The new DJ Food “The Search Engine” album is released this week in the US on Ninja Tune. This stunning album includes the track“Prey” featuring vocals by JG Thirlwell. The album will also feature Thirlwell compadre Matt Johnson, on a DJ food cover of a The The track “Giant”. It’s available from Amazon, ITunes, Bleep and other fine retailers. If you look hard enough you might even find the deluxe limited comic book version which contains the album on CD and a flexi-disc. Check out Strictly Kev / DJ Food’s incredible blog.
Thirlwell's installation works with Anne Katrine Senstad
JG Thirlwell has been working in an ongoing series of collaborations with Anne Senstad over the last eighteen months.Her video projections are site specific installations merging and intervening with architecturally unique spaces such as St Brigid’s deconsecrated Cathedral and The Locker Plant in Marfa, Texas, and even out amongst nature as in her projections in Xilitla, Mexico.
Their first piece together was Color Kinaesthesia, where JG created a four channel audio work to accompany Senstad’s color and light video projection of the same name. A reworking of the audio, simply titled “Kinaesthesia”, appears on the Manorexia album Dinoflagellate Blooms in stereo and surround sound. For a further color and light meditation, Kinaesthesia for Saint Brigid, JG made a four channel reworking of the Manorexia classic “Chloe Don’t Know I’m Alive”. In a further iteration, The Locker Plant Projections also uses the “Chloe” soundtrack, and consists of a filmed projection of the Color Kinaesthesia piece, reprojected onto Donald Judd‘s famous building in Marfa, TX , The Locker Plant.
Senstad’s latest piece is The Sugarcane Labyrinth . This is a film document of an agricultural Land Art project in which Senstad leased some farmland in Louisiana and grew a field of sugarcane. She then chopped a maze out of the dense growth, and documented the entire process on film, including leasing a helicopter and filming it from above. Thirlwell composed an original score for this work.
The works have exhibited at Thisisnotagallery in Buenos Aires, Utsikten Kunstsenter in Norway, St Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and The Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Stiftelsen 3,14 in Bergen, The Museum of Modern art of Ukraine and elsewhere.
The Locker Plant Projections will travel to Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid in April.
“The exhibition The Infinity of Color represents Anne Katrine Senstad’s new body of work focused on light, color and sound. She has created a labyrinthian space of projections and sound that examine the phenomenology and the notions of sensorial aesthetics and experiences of light, color, sound, ocular perceptions, spatial relations and awareness of the process of perception through multi channel projections and the dimensional properties of surround sound. The piece is meditative, pulsating and hypnotic in its simplicity of light, color and sound environments.” – from exhibition catalog, Thisisnotagallery, Buenos Aires.
Thirlwell cuddles Eno's Warm Jets
JG Thirlwell will appear at a concert recreating Brian Eno’s seminal album Here Come The Warm Jets on Jan 8, 2012 at Joe’s Pub in NYC. The album will be lovingly performed by such luminaries as Joan Wasser (Joan as Policewoman) and Jim Sclavunos (Bad Seeds, Grinderman) with support from Vernon Reid (Living Color) and Travis Morrison (The Dismemberment Plan), Sohrab Habibion (Obits), Paul Duncan (Warm Ghost) and many more TBA. The already sold-out evening will be hosted by John Schaefer from WNYC. The evening is produced by Rob Christiansen, who transcribed the album and will also perform. JGT will provide a small electronic interlude at the end of the song “Dead Finks Don’t Talk”.
JGT DJ's at benefit for Jonathan Toubin
On Jan 12 2012 at Music Hall of Williamsburgin Brooklyn, JG Thirlwell will be making a super-rare DJ appearance at a benefit for his friend, Jonathan Toubin. On December 8, in a freak accident, Jonathan was stuck by a runaway vehicle while in bed in his hotel room in Portland, Oregon, where he was for a DJ date. He was severely injured and is still in critical condition in ICU.
