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[georgethechen]

From Ursula K. Le Guin’s Cat Dreams. Illustrated by S. D. Schindler.

[georgethechen]

Zum celebrates its 25th anniversary as a record label with a series of shows on the West Coast. On Saturday, Dec 2, Oakland California’s renovated Thee Stork Club will host the Bay Area return of GROWING after thirteen years away! 

They will be joined by synth-doom act My Heart, an Inverted Flame, New York’s Somnambulists (solo project of Warren Ng), and Marshall Trammell & Paul Costuros Duo). DJ Melanie Marie will also be spinning and providing live visuals.

The New York/Olympia duo GROWING has a storied history of releases on Kranky and Silver Current and recent live and recorded collaborations with acclaimed harpist Mary Lattimore. GROWING released a CD EP with Zum in 2005 (a split with Mark Evan Burden) and contributed a track to the recent Zum Audio Volume 5 double-CD compilation. 

My Heart, an Inverted Flame played their second-ever show (their first was a 2022 Zum showcase at Noise Pop) after a few years of recording for Zum and Deathbomb Arc. The San Francisco/Ashland, Oregon duo delivers heavy doom drones using only synthesizers and percussion. Members Andee Connors (A Minor Forest, Common Eider, King Eider, aQuarius Records) and Marc Kate (I Am Spoonbender, Driftloss) also released a collaboration single with viral TikTok star Banshee. The Wire magazine called them “Stars of the Lid with a bad fucking attitude.”

Marshall Trammell (Music Research Strategies) & Paul Costuros are longtime Bay Area improvisers who convened for Trammell’s six-month residency at The San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum “For Friends” ending in early 2022. Their first recorded material as this Duo is documented in the track “Blue Cube” on Zum Audio Vol. 5. Trammell has toured extensively co-founder and former percussion of the Oakland-based Black Spirituals and currently as solo performer Music Research Strategies or the percussion in In Defense of Memory and White People Killed Them. Costuros has been in the projects Total Shutdown, Death Sentence: Panda!, The Fisticuffs Bluff, Murder Murder, and Burmese.

Somnambulists is Brooklyn-based Warren Ng. He has released solo material under the moniker Somnambulists and in the group This Invitation. Ng has been involved in collaborative film + live score performance works presented at experimental film festivals and exhibitions in New York and San Francisco including an expanded cinema series co-presented by the Microscope Gallery & The Whitney Museum (2016); Mono No Aware IX and X (2015 & 2016); and the SF Cinematheque's Crossroads 2016 & 2018 (presented at the SFMOMA). He has performed at Che Chen’s (75 Dollar Bill) Fire Over Heaven concert series in New York and this is his first appearance back in Oakland since 2019. This show will also be the album release for the new Somnambulists cassette Ascending Planes on Zum.

DJ Bio:

Melanie Marie is a visual artist and creative coder based in Oakland. Initially working with installations centered around Macintosh SE & SE/30 computers, she is now primarily focused on live coding visual synthesis in collaboration with live musicians. Melanie is a host of Transformations Radio and Beloved Radio. Her work and music sets focus on the relationships between music and imagery.

ZUM BIO:

Siblings Yvonne (Xiu Xiu) and George Chen (Common Eider, King Eider, KIT) launched the Zum Audio compilation series (including acts like Duster, Modest Mouse, Deerhoof, Yellow Swans, Zach Hill) in 1998. Over the ensuing decades, the label has released indie emo pioneers Nuzzle, Canadian noiseniks AIDS Wolf, and even Chen’s own stand-up comedy EP.

To mark this anniversary, the latest Zum Audio Vol 5 was released in a double CD format as well as on digital. George Chen set out to survey present-day experimental electronics, drones, hardcore, and mutant pop.

