Concert Thu Oct 09 2008

Apparently, there already was a band called "Wheelbarrow Races"...

Robert Beatty is known primarily to many noiseniks as the electronic blood flowing through the band Hair Police. For many years, Beatty, an original member of the group, honed his craft within the band's tumultuous live shows and increasingly frightful live shows, fighting through the drums, guitar, and vocal vomit to conjure waves of shortwave attack signals and deep-space transmissions of fear and agony, coaxed out of low-tech and decidedly home-modified instruments.

As the group honed their nefarious crafts and grew more adept, Beatty's electronics, originally primitive and beepy (triggered by a primitive set of drum machine pads), grew increasingly assured and multi-tonal as he attacked his machines with renewed purpose. Along with his many other band projects, such as Eyes & Arms of Smoke and Sick Hour, Beatty inaugurated his solo project, Three-Legged Race, as an all-electronic ode to the final transmissions from a submarine, sinking deep into the sea with no hope of recovery. Furthermore, his work scoring for the films of Takeshi Murata further reinforces Beatty's desire to travel with equal confidence within academic or visceral music circles.

This Saturday (October 11), Lampo presents a program of Beatty's work as Three-Legged Race, debuting two new pieces, "Falling Order I and II," for the crowd. Devotees of Beatty's recent work will notice the word "order" as a recurring motif, such as the pieces on his highly acclaimed LP for Tone Filth, Living Order/Mourning Order. It suggests Beatty's redoubled commitment to compositional techniques, in direct contrast to his more improvisational gestures in Hair Police and other groups.

The new Lampo space is located at 216 W. Chicago Avenue. The show begins at 9 p.m., and admission is $12.

— Chris Sienko / Comments (0)