About the performers:

Headlining the show is Minnesota-based Tim Kaiser, a creator of ethereal, atmospheric sonic landscapes who performs with his own hand-made electronic and acousto-electric devices. Having created experimental art and music for over 30 years, his multimedia projects have been presented in Sweden, Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong and Cuba. He has toured his live musical performances throughout the US. Articles and reviews of Kaiser’s work have appeared in Make Magazine, Wired, the Associated Press, CityPages, Time-Out NY, ArtPaper, EnGadget, Vinyl, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Daily Collegian, the Smaland Posten, MNArtists, StreetTech, Sonic State, BoingBoing, and the New Art Examiner. He has also been profiled in the PBS series MakeTV, WCCO’s “On the Road” and WDSE’s Playlist. His most recent album, produced in 2012, is Numbers Station.

Hal McGee has been creating his own homemade experimental electronic music since 1981. He was heavily involved in the early days of the homemade music Cassette Culture movement in the 1980s, and was one of the movement’s original and prime motivators, organizers, and promoters. Hal McGee has been a member of, has produced/curated, or has been involved in: Viscera, Dog As Master, If Bwana/Dog As Master, Dog As Master/Jabon, Phinney/McGee, Noring/McGee, Charles Rice Goff III and Hal McGee, Dave Fuglewicz and Hal McGee, The Analog Synthesizer Ensemble, Free Space, Action Sound Painting Orchestra, Action Research, Dictaphonia Microcassette Compilation Project, Automatic Confessional Answering Machine Project, Apartment Music, Laboratory Music, International Email Audio Art Project, Quotidian Assemblages Compilation Project, Tape Heads Cassette Compilation Project, Electronic Cottage Magazine, HALzine, Deep Trench, Giant Monsters, much much more!

Cassette composer and Xerox artist Jason Zeh from Bowling Green Ohio, has spent the better part of the last decade and a half forging a unique sonic vocabulary that seeks to uncover the inherent flaws in cassette tapes and to devise processes that bring those flaws into sharp focus. Much like the abstract expressionists, Zeh creates an non-objective work that accentuates surface, gesture, color, and texture without foregoing emotion as he forces the listener to focus on the hidden traits and materiality of cassette tape: scratches on the surface, the clicking of the machinery, the magnetic fields of the motors, layering of tape hiss, and the physical manipulation of magnetic granules on the surface of the tape all become key compositional elements instead of obstacles to be overcome in the interest of producing an unblemished recording. Zeh’s work has been variously described as “noise plus,” by Frans de Waard, as “brutally precise non-music” by Khristopher Rienshagen, and as “somewhere in between minimalist composition and DIY drone/noise without fully inhabiting either space comfortably,” by Josh Eppert. These descriptions accurately address Zeh’s tireless search for an extended technique cassette music that is often difficult to pin down.

Circuitry Room is a collaborative audio project featuring three individuals – Jeff Chenault, Andy Izold and Dan Rockwell – who have reunited in soundmaking after creating their first recording together back in 1989. This collaboration was titled The Desert. Jeff and Andy went on to form 10-Speed Guillotine, Resonance and The Sex Musicians. Dan Rockwell aka Hatch Man continues to make unusual sounds with his collection of keyboards, iPads, and anything else he can get his hands on. Together they generate a unique sound that continuously evolves, bordering on audio schizophrenia at times. Enjoy!

About the performers:

PAS started in 1995 out of Brooklyn, NY, USA, driven by the creative talents of Robert L. Pepper working in the mediums of sound and video. Since then PAS has evolved into a collective with many different instrumentations and line ups. Permanent members include Amber Brien, Job “Vomit” Worthley, Michael Durek, and Will Seesar. Guests and occasional collaborators include, Z’EV, HATI, Steve Beresford, Thomthom Geigenschrey, Matt Chilton (Vultures), Anthony Donovan (Vultures), Damien Olsen, Philippe Petit, Robert Pascale, and many others. PAS have released 9 full length releases and have been on several compilations throughout the years. Some of these can be found on www.cdbaby.com or iTunes. PAS have performed in various countries including the United States, Germany (including Fausts Avant Garde Festival 2009, 2010), the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Macedonia, and Poland, just to name a few. Sound and video installations have also included Chile and the United States (including the 18th Olympia Experimental Festival in Washington and the 2010 Spark Festival in Minneapolis).

