The Squid's Ear Magazine

Erica Dicker / Dennis Sullivan

Blood Luxury [CASSETTE w/ DOWNOAD]

Erica Dicker / Dennis Sullivan: Blood Luxury [CASSETTE w/ DOWNOAD] (Tubapede)

Delicate abrasions and corruption of their instruments from the NY duo of Erica Dicker (Till by Turning) on violin and Dennis Sullivan (Radical 2), 9 works of improvised soundscape and avant-raw chamber music through prepared strings, tapes, looped feedback, resonant metals, modified snares and liberally bowed surfaces, richly constrained and luxuriously blood-curdling.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Erica Dicker-violin, objects

Dennis Sullivan-percussion, electronics, objecdts


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Limited-edition cassette of 100 with direct shell imprinting and original artwork by Erica Dicker.

Label: Tubapede
Catalog ID: 14
Squidco Product Code: 31727

Format: CASSETTE
Condition: New
Released: 2022
Country: USA
Packaging: Cassette
Recorded in 2019.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Blood Luxury (Erica Dicker, violin and Dennis Sullivan, percussion) announces the release of their eponymous debut. The album presents a collection of abrasive, sometimes fragile pieces recorded in 2019. Already steeped in darkness, as if in anticipation of the despondency and desolation to come, Dicker and Sullivan invoke the most raw and vulnerable aspects of their psyches in a ritual ode to impermanence. Influenced by their mutual appreciation of various sub-genres of metal, Blood Luxury is an amalgamation of Dicker and Sullivan's experiences rooted in improvisation and avant-garde chamber music, enabling them to seamlessly fuse the timbres of their otherwise contradictory orchestration.

Across this nine-track offering, Blood Luxury navigates their way through over-pressure-laden distortion (Gride Tourniquet); airy, harmonic-drenched microtonal-soundscapes (Flexuous Flicker); and opaque forms sculpted with prepared strings, repurposed cassette tapes and feedback-loops (Entropy Undone and Inverted Necromancy), all the while inhabiting a world of smoke and mirrors where violin and percussion are indistinguishable. Dicker deploys her instrument as a contemporary noise-machine, sometimes attacking the strings with closet bolts and other hardware-store treasures or simply exploiting every bowable surface as she deftly traverses its entire harmonic spectrum. Sullivan maneuvers his way through a collection of modified snare drums equipped with makeshift guitar strings and bridges while also traversing a battery of resonant metal objects, junk-percussion and lo-fi electronics.

Blood Luxury is a limited-edition cassette of 100 with direct shell imprinting and original artwork by Erica Dicker. The name Blood Luxury is taken from an unmemorable yet evocatively-titled song on Whitesnake's 1982 album Saints & Sinners. The guerilla-style recordings were captured while in residence at Avaloch Farm Music Institute in Boscawen, New Hampshire; Ridgewood, Queens and from a live show at the Sunview Luncheonette in Brooklyn, New York. The audio was mixed and mastered by Caley Monahon-Ward in July 2021."-Tubapede


Limited-edition cassette of 100 with direct shell imprinting and original artwork by Erica Dicker.

Artist Biographies

"A proponent of new music, Erica Dicker is committed to creative collaboration with living composers and innovation in both the classical concert hall and nontraditional contexts. Erica is a founding member of the contemporary chamber music collective Till By Turning, an ensemble devoted to reinforcing the modern canon and linking educational programs to their repertoire. As part of the New York-based horn trio, Kylwyria, Erica and her colleagues, Julia Den Boer (piano) and John Gattis (horn), work to generate interest in and develop adventurous chamber music repertoire for their unique instrumentation through dynamic programming and commissioning. Erica is also violinist in Katherine Young's Pretty Monsters, as well as Vaster Than Empires, an electro-acoustic collaboration with composer and sound artist Paul Schuette and percussionist Allen Otte. She has premiered works by many composers including solo works written for her by Olivia Block, Turkar Gasimzada, Ryan Ingebritsen and Katherine Young. Erica also writes and performs her own music, exploring the idiomatic modalities and textures of her instrument. Taking Auspices, her debut solo album, is released by Tubapede Records as a digital download and limited edition vinyl LP.

Erica serves as concertmaster of Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation Orchestra, an ensemble founded to document and disseminate the operas by composer and multi-reedist Anthony Braxton, and has also performed with Braxton's Falling River Quartet and Diamond Curtain Wall Quartet at festivals in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, and Turkey and appeared with the 12 + 1-tet at the 2012 Venice Biennale. Erica also writes about and curates performances of Braxton's work, most recently for the International Contemporary Ensemble at the 2017 Ojai Music Festival.

A passionate advocate for preserving the vitality of orchestral performance, Erica also lends her talent to orchestras across the Midwestern United States, such as the Grand Rapids Symphony. She previously served as associate concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony and associate principal second violin of the South Bend Symphony, and held leadership roles in festivals including Spoleto USA and the National Repertory Orchertra. In Germany Erica was part of the Bergische Symphoniker and performed with the Bachakademie Stuttgart International Festival Orchestra under the direction of Helmut Rilling.

Erica received her training at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM), the University of Minnesota (MM), and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (DMA). Her primary teachers include Gabriel Pegis, Marilyn McDonald, and Jorja Fleezanis.

Erica resides in Astoria, New York with her husband and creative collaborator, tubist Dan Peck."

-Erica Dicker Website (http://www.ericadicker.com/bio/cv)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Born in Akron, Ohio, Dennis K. Sullivan II is a percussionist, composer, electronicist and educator based in Queens NY.

