Agathe Max |
A vegetarian café on a college campus might not be your typical music venue, but then, the shows that Tufts University’s Oxfam Café has hosted over the past year-plus are not your typical sweat-drenched college rock shows. This Saturday, September 20, the Oxfam serves up an eclectic selection of electro-acoustic improv, modular-analog-synth experiments, and avant rock.
The headliner is French violinist AGATHE MAX, who makes intense, woozily repetitive music reminiscent of the classic minimalist violin work of Tony Conrad, but with a bit more melodic sensibility. Her latest album, The Silver String, is due next month on the illustrious experimental-music imprint Table of the Elements. In addition to doing a solo set, Max will collaborate with some of the local artists on the bill, like multi-instrumentalist Kevin Micka (a/k/a ANIMAL HOSPITAL), who also put the show together. “I’m excited to play with her,” says Micka. “We should really complement each other, since I’ve been simulating bowed string sounds with my guitar work lately.”
The show will also offer a free-form improv set by DAN BOUCHER and MARK PEARSON of local post–Iron Age industrial-rockers Neptune, the scintillating synthesizer work of KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN (whose recent live sets have been blazing in a bleep ’n’ bloopy sort of way), and a solo set by Pittsburgh’s RAYMOND MORIN, who runs the Sort of Records label (home to local trio Paper Thin Stages). According to Micka, the performance order is fluid and there may be multiple collaborative sets. Good reason to arrive early. Besides, those vegetarian victuals and cups of Fair Trade joe won’t last forever.
KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN + AGATHE MAX + ANIMAL HOSPITAL + RAYMOND MORIN + DAN BOUCHER/MARK PEARSON | Oxfam Café at Tufts University, Mayer Campus Center, 44 Professors Row, Medford | September 20 at 7 pm | $7 | 617.627.3215