Philippe Petit is interested in soundtracks; even if he creates original music he’d rather be introduced as a “musical travel agent” than a composer. PETIT uses an Electric Psalterion + Hackbrett Cymbalum + Guitars as well as computer and synths a computer and synths to build up electronic layers, process acoustic and field recordings. To second the machine he likes to move various glasses, or percussive objects, and take advantage of vinyl material to fondle released sounds. A journalist for various magazines and radio as well as a musical activist, PETIT has celebrated his 28th year of sharing his musical passions as the man behind the cult labels Pandemonium Rdz. and BiP_HOp. He has assembled what people call a dream-team of collaborators, often joining Lydia Lunch, Murcof, Cindytalk, PAS or Faust onstage, and worked with: Eugene S. Robinson (Oxbow), Foetus, Edward Ka-Spel, Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine), Kumo, Scott McCloud (Girls Against Boys), Cosey Fanni Tutti, My Brightest Diamond, Sybarite, Pantaleimon, Graham Lewis (Wire), Barry Adamson, Scanner, Mira Calix, Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Guapo, Leafcutter John, Simon Fisher Turner, Jarboe and many more. Aside from his solo works, PETIT is active in Strings Of Consciousness.

About the performers:

Born in San Diego, CA and raised in Sacramento, Ches Smith came up in a scene of punks and metal musicians who were listening to and experimenting with jazz and free improvisation. He studied philosophy at the University of Oregon before relocating to the San Francisco Bay area in 1995. After a few years of playing with obscure bands and intensive study with drummer / educator Peter Magadini, he enrolled in the graduate program at Mills College in Oakland at the suggestion of percussionist William Winant. There he studied percussion, improvisation, and composition with Winant, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran. One of Winant’s first “assignments” for Ches was to sub in his touring gig at the time, Mr. Bungle (here he met bassist / composer Trevor Dunn who would later hire him for the second incarnation of his Trio-Convulsant). During his time at Mills, Ches co-founded two bands: Theory of Ruin (with Fudgetunnel / Nailbomb frontman Alex Newport), and Good for Cows (w/ Nels Cline Singers’ Devin Hoff). He currently performs and records with Xiu Xiu, and Secret Chiefs 3. He has also performed with Ben Goldberg, Annie Gosfield, Wadada Leo Smith, John Tchicai, Fred Frith, and Trevor Dunn. In addition to Ceramic Dog, he also leads his two of his own projects, Congs for Brums and These Arches. He currently spends his time between Los Angeles, San Francisco and Brooklyn.

Heart Protector is Travis Laplante’s debut album, featuring original music for solo tenor saxophone by the twenty-eight- year-old composer and musician. Laplante, a powerful new voice in New York City’s experimental music set, has toured extensively with his band Little Women, whose acclaimed full-length debut was recently released on AUM Fidelity Records; with his trio, which features bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Gerald Cleaver; and with underground experimental rock bands Extra Life and Skeletons. Laplante has also worked with Anthony Braxton, Mark Dresser, Mat Maneri, Trevor Dunn, and many other luminaries of improvised music. Heart Protector was recorded by Laplante himself and Ryan Power at the Big Barn in Putney, Vermont. The album, coming out on Skirl Records, will be the label’s first vinyl release. The music itself was largely inspired by the heart protector, Laplante’s term for the pericardial sac that surrounds the heart.

About the performers and presenter:

The circuit-bent/garage rock trio CMKT 4 hail from DeKalb, IL. Their band is comprised of the holy trinity of rock, guitar-bass-drums, that has been slathered with a nice dollop of synthesizer and circuit-bent toy textures. Their music is comprised of straightforward anthems and crunchy, bluesy numbers that bleed into electronic, semi-improvised Kraut rock. Be sure to pick up one of their hand-made bottle-cap contact microphones at the merch table!

Kate Westfall performs as a solo vocalist, layering digital loops to create styles steering from primitive to tribal to pop to lounge. Sometimes aggressive, sometimes soulful, it can be heard that her range of musical travels has begun with a confident footing. The music for Westfall’s debut album, “VoKate”, was created by layering a series of looping vocal melodies and sound effects, all of which were created organically by her. Rhythms were made through body-actions of the feet, hands, arms, mouth, collarbone, and bracelets. The exception to the organic purity is “Private Scientist” which includes Westfall’s keyboard and pencil scratchings among other aural teasings, with assistance from audio technician Eric Barnett. The “VoKate” album was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Eric Barnett. Kate Westfall’s live performances include live vocal looping and digital rhythms, and occasional hand drums and spoken word. The appearance of digeridoo, washboards, or marimba is not to be unexpected.

