Sunday April 5 | doors at 7:30pm | performance at 8:00pm
$15 ADVANCE tickets | $20 DAY OF SHOW | $10 STUDENT tickets with ID
Melissa Achten will give an opening ritual prior to Beetz’s performance of her latest solo album, Tone Keepers.
How good does it feel to pull back from time to time? To really shed excess, more-ness, and follow a single path with intention? The exploration of one thing can illuminate corners of the world overlooked by minds pushed in increasingly omnidirectional cycles of want. Tone Keepers is a collection of four compositions by flutist, composer, and sound artist Rachel Beetz that follow a straight line into unexpected territory. Each piece revolves around a simple but inventive technique for generating acoustic sound coupled with a discrete mode of electronic processing, spinning out variations on the unique effect it produces. Beetz encourages sounds to crystalize rather than expand, uncovering new permutations and emotional dimensions as curiosity leads her forward. The ear of the listener becomes a magnifying glass as the mind affixes itself to the music, its focus sharpening with each cyclical return.
Rachel Beetz
Composer and flutist, Rachel Beetz considers sound as touch. Her music “suggests the action of supernatural entities,” (The Quietus), while also being a “soundtrack for a cooking show turned film noir” (Best of Experimental Bandcamp). Recent releases include her solo album Tone Keepers on Outside Time and Somatic Steamed Eggs with performance artist and chef Heidi Ross on One Sound Object. Beetz’s sound projects have taken her from a sunless winter fjord, to empty grain bins of the American Midwest, and also into your kitchen. Her projects have been featured in concert halls and galleries in Australia, Iceland, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Melissa Achten
Melissa Achten is a Los Angeles–based harpist and composer grounded in a personal mythology that traces mirrored patterns between the real and the sublime. She treats the harp as a divining instrument, creating work that is diaristic, intimate, and cathartic. She is a member of the experimental new music nonet Ghost Ensemble, the harp and cello duo Rán, and the avant-garde duo Deathflavorkiss. Achten is also the co-founder and executive director of Oracle Egg, an experimental sound and performance incubator in downtown Los Angeles. Her work has been presented in New York, Germany, Iceland, Copenhagen, and London, unfolding in abandoned water towers, cemeteries, black sand beaches, and other liminal spaces.