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2008 PERFORMERS

Alien Journalism
I've given up on composing (er, finishing) tunes. I'm currently trying to configure my gear, sample & video libraries and live-looping system in a way that will enable me to easily join a kickass livetronica band someday... I can see myself morphing into a Negativland-and-Ableton-inspired ADD Brian Eno (circa Roxy Music)... droppin samples, loops, horn, visuals, percussion... whatever the moment calls for.

Andrew Vachon

Audrey Chen
audrey chen is a chinese-american musician and performance artist born outside of chicago in 1976. using the cello, voice and analog electronics, chen's work focuses on the combination and layering of traditional and extended techniques. a large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is often extremely personal and visceral. her performance work incorporates sound, movement and simple visual/sculptural concepts. chen performs solo and in collaboration with a wide number of musicians and dancers. some current projects include duos with gianni gebbia, tatsuya nakatani, alessandro bosetti and nate wooley. the SILO trio with nate wooley and leonel kaplan. and Trockeneis with andy hayleck, dan breen, catherine pancake and paul neidhardt. chen has performed in europe, russia, australia, new zealand, china, japan, taiwan and the USA. She is currently based in Baltimore, MD  USA where she is member of the red room and high zero collective, an on-going series and festival devoted to experimental music.

Bird Organ
Formed in late 2006, birdorgan began performing together in the NH/MA/ME area. Our goal is to work with other like-minded sound artists creating immediate free improvisations in the spaces we are provided. A few venues we have invaded include Strange Maine in Portland, ME, 119 Gallery in Lowell, MA, and the Monastery Artist Space in Manchester, NH. We have also begun working with various visual projections including vintage 16mm industrial/art films which adds another dynamic to the overall birdorgan experience.

Calliope Quartet
We are the Calliope Quartet, an electro-acoustic group that was started in order to focus on low-volume, low-velocity music, taking a conventional instrumental ensemble (percussion/electronics, trumpet, guitar, bass) and playing unconventional music. One of our concepts for this project is an exploration of extremes and a natural meeting point between composition and improvised music.

Cave Bears
Members: Pat Rivets, Ursula LaThon, Bran Fake & Rachel Hatred. Where we is: cavebears.suchfun.net // myspace.com/cavebears How we is: Cave BEARS started as a few disparate "pipe" cells which gradually formed clumps and clots and eventually there was the first finger which died and was used by the second finger as a pick to play the third guitar. The sun was just a hot point on the horizon back then because we didnt have up or down and at high noon the fingers would run out puddles of white jism which were gradually hardened by the desert sun, then merely a hot point, into the shape of the first desert nomads who had to climb under rocks and bust dirt if they wanted to hear some swingin tunes cause there literally were no musical instruments back then. These were the earliest dates of the CABIA CABLAS, the web of points which keeps measure from burning out and into your damn eyes, and so today this has more or less freely congolmerated into a few lumps of ossified vegetable matter with mottled skin stretched over with it and with the price of newspaper advertising being what it is we just call ourselves CAVBARS or CVEBERS to save money and you would call us that too if you didn't want your arm snapped back to fit into our guitar cases better. Our goal is to bring the hot hot desert sun into whatever musical chasm we might be playing from and to make you go away.

Chris Cathode

Christopher Carmody

Ed Snyder

Evokiai
We are the rain children and where the animals roam in the day

Gil Helmick
graduated with Honors and Distinction from the California State University in Sonoma, California in 1976. He avoided graduate school and traveled throughout the United States, Canada , portions of South America and Central America plus various countries in Europe and Asia. His experiences ranged from Park Avenue hotels to Brazilian truck stops, the intimacies of the high jungles to drinking wine with derelicts on the cold winter sidewalks of the Tenderloin in San Francisco. "My beds have been made over marble floored villas and 6 weeks of homeless transient mats." During the 1980s, Gil was published in small California anthologies and performed upwards to forty public readings. In March of 1985, he flew to Paraguay and Brazil to write fiction. Gil completed two novels, The Accomplice and Wounded Angels. After residing in California, Mexico, New Orleans, Pennsylvania and Nova Scotia. Gil currently resides on Bailey Island, Maine. Recently, he completed a collection of poetry, Wounded by Zen. "I live in the midst of wounded angels. I have the scars to prove it."

Greg Boardman
I have been teaching and performing, for the most part in Maine, for close to forty years. I am currently teaching strings full time in the Lewiston Public Schools, grades 4-8, and at Bates College, where I lead a fiddle group and teach privately. Apart from that, my performing life brings me from the American Folk Festival in Bangor, playing with my boys, to the viola section of the Maine Chamber Ensemble, playing classical masterworks in Lewiston, to local nursing homes, performing with my students. It is also my joy to play for Christian worship, which I do these days mainly with the teams at the Mechanic Falls Vineyard Christian Fellowship and for our third-Sunday Taize service at Lewiston's Trinity Episcopal Church.

Gregg Murphy
Bagpipes

The Holy Experiment

Hooper Piccalero
Unafraid of complexity, repetition, lyricism or silence, Hooper Piccalero creates refreshingly creative musical landscapes. With no drums or bass, the Boston-based quartet mostly disposes with solos and accompaniment in favor of overlapping layers of sound.

