Yes, we’re going to have two SPIL labs in this Lunar New Year month! SPIL 031 is coming up on Friday, 17 Feb, 8:30pm @ Findars, featuring guest musician from Japan, Yoshitake EXPE (space guitar); also on the bill are local musicians Kent Lee (bass/vocals), Sudarshan Chandra Kumar (vocals/electronics), Yen-Lin Goh (toys/sound objects) and Yong Yandsen (tenor sax). Come on out and bring your friends!
Date & Time: Friday, 17 February, door opens at 8:30pm
Venue: Findars Art Space, No. 8, 4th floor, Jalan Panggong, 50150 Kuala Lumpur.
https://www.facebook.com/events/651614808343497/
ABOUT THE MUSICIANS:
YOSHITAKE EXPE is an extraordinary guitarist from the city of Osaka , Japan whose backbone can be found in a Funk Band in the 90s accompanied by American musicians. With the use of numerous compact effectors he has established a unique Space guitar sound whilst processing sound with a story-like flow like that of a DJ with influences found in P-funk , Electro Techno , with a Brian Eno vibe and sensibility of Brazilian music , at times playing the guitar percussively creating improvised robotic house music , at times playing a sensual guitar solo , but at times very organic with a soothing acoustic sound and is guaranteed to take you on a space odyssey. He has collaborated with varying types of artists from visual artists and painters , avant-garde , improvisational , jazz , techno , hip-hop , world music , music for film and soundtracks and is also highly regarded as a club DJ and continues to expand his musical horizon . He has also held an exhibition of sound installations accompanied with a 100 hour performance in art museums. Nutron s debut album was voted “best album of the year(2003)” by Music Magazine and made an appearance at Fuji Rock Festival in 2004 .For the past 5 years he has been playing over 150 shows annually with his solo project. His current projects involve a Space Funk duo with world class drummer Takashi Numazawa , Space Dub Funk with dub mixer Naoyuki Uchida and also formed a Super-Unit PARA together with Seiichi Yamamoto. Amongst many collaborations his performance with the treasure of Brazil , Marcos Suzano is especially memorable.
An avid performer of contemporary classical music, YEN-LIN GOH has premiered numerous solo and chamber works across North America, Europe, and Africa. Notable composers she has collaborated with include Chen Yi, Ge Gan-ru, and Mayke Nas. In 2015, she was invited as one of two musicians for a residency at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts in Wyoming, U.S.A. Among her other awards are the Phi Kappa Phi Love of Learning National Award, and the Tunisian/American Embassy Piano Fellowship. Most recently, she gave a multidisciplinary piano recital at Arts Without Borders? International Conference in Finland, which included collaborations with Finnish artists from the Sibelius Academy. Some of her performances can be found at youtube.com/c/yenlingoh. Yen-Lin’s special interest in improvisation has led her to form contemporary improvisation ensembles and to work extensively with different instrumentalists, dancers, actors and theater directors on improvisation projects and concerts. She has collaborated with one of Canada’s leading vocalists Alex Samaras, Chinese poet/calligrapher Huang Shenchen, and in 2016, choreographer Lau Beh Chin for the “Where 2 Seas Meet” Production at DPAC in Malaysia. A full scholarship recipient, Yen-Lin earned her Master’s degree in Piano Performance with high honors from Oklahoma City University, USA, and subsequently received her doctorate in Contemporary Music (Performance) from BGSU in Ohio, where she studied piano with Robert Satterlee and composition with Marilyn Shrude. She also holds a B.A. in Piano Performance and Communications/Radio-TV-Film from the UW-Madison. Her passion for teaching brought her to Tanzania 2013-15, working as a piano/voice teaching fellow at Umoja Music School and a lecturer at Tumaini University Makumira. She is currently a senior lecturer at UPSI.
KENT LEE is the singer, bassist and principal songwriter of the Malaysian pop band Fast Food Generation. He also plays the guitar, drums and electronic instruments. He collaborates frequently with Euseng Seto a.k.a Flica for live performances as well as for the album “Weekendary”. Kent Lee has has also collaborated with musicians including Dae Kim & Jocelyn, Manjii Hwang, Ian Han and Silent Keat, and has composed soundtracks for several companies. He is explorative in his musical expression by combining elements of ambient, funk, dance, noise and psychedelic.
SUDARSHAN CHANDRA KUMAR has performed for the CHOPPA Music Fest (Singapore), Playfreely (Singapore), Switch On (Malaysia) and KLEX Festival (Malaysia). He participates in Serious Play Improv Lab (SPIL) regularly, a monthly experimental music series in Kuala Lumpur. Sudarshan has contributed vocals and live electronics to the following bands: HKPT, Takdir, Sorry and Think!Tadpole!Think!. Working with music for theatre, he is the music facilitator for Main Wayang (2015-2016), a children’s theatre workshop which emphasizes on the basics for orchestrating D.I.Y multimedia performances and has directed and scored music for his musical “The Propitiation of Fundamentals” (2015).
YONG YANDSEN is an improvised saxophonist. He has played at the Kuala Lumpur Contemporary Music Festival, Asian Meeting Festival (Japan), Mosaic Festival Singapore, Choppa Eclectic Improvised Music Festival (Singapore), Turn Around Free Jazz & Improvisation Festival (Singapore), Music Matters Festival (Sri Lanka) amongst others. Yandsen, together with Darren Moore and Brian OíReily, form an improvised trio called Game of Patience. They have toured to Japan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand. They released debut CD album “Trial and Error” and a vinyl album “The Bad Sleeps Well”.
SERIOUS PLAY IMPROV LAB (SPIL) SERIES:
SPIL is a project of the Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival (KLEX) launched in May 2014. It aims to create exposure and understanding, and to facilitate local, regional and international collaborations and exchanges for experimental and improvised music in Malaysia.
More info: [email protected]