Full Calendar

  • This event has passed.

October 2016 Frequency Fridays: Battle Trance (NYC) + Rough Housing (PHIL) + Doctah X (CMH)

October 7, 2016 @ 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Ticket sales for this event are closed.

Our October 2016 Frequency Fridays show features experimental tenor saxophone quartet Battle Trance (NYC), jazz improv trio Rough Housing (Jack Wright + Evan Lipson + Zach Darrup (PHIL)), and experimental electronic musician/producer Doctah X Room (OH). Date: Friday, October 7 2016. Location: It Looks Like It’s Open (13 E. Tulane Rd., 43202). Admission: $10, $15 for 2. Doors open 8pm. BYOB, all ages. Our Frequency Fridays 2016-2017 season is supported by a grant from the Greater Columbus Arts Council.

About the performers:

Tenor saxophone quartet Battle Trance is proud to announce their sophomore album Blade of Love, which will be released digitally and on CD August 26 on New Amsterdam Records, with a vinyl edition released by NNA Tapes. The follow-up to their widely acclaimed debut Palace of Wind (2014), Blade of Love is an elemental composition that aims to fulfill the tenor saxophone’s expansive potential as an ensemble instrument. Working within the intimate intersection of the human body/breath and the saxophone, Blade of Love is a spiritual and enigmatic work with a deep emotional resonance. Since forming in 2012, the four saxophonists in Battle Trance (Travis Laplante, Patrick Breiner, Matt Nelson, Jeremy Viner) have spent hundreds of hours deepening their musical connection with each other, maturing as an ensemble through relentless touring everywhere from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, Montreal to Vancouver, and most places in between. The three movements of Blade of Love were composed by Battle Trance leader Travis Laplante and recorded by the group in a wooden room with soaring ceilings in the Vermont forest, after spending two years of rigorous rehearsals working to perfect the array of extended techniques, both virtuosic and primal, required to bring the challenging piece to life. Blade of Love’s central focus is on the physical and spiritual intersection of the saxophone and the human body. The saxophone is one of the few instruments that literally enters the body of the person playing it, and Blade of Love is a medium for this sacred meeting place, with each member of Battle Trance using the saxophone as a vessel for the human spirit.

Roughhousing is Jack Wright, saxophones, Evan Lipson, double bass, and Zach Darrup, guitar and objects. Roughhousing is the right word for the free improv this group does. At first you might think this is pure dissonance, until you realize it’s all synchronized close listening to each other from years of playing together. The part of the country most responsive to this music is the Midwest and Southeast, where they are presently touring – Columbus is the last of fifteen gigs.

These three have all been residents of the Spring Garden Music House in Philadelphia, Zach presently. Jack and Evan have been playing for over ten years, most recently in Wrest, with percussionist Ben Bennett, originally from Columbus and now living in Philadelphia. Zach and Jack started playing in the June of 2014, an intense engagement since then, the most regular musical activity for both of them, releasing Meet and Greet. Here is a recording of Rough Housing performing at XFEST 2015 in Holyoke MA, a 2015 recording taken at Wave Farm in Hudson NY, and a more recent Jack and Zach recording taken in 2016.

Doctah X’s aka Tony Harrington’s musical inspiration began in Lexington, KY in the 1950’s by watching and listening with great fascination to his blind Aunt and blind Uncle play Gospel on the guitar and piano. His other early musical influences included The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck. Like many others it was the European musicians that introduced him to and awakened in him an appreciation for his own American Blues. Currently, Doctah X resides in Columbus, Ohio where he maintains his same passionate pursuit of learning music as he did as a youth with the pawn shop guitar. He continues to play guitar, perform solo, and collaborate with local and international artists both on stage and in the studio. His solo work includes DJing and Live PA sets. His collaborative work includes touring the Midwest and East Coast with SkArob- a live dub partnership with the ever brilliant Bogdan Ghenea aka Rekloos that is signed with NYC based label Subatomic Sound. Presently, he is represented by Boom One Records and has enjoyed working with label mates Boom One Soundsystem, B. Davis, Dubsmith, Riverside Rockers, Jim the Boss, and Mechanik Project. In his studio he records and produces solo tracks as well as tracks for other local and international artists. Mr. Harrington also continues to provide innovative programming, as he has over the last fifteen years through the Columbus Metropolitan Library system, giving youth an opportunity to create sound, put poetry and spoken word to music, and learn more about their rich American music history.