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Jenni Barron

Joe Gates

Johan Tore Nystrom
Johan Nystrom is committed to ontinuing the work of influential 21st century philosopher Donald Rumsfield¹, who made the important discovery of unknown unknowns, in turn, Johan follows in pursuit of unknown knowns. His research focuses on the possibilities of acoustic sound, alternately utilizing drums, guitar, and alto saxophone; and additionally the similar (il)logic of unpredictable electronic instruments. This research has led to, among other things, collaborations with Brandon Ables, Steve Boyle, Jack Wright, Wilson Shook, Nathan Hubbard, and others; as well as participation in Edgar Um Bucholtz's film XFCTCPS 360º, 9 shots, (edit) for free improvising ensemble, which used chance operations to determine all aspects of filming, as well as song duration and player configuration. 1Please note that even in the context of this contribution, DR is really a tragic mess. I argue that the discovery no less has merit. Also, note the use of a footnote in an artist bio. This is designed to create a feedback circuit of self-reference. eep eep ACKCH ALCHALKI BULAXCCCCCHH bupbup aCHOO

Josh Erskine

Katt Hernandez
Focused primarily on freely improvised music, Katt draws a firey array of electronic-like sounds and keening melodies from her completely accoustic violin. She works extensively with microtonality, drawn from a study of a mixture of sources, including traditional folk and sacred musics of the Middle East, Turkey, and Eastern Europe, various odd-ball whisps of old Americana, and the Maneri/Sims 72 note system. Playing with as wide and unexpected a variety of other performers as possible is tantamount to her sonic and spiritual pursuits. She has also played music of the late Ottman empire and Whirling Dervish ceremonies with the Eurasia Ensemble. She spent some time playing old-time, vaudeville, and early jazz tunes with Matt Somalis(a.k.a. Shoe) whilst channelling the spirit of Amelia Earhart in the duo Lindy's Radio. And she also plays the mysterious incarnation of a disturbing cartoon character in the frightening music and performance art duo Dr. Selenium and Madame Margo. In fact, she plays somewhere for somebody at least weekly, come hell or high water.

Killick!
Killick of Athens, Georgia has loved sound in all its forms – silence, noise, organized and disorganized, since he was a baby. Attending a KISS concert at age 5 (thanks Mom!) cemented it. He immersed himself in all popular and unpopular styles equally and studied music theory during high school, learning the concepts of Western harmony, melody, rhythm, and written music, which he now tends to ignore. :-) With focus, humility, and wit, Killick recontextualizes familiar vocabularies into something past classification, creating beautiful and kinetic threads of sound. For Frantasia, Killick will be playing his quartertone electric guitar.

les (trois) etoiles -
performance art improv
based from u m machias since late 1980's
rotating membership performing electric/accoustic
imagery portrayals
foundingplayers : gene nichols,
d m ingalls, nan naja, andrea c lyon
current lineup : nichols, ingalls, naja, gordon phillips,
micah pascucci, jenny penny, wing lum, les, steve,
others who'll forgive me
for frantasia 08, likely just a trio of these

Lewis Gesner
hello- my name is Lewis Gesner- I will be performing on Saturday I believe- I will perform a piece i call "Tree Puppets" - it is a meditation on and interaction, as well as an imitation- of nature, and natural forces- the mimicry by performer(s) of the wind through trees-. I will tie ropes to trees and tree branches (and maybe others will participate) and gentle move the branches, swaying them, by pulling ropes- imitating the movement of wind as it would pass through the trees - the rustling makes is it a sound piece- as well as any wind actually occuring- in participation will be accepted as part of it- and, a visual piece, too- and, a physical improvisation-. I am an artist living in Boston, MA. I exhibit and perform my work internationally, and am a member of Mobius Artist Group in Boston.

MV Carbon

Mystic Out Bop Review
free improvisation trio based out of Portland, Maine, has been performing in the New England area since 2000. The trio is: Kit Demos on bass, Chico Valentine on drums and Alonzo Holliday on sax.

Noel Walsh
Noel is now 26 and has written and performed over 150 original songs as well as playing hours of traditional folk songs, Irish ballads, sea shanties, and popular rock 'n' roll covers of yesterday and today. He's played for thousands of appreciative people at over 60 venues, most of them repeat performances. He's been in several bands; "Slow Children At Play", "Earthtone", and "The Real" to name a few.

Ophibre

Patrick Walsh

Qfwfq Duo

Shea Mowat

Suzann Kole
Suzanne produces a unique and haunting sound, blending ethnic, experimental, jazz, and chant into soulful and sensitive improvisation and vocal offerings for films, recordings, and collaborative projects.

Teresa Fellion

To Be Named By A Non Human Later

Vic Rawlings
Vic Rawlings (Boston) is active as an improviser and instrument builder, specializing in modifications of existing instruments.  He performs as a soloist and as a member of the bsc, undr quartet, and in various duo and trio assembles and has toured extensively in the U.S., Canada & France.  He has taught improvised music at venues ranging from community centers, high schools, grade schools, and improvised music festivals to Harvard University and Rivers Music School.

Visitations

Eclectic, Improvisational, Electric! Truly an auditory and visual adventure.