Also on the bill will be Chain and the Gang, Eleanor Friedberger, Dorit Chrysler, Nicole Atkins, 5 dollar Priest, Shilpa Ray, An American Dream and Two Tears, with additional DJ sets by Jim Sclavunos (Bad Seeds/ Grinderman) and Mick Collins(Dirtbombs)
Ken Jacobs film with Manorexia score at Sundance
Ken Jacobs’ film Seeking The Monkey King, which has a score by JG Thirlwell, will be showing in the Short Film Program at the Sundance Film Festival. The score is drawn and re-edited from the Manorexia album Dinoflagellate Blooms. The New York Times said ” “Seeking the Monkey King” is a reminder that, in a world of continuously streaming images, an artist like Mr. Jacobs challenges the tyranny of visual uniformity, and not simply with angry words. His work opens your ears and mind, and, simply put, has no like in the multiplex, the art house or even most festivals.” The film was just cited as one of the best of 2011 by Village Voice critic J.Hoberman.
The film will show at the following times in Utah:
01/23/12 4:00 p.m. Redstone Cinema 7, Park City
01/24/12 9:00 p.m. Tower Theatre, Salt Lake City
01/25/12 5:30 p.m. Prospector Square Theatre, Park City
01/28/12 6:15 p.m. Holiday Village Cinema 2, Park City
Manorexia at Brooklyn Academy of Music Cafe
JG Thirlwell’s Manorexia will make a rare appearance with a performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Cafe on November 18 2011. The concert will be an extended program of material, drawn from all the Manorexia albums, and admission is free.
The musicians is Manorexia for this performance will be JG Thirlwell (laptop / compositions), Leyna Marika Papach (violin), Elena Moon Park (violin), Karen Waltuch (viola), Isabel Castellvi (cello), Peter Wise (percussion) and David Broome (keyboards).
The latest Manorexia album is Dinoflagellate Blooms, which is a double disc with the album in both stereo and 5.1 surround sound.
JGT vs DJ Food
Nov 17 2011 marks the release of Magpies, Maps and Moons, the new EP by DJ Food. The EP includes the track “Prey”, a collaboration by DJ Food with JG Thirlwell. DJ Food wrote and performed the music, with lyrics and vocals by Thirlwell. Released on Ninja Tune, the EP will be on 12″ vinyl and download, and is a precursor to a new DJ Food album to be released on Jan 16 2012 (which will also include “Prey”). The album will also feature Thirlwell compadre Matt Johnson.
DJ Food also remixed the track “Suspect” on the album 2002 Foetus remix album Blow .
"The Blue Eyes" film debuts
The Blue Eyes is the new film directed by Eva Aridjis, with a brand new musical score composed by JG Thirlwell. It will premiere at Morelia Film Festival in Mexico on October 21 and 22, 2011. Shot on location in Chiapas, Mexico, this supernatural thriller was lensed by Sebastian Mlynarski, the creative cinematographer who is also known for directing videos for the likes of Miike Snow, Cold Cave and Maya.
The score was composed, produced and performed by JG Thirlwell with guest musicans Nathan Koci on french horn, Isabel Castellvi on cello, James Ilgenfritz on contrabass, Marcus Rojas on bass trombone and tuba and Karen Waltuch on viola and violin, with the vocal stylings of Angel Inconnu.
The long-awaited return of freq_out
The first freq_out installation in three years will occur in Stockholm at the Moderna Museet in February 2012. For freq_out 8, curated by Carl Michael Von Hausswolf, the participating artists will include JG Thirlwell, Jacob Kirkegaard, Mike Harding, Jana Winderen, Finnbogi Pétursson, Kent Tankred, Franz Pomassl, Maia Urstad, Brandon Labelle, Permagnus Lindborg, Petteri Nisunen and Tommi Grönlund.
freq_out is a sound installation comprised of 12 individual sound works each utilizing a specific frequency range, made on site, and amplified to act as a single, generative sound-space. The last freq_out event, freq_out 7, took place in September 2008 as part of the Happy New Ears festival in Kortrijk, Belgium. Previous freq_out actions have occurred in Berlin, Paris, Chiang Mai, Budapest, Copenhagen and Oslo.
Ken Jacobs with Manorexia score at the NY Film Festival
The new film by legendary avant-garde film maker Ken Jacobs is premiering at the New York Film Festival. The film uses the music of Manorexia as it’s soundtrack, drawn from the album Dinoflagellate Blooms. Entitled Seeking The Monkey King, it will premiere at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center NYC on October 7 2011, with an additional screening on Oct 10. Jacobs is perhaps best known for his film Star Spangled to Death, and has been experimenting in film since the 1950s. Presented as part of NYFF’s Views From The Avant Garde, Jacobs and Thirlwell will be on-hand for a Q and A after the screening of the premiere.