As a percussionist focusing on new and contemporary music, Dennis is a founding member of the performance duo, Radical 2 with percussionist/electronics engineer, Levy Lorenzo. A classification-defying duo that explores the use of theatric, vocal, percussive and prototype electronic mediums, Radical 2 has been bringing this unique blend to contemporary audiences for over seven years. Radical 2 has been featured on the 2019 and 2017 OpenICE series at the Abrons Arts Center, 2016 Omaha Under the Radar festival and also has been heard in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Berlin, London, Hamburg and elsewhere. They have held residencies at Stanford University and Adelphi University and will be in residence at UC Berkeley in 2019.

He is also one half of Popebama, a high octane experimental percussion/saxophone duo with composer/saxophonist Erin Rogers who apply text, electronics, and high-energy instrumental writing to non-traditional sounds.Specializing in works conceived by Rogers and Sullivan, Popebama has championed composers such as Paul Pinto, Matthew Shlomowitz, Rick Burkhardt, Jenna Lyle, and Daniel Silliman, and collaborated with performers such as yarn/wire (NYC), Tøyen Fil Og Klafferi (Oslo), Brandon Lopez (Brooklyn), Anne Le Berge (Amsterdam), and DECODER (Hamburg). Popebama has been featured on NYmusikk Bergen (Norway), Edmonton Fringe Festival (Canada), Splendor (Amsterdam), Diabolical Records (Salt Lake City), Bodies-As-Technology (Brooklyn), and Cleveland's inaugural ReSound Festival, with lauded performances at the 2017 New Music Gathering, NASA 2018 Biennial (Cincinnati), SPLICE Festival (Kalamazoo) and The Stone (NYC). Educational engagements include student workshops, masterclasses, and performances at Hochschule fur Musik (Freiburg), UMass Amherst, and The Walden School (New Hampshire). Popebama will headline the 49th Annual Festival of New Music at Ball State University, which includes five evening performances and an international call-for-scores. The high demand of the ensemble has garnered attention from presenters and new music advocates alike, resulting in a growing number of performances in the US and abroad. Popebama completed its first European tour in 2018 and will return in spring 2020.

Dennis is as well very active as a solo artist in the US and Europe, commissioning new works for his unique hybrid of percussion, theater, and electronics as well as actively performing his own compositions. As a composer, Dennis's work has been heard in the US, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands. He has been awarded a composition residency at the STEIM center for electro acoustic music in Amsterdam. His compositions have recently been performed by Yarn/Wire, Decoder, flutist Kenneth J. Cox, New Thread Saxophone Quartet, Hypercube, N/A Ensemble and others while being featured on the International Contemporary Ensemble's OpenICE series, nymusikk Bergen, SPLICE Festival, Ball State Festival of New Music, Omaha Under the Radar, Cleveland's reSound Festival and the Edmonton Fringe Festival. Upcoming projects include new works for Unheard-of// ensemble, guitarist Jay Sorce, flutist Kennith J. Cox, and "Fight. Songs," an evening of music curated with Popebama bandmate Erin Rogers written for and performed with Decoder to be premiered at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie in March 2020.

Dennis was been awarded the grand prize at the Van Rooy Competition for Musical Excellence, and has received the Stipiendienpreise at the Darmstadt International Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik (Darmstadt, Germany). His festival appearances have included Darmstadt, NIME 2014 at Goldsmith's University (featured soloist), OpenICE, Look + Listen Festival, Cleveland's ReSound Festival, The Moving Sounds Festival, The Edmonton Fringe Festival, The Ecstatic Music Festival,The Klangspuren Festival (Ensemble Modern Academy), Omaha Under the Radar, ACA Festival of American Music, Make Music New York, and the Woodstock Fringe Festival. He has recorded for the New Amsterdam, Mode and Original Abstraction labels. He has shared the stage with leading contemporary music ensembles such as The Argento New Music Project, Either/Or, The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), ECCE Ensemble, Ensemble Court Circuit, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Wavefield Ensemble, Newband, Iktus Percussion, Mivos, The Darmstadt Preistrager Forum, Ensemble Modern Academy, and many more. He has performed in leading NYC venues such as BAM, Roulette, Merkin Hall, Miller Theater, Symphony Space, The Stone, The Cell, The Tank, The Firehouse Space, Saint Peter's Church and JACK where he has successfully curated a yearly series of theatrically driven new music, bringing together classical music, theater, rock, heavy metal, and film all under the umbrella of "theatrically driven art."

Dennis holds a Bachelor of Music (BM) from the Hartt School of Music as well as Master of Music (MM) and Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) from SUNY Stony Brook University. Dennis currently serves as adjunct professor of percussion as well as the director of the wind ensemble at Adelphi University. He is also and adjunct lecturer for the Sound Studies program at Manhattan College and is on faculty at the Walden School's Young Musicians' program."

-Dennis Sullivan Website (http://www.dennisksullivan.com/about.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Mandrake Edifice 4:14

2. Ather Spear 9:21

3. Gride Tourniquet 6:06

4. Klepto Paradox 3:04

5. Flexuous Flicker 5:50

SIDE B



1. Entropy Undone 4:57

2. Inverted Necromancy 7:02

3. Vacuum Vacuum 2:11

4. Non Nobis Humanoid 11:20

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Cassettes
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Electro-Acoustic
Improvised Music
Organized Sound and Sample Based Music
Electro-Acoustic Improv
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NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Duo Recordings
Stringed Instruments
Percussion & Drums
Objects and Home-made Instruments
New in Improvised Music
New in Experimental & Electronic Music

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