Dream Deficit Zone #16
I went on my first international tour this month and played two dates — one in Antwerp and one in Paris. This trip is almost over and I’m about as delirious as I expected to be towards the end of it.
The show at Antwerp was in a quaint, small room upstairs of a bigger club venue. We had to move armchairs out of the way to fashion a cozy little dance floor.
The Archaic Reckoner set went alright. We had technical difficulties — signal from mic did not make it into supercollider, which made vocals impossible for my set. It worked during soundcheck but mysteriously conked off during the actual show. Matthew and I had just enough of a presence of mind to quickly pull up old samples of Winter Fingers and add a garage-beat under it. These things happen.
The highlight was a couple of women in their late 60s wandering into the show after looking it up under “things to do in Antwerp”.
Matthew and I then presented at the International Conference on Live Coding. My talk was about what everyone in the New York live coding scene has been up to. The conference was enriching, and shows in the evenings were a blast (ranging from rudimentary tidal patterning from Alex McLean, to this group from Barcelona crafting a cultish performance centered around an air crash).
A recurring thought I had throughout is that I should document my work more — something I'm notoriously bad at. This might just be the impetus I need to be more active on YouTube or TikTok.
The Paris show was a lot more subdued and happened in the karaoke room of a little bar called Red House. This room had a projector, screen and a pair of speakers, which is really all you need to organize an Algorave. Codie and Messica Arson joined on this show, making it the first time since 2018 that we were all on the same bill.
The mic worked without a hitch this time, allowing me to test out a new track called 'Afraid to Try'. It straddles my kraut-rock and slowcore obsessions but has now been influenced by the rave energy from the conference. Rémi (Ralt144mi) from Lyon did live visuals during my set, which involved pointing an old camera at my face and running the signal through his modular visual synth. The result was fascinating and I heard worked well with the music.
I'm on my way back to New York to catch a breath. Archaic Reckoner will play 2 more shows in the city.
May 06 — Building 10A, Nolan Park, Governor's Island, NY
May 10 — Mama Tried, Brooklyn NY
Come see us. The venue for the Governor’s Island show also has an exhibition of prints I put together recently, called “Doomscroll”. We will play some songs from my EP at the Mama Tried show (if we manage to learn and rehearse them).
Cheers,
Sumanth