The Highly Funktioning Kult is a trio that insists on on-the-spot spontaneous, only slightly controlled anarchy. They evolve and morph, move and change, from restful ambient to out and out train wreck. They never know what’s going to happen and neither do you. But isn’t that just life in a nutshell?

Doo-Sung Yoo is a new media artist from Seoul, South Korea. He explores hybrid art, synthesizing scientific research within artwork and interweaving interdisciplinary media between different professional fields, which find and discover the aesthetic possibilities for new art form. His current focuses are on surpassing the human body form and its biological limitations with technological augmentations, which are illustrated in his ongoing project series, the Organ-Machine Hybrids, in which disembodied animal organs are combined with electronic devices within mechanical bodies and the human body. His experimental ideal hybrids have been shown in many exhibitions such as Darwin’s Bicentennial: Art, Science and the Origin of Species, Columbus Ohio and art festivals such as the International Digital Arts Festival, Prospectives.09, at Reno, Nevada with many scholarship awards such as Fergus Gilmore Art Scholarship. One of the organ-machine hybrids, Aqua001.c02: Robotic Pig Heart-jellyfish, was introduced in Russian popular art magazines, such as Iskusstvo and OpenSpace.ru, and used in the framework of lectures by Russian curator Dmitry Bulatov. The other hybrid, Lie: Robotic Cow Tongue, was reviewed on the popular web blog, Boing Boing, and interviewed on We Make Money Not Art, a popular new media art website. The other hybrid, Pig Bladder-clouds was also mentioned in Northern Lights and Rhizome at the New Museum.

The all-day event will take place on March 31 2012 at the Columbus Idea Foundry (1160 Corrugated Way, Columbus OH 43202). Workshops will take place from 1pm – 4pm, and performances begin at 7pm (doors open 6pm). Workshop admission $10. Performance admission $10. Folks who preregister for a workshop and preorder tickets for the performance receive a $5 discount.

Workshops (click on workshop titles to learn more and pre-register:

• Build a Two Transistor Light Theramin
• Bend a Voice Recorder Circuit
• Additional workshops TBA

Performers:

• Michael Una (Chicago)
• Mike Hancock (Cincy)
• Thriftsore Boratorium (Cincy)
• Hardon Collider (Cincy)
• Space Gun Bunny (IN)
• Talking Computron (Minneapolis)
• Ring Toss Twins (Minneapolis)

Big thanks to Circuit Benders’ Ball Columbus sponsors: The Founder’s Factory, Dan Rockwell, founder and CEO of Big Kitty Labs, Mark Hoffman, founder of Stomp That Box, Jason Gonzales, co-Founder of Q-Vault, Litech Lighting, Patrick Greer, and Matt Jones.

In this workshop participants will study one of the simplest types of bend: finding a resistor within a circuit that controls the clock speed of the chip and replacing it with a potentiometer. Once bEnT you’ll be able to crush the sound of your voice to very low BITS or make it sound like a high pitched chipmunk! Participants will also be adding a jack for the speaker and microphone, to better record and hear back their recordings. Participants will be performing this bending technique on a simple voice recorder circuit that is easy to understand. They will also learn useful tricks and basic electronics that will allow them to continue to perform operations on their own toys. Participants who have their own soldering irons are encouraged to bring them (although it is not a requirement). Note: This workshop is geared toward beginners.

For specific questions about the workshop content, please contact Mark. For general questions about the Circuit Benders’ Ball Columbus, please contact Alison Colman, Fuse Factory founding director.

Big thanks to Circuit Benders’ Ball Columbus sponsors: The Founder’s Factory, Dan Rockwell, founder and CEO of Big Kitty Labs, Mark Hoffman, founder of Stomp That Box, Jason Gonzales, co-Founder of Q-Vault, Litech Lighting, Patrick Greer, and Matt Jones.

Workshop participants will create a simple two transistor light Theremin based on the 1976 Forrest M. Mims III design. This kit is perfect for beginners who will walk away confidently with a fun little noise maker, after learning about and soldering a handful of components. Intermediate attendees will also benefit from knowing how and why this circuit works. Estimated time will be 1 hour to completion. No experience is necessary. Participants who have their own soldering irons are encouraged to bring them (although it is not a requirement).

For specific questions about the workshop content, please contact Alex. For general questions about the Circuit Benders’ Ball Columbus, please contact Alison Colman, Fuse Factory founding director.

Big thanks to Circuit Benders’ Ball Columbus sponsors: The Founder’s Factory, Dan Rockwell, founder and CEO of Big Kitty Labs, Mark Hoffman, founder of Stomp That Box, Jason Gonzales, co-Founder of Q-Vault, Litech Lighting, Patrick Greer, and Matt Jones.

About the performers:

Mario Diaz de Leon is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. Praised by the New York Times for their “hallucinatory intensity”, his works for classical instruments and electronics have been performed in USA and Europe by ensembles such as ICE, Talea, iO Quartet, JACK Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and Romania’s Hyperion Ensemble. He has performed, toured and recorded in many bands as a guitarist, and currently plays guitar in Mirrorgate. His discography includes 4 releases on the Shinkoyo label, and a critically acclaimed CD of his chamber music on John Zorn’s Tzadik label (“Best of 2009″ – Time Out New York, Chicago Reader). He is a member of the Shinkoyo collective, founded in 2002, and has collaborated extensively with Shinkoyo members Severiano Martinez, Zeljko McMullen, and Doron Sadja. He helped run the West Nile performance space in Brooklyn (2006-2010). His collaborations with video artist Jay King have been exhibited at museums and galleries including PS1 (Greater New York 2005), D’ Amelio Terras, James Cohan Gallery, Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid), and MUSAC (León). He is currently pursuing his doctorate in composition at Columbia University.

David Graham aka Requiem started requiem in 1996 with no concept, goal, theory, or theme. The music came first, the title second. The accumulation of his first efforts ended in the release of “no solace” in 1997. He was soon immersed into the growing scene of experimental acts in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He opened for acts such as KK Null and Kaffe Matthews, which he describes as “a humbling learning experience as I experimented with different live setups and collaborated with various other artists on stage”. After releasing “unrequited” in 1998, he was asked to join the Pittsburgh industrial act Hedra. While in Hedra, he continued to compose as requiem and released “illumine” and “beyond the shadow of angels” in 2001. Hedra split shortly after and he focused on his next release entitled “recluse”. Released in 2002, “recluse” showed an expansion in the requiem sound that was influenced by my time spent in Hedra and included a bonus live CD recorded while on the “Circuits of Steel” tour. Between 2003 and 2005 he set out to create a new requiem release entitled “bête noire”. “Bête noire” is a meditation on one’s own mortality and the miniscule part we all play in the time we have. Starting in 2006, he began scoring independent films, largely for underground horror filmmaker Michael Todd Schneider, with whom he continues to work to the present day. In 2008 and 2009 he worked along side Ryan Unks with his project “The Human Quena Orchestra” and helped bring his crushing vision of our crumbling society to the stage and CD. Til this day he continues to perform and record as “requiem” refusing to be pigeonholed into one genre: Dark Ambient, Experimental, Post Industrial, Electronic, Metal, Psychedelic, Neo Classical, Noise. . . Not one of these, but all, can describe requiem.

Jeff Chenault aka Central Inhabitants has been involved in the Columbus electronic music scene since 1983. His early experiments were unannounced noise improvisations. In the late 80′s, he founded the Exoteque Music label and would release over 60 cassettes of original music. His multiple collaborations include James Towning of Fact 22, Mark Gunderson of the Evolution Control Committee, Andy Izold of 10-Speed Guillotine, and Chris Phinney of Mental Anguish. In 1989 he formed the influential cyberpunk band 10-Speed Guillotine with Andy Izold. They would go on to record a plethora of recordings under various names and various styles over a 20 year period and their work continues today. In 1994 he formed the Weird Lovemakers with Mark Gunderson and Greg Fernandez. The Weird Lovemakers’ musical style ranges from electro-lounge to film soundtracks. They performed “live” soundtracks for such movies as Nosferatu, Notes from Satan’s Book, and most notably Maya Deren’s surrealist film Meshes of the Afternoon, performed at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Jeff is also a music historian, a staff writer for Tiki Magazine, and last year produced his first vinyl LP, The Beachcomber Trio Live at the Kahiki–a rare vintage recording that was recorded at the famous Polynesian restaurant in Columbus, Ohio in 1965. A second album of rare Exotica music is planned for later this year. Jeff’s dark ambient solo project Central Inhabitants has been awakened from a deep slumber.

