Boat People are honored to host a very special evening with Man Forever & So Percussion performing Ryonen with special guests Cuddle Magic!
MAN FOREVER / SO PERCUSSION:
"[Kid Millions] plays with a momentum and velocity that few can match and...a huge amount of soul." - The Quietus
“Through a mix of consummate skill and quirky charm, [So Percussion] has helped to ignite an explosive new enthusiasm for percussion music old and new.” – The New York Times
Man Forever is an exploratory percussion project helmed by John Colpitts (aka Kid Millions), one of New York’s most versitile and critically lauded collaborators and a founding member of Oneida. Since its inception in 2010, Man Forever has hosted an impressive list of guest performers, but few have been as specially qualified to perform Colpitts’ technically challenging meditative workouts as So Percussion, the United States’ premiere contemporary percussion ensemble. So Percussion has commissioned and premiered new compositions by Steve Reich and their interpretations of John Cage have revolutionized the legendary composer’s cannon. Following a collaborative performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in June of 2013, So and Colpitts entered the studio together to record Ryonen, two pieces that combine the former’s precision and ingenuity with the latter’s restless punk spirit. While previous Man Forever records were inspired by blissful, overwhelming confusion, Ryonen derives its power from its clarity and immediacy.
The two pieces on Ryonen are rhythmically seductive and instantly exciting while retaining the experimental legacy that Man Forever has cultivated over several albums and relentless touring. “The Clear Realization” is an exploration in polyrhythm performed on two drums sets, two sets of bongos (an instrument Colpitts rediscovered while performing with Yo La Tengo on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon), a concert bass drum, snares, crash cymbals, and vocals. Each instrument is performing in a different time signature at the same tempo, creating a beat that is both propulsive and nonpredictive. “Ryonen” is more chaotic on the surface, but repetitions and rhythms hidden beneath the surface emerge with close listening. The drums are tuned to resonate with each other, creating a series of overtones that hover over the music and provide a baseline drone for the ensemble to harmonize with during the piece’s dramatic climax.
Colpitts continues to be one of the most in-demand drummers in New York. Throughout 2013 he toured as a member of Spiritualized, performed in duos with Greg Fox and Jim Sauter, recorded a record with Akron/Family, released an album with People of the North on Thrill Jockey, and performed with Rhys Chatham as a member of Oneida. So far in 2014 he has recorded an album with Rick Moody and is performing with William Basinski at the Ecstatic Music Festival in March. Man Forever will tour the US and Europe performing Ryonen.
SO PERCUSSION reviews:
“…a mesmerizing performance…”
“…brilliant…”
“…consistently impressive…”
"Time and again...you found yourself smiling in a quiet amazement that could verge on disbelief."
“Through a mix of consummate skill and quirky charm, this mercurial quartet has helped to ignite an explosive new enthusiasm for percussion music old and new.”
–The New York Times
"The evening was an exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam..."
- The New Yorker
“You’re not going to hear [Cage] done better; this group plays with an irresistible vitality.”
“This was a concert rare in its delightful excellence...”
-The Washington Post
"“The weekend's electrifying percussion pieces deserve a cheer too. The So Percussion group were a knockout in Steve Reich's Mallet Quartet..."
-The Guardian UK
"The range of colors and voices that So Percussion coaxes from its menagerie is astonishing and entrancing."
-Billboard Magazine
"...NYC experimental powerhouse."
- The Village Voice
"If percussionists are, as proclaimed elsewhere, the new princes of the realm of virtuosity, then these four young, steel-wristed, Brooklyn-based Yale graduates wear the crown with panache."
- The Financial Times
"Sō Percussion have [Steve Reich's Mallet Quartet] nailed, finding both the inner glow and the outer edge, and never letting the tapestry lapse into the flat or routine.”
-The BBC
CUDDLE MAGIC reviews:
They love possibility in the popular song and are willing to go where new approaches are to be found...they are as tight as tropicalia, as rhythmically dexterous as prog, as melodically fascinating as jazz, but with a slightly baroque sense of counterpoint that reminds me, on occasion, of Meredith Monk, and, at other times of Steve Reich."
- Rick Moody, The Rumpus
All Ages!
$10 advance
$12 day of show
7:30pm