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Concert Wed Apr 18 2012
Matt Carlson and you (and Lampo), traveling the spaceways together
Like many in this neo-analogue age, Matt Carlson (known both under his given name and as the project Golden Retriever) looks forward by looking backward, reviving the sound and structure of analogue synth music of the '60s and '70s with modern means and equipment. But while so many would-be Vangelises of our time venture as far as texture and atmosphere, Carlson can spin you a mighty melody as well, those majestic, cyclical pentatonic modal improvisations that Tonto's Expanding Head Band or Synergy did so well, that put you, whether you were "enhanced" or not, smack dab into the middle of a Roger Dean/Heavy Metal: The Movie landscape with only a sinister cybernaut nearby to lead you back out. And you KNOW that guy's got designs on the Loc-Nar that the embattled old wizard gave you, so step lightly.
(Keith Whitman at Mimaroglu Music Sales really NAILS it in his description of Carlson's Particle Language LP in his catalog description, both the power of Carlson's vision and the occasional paucity of ideas among his peers, so let's bask in his reflected glory: Carlson "immediately eradicates my growing fears of this current wave of renewed interest in the format yielding nothing more than a few dozen "module hoarders" (i.e. trust-funded "curators" of well-intended systems acquired purely for "archival" purposes [i.e. using the same set of neurons previously necessary for maintaining a thriving ho-scale "train village"] that produce nary a sound)."
This Saturday, Matt Carlson presents a new series of compositions for "analog modular and digital synth, voice, and an array of time-lag effects" as the debut of Lampo's Spring season. The event takes place at 8 p.m. on April 21 at the Graham Foundation's Madlener House, 4 W. Burton Pl., Chicago. Tickets are FREE, and you can RSVP here.
Here is a TV performance of Carlson's composition, Merv from Portland's "Experimental Half-Hour" TV program:
