In his premiere visit to the Bay Area from Manila, Philippines, experimental DJ, electronic musician, producer and polymath Caliph8 will perform a solo set followed by spontaneous collaborations with Bay Area electronic musicians Zachary James Watkins and Chris Brown.
Manila-born Caliph8 sees his work in a continuum. Since the early 90s, his interest with diverse forms of art, made it possible for him to cross and merge different disciplines. He uses an assortment of modes in culminating his ideas into actual visual works, sound pieces, installation or performances, always negotiating a multiplicity of relationships to the past, even while inhabiting the present. His exploration into visual and sonic experiments led him to develop a creative language that deals with ideas of merging sensibilities and creating hybrids along with their transformative implications. Overall, this undertaking puts a heightened emphasis on the multifaceted approach that is inherent in the process of experimentation.
He has been continuously active within Manila’s visual and sound art scenes since the late 90s. His artistic collaborators include: Keiji Haino, DJ Sniff, Asa Chang, Otomo Yoshihide, Nonplus, Roger Lopez, Seido, Teichmann Brothers, Dee Sheng, Rully Shabara and Lou Chou Yun among others.
Recent projects include a composition and sound performance with Jang Young-Gyu, Raed Yassin, Asa Chang, and Artyom Kim called “Vanishing Voices” at the ACC Museum in South Korea (2015) and participation in the 2017 Asian Music Network festival. During José Maceda’s centenary celebration and exhibition at the Cultural Centre of the Philippines in Manila this past year, Nogueras was tasked by the University of the Philippines Ethnomusicology Department to interpret “Accordion & Mandolin”, a piece for 19 instruments that Maceda wrote shortly before his passing but never premiered.
ZACHARY JAMES WATKINS studied composition with Janice Giteck, Jarrad Powell, Robin Holcomb and Jovino Santos Neto at Cornish College. In 2006, Zachary received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College where he studied with Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros. Zachary has received commissions from The Switch Ensemble, Density512, the Beam Foundation, sfsound, The Living Earth Show, Kronos Quartet and the Seattle Chamber Players among others.http://zacharyjameswatkins.com
CHRIS BROWN (piano&electronics) makes music with self- designed sonic systems that include acoustic and electroacoustic instruments, interactive software, computer networks, microtonal tunings, and improvisation. His compositions are designs for performances in which people bring to life the musical structures embedded in scores, instruments, and machines. Recordings of his music are available on New World, fo’c’sle, Tzadik, Pogus, Intakt, Rastascan, Ecstatic Peace, Red Toucan, Leo, and Artifact Recordings. He has also performed and recorded music by Henry Cowell, Luc Ferrari, José Maceda, John Zorn, David Rosenboom, Larry Ochs, Glenn Spearman, and Wadada Leo Smith; as an improvisor he has performed and recorded with Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, William Winant, and Frank Gratkowski..https://cbmuse.com