LINKS

ZUM - linktr.ee/zumaudio

GROWING -https://growing-music.bandcamp.com

Marshall Trammell -https://www.musicresearchstrategies.info

Paul Costuros -https://www.discogs.com/artist/310473-Paul-Costuros

Somnambulists -somnambulistsmusic.bandcamp.com

My Heart, an Inverted Flame -https://myheartaninvertedflame.com

Melanie Marie -https://projectvisualsensation.com

[georgethechen]

 Swine Flu by Boxleitner on split 7" (Thin the Herd/Zum)

  #1 by KIT on Wives/KIT 7" (Post Present Medium/Zum)

  Top Gun by Total Shutdown on split 7" (Thin the Herd/Zum)

  A Pig is a Pig/You Could Feel by Battleship on Presents Princess (on/on switch)

No Mind/Scary Things by High Castle on You're on your own Way (Zum)

Input Select/Meeting by Channels 3&4 on Christianity (Gilgongo)

Keep Away by Silver Daggers on Zum Audio vol.3 (Zum)

Public Secret by The Intima on Zum Audio Vol.5 (Zum)

  Historic C Ranch by Core of the Coalman(7 Year Rabbit Cycle on Ache Horns (Free Porcupine Society)

  Big Black Cloak by Baus on Zum Audio Vol.5 (Zum)

 Domestication by Curse all Kings on Zum Audio Vol.5 (Zum)

C(live) by Deerhoof on Zum Audio Vol.3 (Zum)

 This Makes me a Barn Burner by 7 Year Rabbit Cycle on Ache Horns (Free Porcupine Society)

 Forest by KIT on Zum Audio Vol.3 (Zum)

Gathering by Somnabulists on Zum Audio Vol. 5 (Zum)

 Zebulon 1/15/23 by Growing on Zum Audio Vol.5 (Zum)

[georgethechen]

TALKIES goes on Tour!

October 3

October 4

October 5

with headliner DRENNON DAVIS

JACK BROWN

JESSICA SELE (Sac and Santa Cruz)

ASHLEY MONIQUE (SF)

and your hosts

AVIVA SIEGEL

NICK STARGU

GEORGE CHEN

LAND SMITH-ABBINANTE

tix at https://linktr.ee/talkiesshow

[georgethechen]

8/2/23.

Wow. I had never heard of Zum Audio (Los Angeles) and only clicked through because I saw that Baus (Oakland) had a song on the new Zum Audio Volume 5. That song is great.

But, as I'm wont to do, I started listening to various releases on the Zum merch page. Sea Scouts looked cool, and then "Word As A Weapon" hit me, sounding like it could be an Xpressway band, or some great weird release by The Fall or Wire. And I can't help but think Deaf Wish listened to Sea Scouts.

Apparently Sea Scouts were a Hobart, Australia band back in the 1990s, and Zum originally released this. These are the last few copies of the original run of 500. Sea Scouts also released a full LP on Chapter Music back in the 90s.

By the way, while at Zum, listen to Body Double and all the other Zum Audio Compilations available.

[georgethechen]

Wherein I try my hand at a current events parody song

[georgethechen]

New Audio: Oakland's Body Double Shares a Woozy Ripper

New Audio: Oakland's Body Double Shares a Woozy Ripper @bodydoubleusa @forcefieldpr

Oakland-based punk outfit Body Double — currently, founding member, multi-instrumentalist Candace Lazarou, Noah Adams (bass), Chase Kamp (drums), Aaron Diko (keys) and Joel Cusumano (guitar) — can trace its origins back to a period of intense grief and transition for its founder, Candace Lazarou: Her pervious band Mansion split up in an acrimonious fashion back in 2016, a few months before the…

[georgethechen]

It's the Third Thurs of the month!

June 15th, Come out to see

Megan Gailey

Jenny Yang

Casey Ley

Geri Courtney-Austein & Joshua Kilcoyne

and your regs

Aviva Siegel

Land Smith

Nick Stargu

George Chen

at Whammy Analog (behind the building)

[georgethechen]

[georgethechen]

killer 4/20 show at Whammy with

Mike O’Brien (SNL, I Think You Should Leave)

Alison Stevenson

Adam Papagan

Natasha Mercado

Eli Leonard

and your usual DOPEs 

Nick Stargu, Land Smith, and George Chen