Workshops (topics TBA) will run from 1pm – 4pm, and the performances will begin at 6pm. Performers include:

• Hardon Collider (aka Brendan Muccillo) – Cincy
• Michael Una – Chicago
• Mike Hancock – Cincy
• Ring Toss Twins (aka John Dinger and Nick Heimer) – MN
• Talking Computron (aka Alex Deeba) – MN
• Thriftsore Boratorium (aka 1/2 Mang and thejunkyardcatalyst)
• Space Gun Bunny (aka Mark Hoffman) – IN

All donations will go toward performer and instructor compensation, travel expenses for the out-of-town performers, and workshop materials. Any funds we receive over our goal will go toward bringing in additional performers and instructors – so please feel free to help us make our first circuit bending festival event bigger and better than we envisioned! Thank you for your support!

About the performers:

Skip LaPlante invents, builds, composes for, performs on and teaches with musical instruments built from trash. He co-founded MUSIC FOR HOMEMADE INSTRUMENTS in 1975, has built over 200 instruments., and has composed music for over 100 modern dance and off-off Broadway theater presentations. He appears regularly with the American Festival of Microtonal Music Ensemble and has appeared in over 1500 performances in elementary schools with Bash The Trash. His instruments have been exhibited at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Contemporary Crafts, the Memphis Pink Palace Museum, The Utah Arts Festival, The Capital Childrens’ Museum, New Music America, NY Public Library for the Performing Arts, and he has played his instruments on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. He will be performing his piece Aurelia Insulinda on a set of pipes that take a subset of 31 pitch per octave equal temperament, written for Palindrome Dance Company about 30 years ago, along with several improvisations on a variety of instruments made from scrap material.

Other factoids about Skip include: his favorite food is wild raspberries; he has presented lectures on music from Carnegie Hall to the University of Northern Sumatra; he has played traditional Javanese court music with Gamelan Kusuma Laras from 1985-2005, and is currently playing with the experimental gamelan ensemble Gamelan Son of Lion; has received a summons for taking trash out of a garbage can; his favorite place for listening is the James River Face Wilderness in Virginia any mid-August evening; he last shaved in 1972, last wore matching socks in high school, and has worn a necktie exactly twice since 1977.

Michael Wall began collaborating with dance and other art forms at an early age and continues to work with artists internationally. He has made work for the Jose Limon company, Mark Haim, Lisa Race, John Evans, Lucky Kele, David Dorfman, David Grenke, Rudy Perez, Pam Pietro, Pat Mayer, K.J. Holmes, Paulette Sears, Julia Ritter, Randy James, Martha Tornay/East Village Dance Project, Jenn Nugent, Wally Wolfgruber, Heather McArdle, Everything Smaller, Incidents Physical Theater, Merge Dance and many others. Michael and designer Jamie Karczewski have formed the company asimplesound, llc that produces music and resources for dance, film and other media. Michael works full-time in the Department of Dance at Ohio State University and accompanies at the Bates Dance Festival and the American Dance Festival.

Joe Panzner draws on the live electronic music of John Cage and David Tudor, the long-form memory experiments of Morton Feldman, and the digital extremism of Peter Rehberg, Florian Hecker, Zbigniew Karkowski, Dion Workman, and Julien Ottavi. He records and performs with scenic railroads (alongside Mike Shiflet), and has performed with David Reed and Larry Marotta. Panzner works with live electronics and within an ethos of musical materialism, preferring visceral sound experience to representation. He uses treated natural and instrumental sounds, digitally processed analog synthesis, frequency extremes, acoustic and psychoacoustic phenomena. His most recent album “clearing, polluted” is a three-part reflection on sensation, contrast, and loss and is dedicated to Stephen Lionel Caynon (1979-2003). He has also recently completed his doctoral dissertation in Musicology.