and Findings], this event allows for some of the original translations and transmissions of the document to hold space.

About the exhibition
https://knockdown.center/event/catalina-ouyang-it-has-always-been-the-perfect-instrument/ presents sculptures made over the last two years alongside a new two-channel video installation that comprises Ouyang’s reordering of the nearly 40,000 words generated by the contributions to [Conclusion and Findings]. The works in the exhibition, however, instead grow out of a space where language fails and in resisting any overarching material, disciplinary, or tonal vocabulary, it has always been the perfect instrument trades linguistic and taxonomic control for a landscape of rhythm, texture, touch, and communion.

About the contributors

K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the debut novel BESTIARY (One World/Random House 2020), which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. More of her writing can be found online at kmingchang.com.

Lara Mimosa Montes is the author of THRESHOLES and a senior editor of Triple Canopy. She lives in Minnesota.

Thylias Moss, age 66, has published widely, a multiracial maker of things of language including poems, these days love poems. Recipient of numerous awards, including a MacArthur Genius grant, two nominations for the National Book Critics Circle award, Professor Emerita of English and Professor Emerita of Art and Design at the University of Michigan. She is in a meld with a wonderful man, Mr. Bob Holman, poems as well as life. She has one son, Ansted Moss, 29, a composer and pianist.

Arisa White is a Cave Canem fellow and an assistant professor of creative writing at Colby College. She is the author of You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened and co-author of Biddy Mason Speaks Up. Forthcoming in March 2021 from Augury Books is her poetic memoir Who’s Your Daddy. She serves on the board of directors for Foglifter and Nomadic Press. arisawhite.com

Keith S. Wilson is an Affrilachian Poet and a Cave Canem fellow. He is a recipient of an NEA Fellowship, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and an Illinois Arts Council Agency Award, and has received both a Kenyon Review Fellowship and a Stegner Fellowship. His book, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (Copper Canyon), was recognized by the New York Times as a best new book of poetry.

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