Adam Torres, Thor & Friends
The Bartlett
11/17/2016 08:00 PM PST
$12.00 – $15.00
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Adam Torres
'Adam Torres has spent the past decade volunteering in rural Ecuador, completing a graduate degree in Texas, and working to improve the water quality of the Rio Grande River — all whilst simultaneously writing hundreds of songs. While a number of those were released as demos in 2012 through DC cassette-label DZ Tapes, Torres has yet to provide a proper follow-up to his 2006 self-released debut Nostra Nova, a DIY staple in his small college town of Athens, Ohio. With a clear-headed voice that seemed to buckle under its own sincerity, Nostra Nova was immediately affecting and enduringly comforting. The album received a reissue last year from Misra records, which brought Torres greater recognition outside of Ohio and a new audience tuned in to whatever he was planning to release next. Now Torres has signed to Fat Possum for a new LP entitled Pearls To Swine, which "maps [his] complicated history as a songwriter and musician," and today we are premiering lead single "High Lonesome." Torres is 10 years older than he was during the initial release of Nostra Nova, but his songwriting has hardly aged. He's become more self-assured, and road-weary where he used to be anxious, but still sings with a vulnerability that is inviting in its generosity.' –Stereogum Adam Torres' new album, Pearls to Swine, is out Sept. 9 on Fat Possum.
Thor & Friends
Polymath percussionist Thor Harris inaugurated "Thor & Friends" in the autumn of 2015 after five years of touring as the percussionist of iconic avant-rock ensemble Swans. The project was intended as a vehicle for experimentation with the conceptual vocabulary of American Minimalism collaborating with a rotating cast of Austin-based musicians. A crafter of musical instruments and stylistic polyglot Harris is returning home with Thor & Friends and the resultant music is an elongated greeting and ode to his community, woodworking shop and the instruments his hands shape and bring to life. The ensemble has three core members, Thor, Peggy Ghorbani and Sarah "Goat" Gautier, with its line-up expanding and contracting with the flux of compositional and improvisational contexts. The range of tonal color depends on what instrumentalists are present or absent from the process at any given time. They can perform purely acoustic or shaded with hues of electronic instrumentation, as a stripped-down trio or a large ensemble. Thor & Friends draws on the classic Minimalist composers including Terry Riley and Steve Reich, but also amalgamate such diverse influences as Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, Moondog and The Necks around a polyrhythmic core of mallet-struck instruments, primarily marimba, xylophone and vibraphone. Circling these core motifs are shifting streams of everything from processed pedal steel and analog synthesizer to violin, viola, stand-up bass, clarinet, duduk and oboe. The group also builds upon similarities and contrasts with Harris' past projects and continuing collaborations; these include Swans, Ben Frost, Bill Callahan, Hospital Ships, Shearwater and John Congelton. They embody utopian optimism by rooting their art and operation in both improvisation and the involvement of neighbors and friends in their process, making use of what and who is around at any given moment to make music with. Thor & Friends debut LP will be out on LM Dupli-cation in autumn 2016 — recorded with A Hawk & A Hacksaw's Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost and Deerhoof's John Dieterich in Albuquerque, New Mexico — at which point the transcendent live performance that's drifted across Central Texas over the last year will continue its crescendo across North America and Europe.
Venue Information
The Bartlett
228 W Sprague Ave
Spokane, WA 99201
http://thebartlettspokane.com/
