Unsound New York 2023 At Lincoln Center December 1–4
Unsound New York 2023 At Lincoln Center December 1–4 features The Caretaker, Osmium, Robin Fox, Moor Mother’s Black Encyclopedia of the Air, Martyna Basta and Raphael Rogiński – All Choose-What-You-Pay and Free Shows
Unsound returns to New York at the start of December with a radical program that will take over three iconic venues: David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the David Rubenstein Atrium. To make this event accessible, all shows are either Choose-What-You-Pay or free. Choose-What-You-Pay tickets go on sale on September 15. To learn more about the events and reserve your tickets, visit LincolnCenter.org/Unsound.
Osmium is an experimental supergroup comprised of four members – Oscar-winning composer and cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, best known for her work on the scores of HBO's Chernobyl series and 2019's Joker; Grammy Award-winning British sound designer and producer Sam Slater; Subtext boss and genre-hopping producer James Ginzburg (half of industrial-experimental duo Emptyset); and idiosyncratic Indonesian vocalist Rully Shabara, of Senyawa. Osmium’s unique sound is created via specially built instruments that create surprising and hypnotic music that strikes a balance between the mechanical and the organic. Robin Fox – making his first solo A/V laser performance in the U.S. – opens the evening with his stunning landmark audio-visual work TRIPTYCH, which uses full-colour lasers to transform Alice Tully Hall into a thrilling new environment. Inspired by Polish A/V innovator Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski, TRIPTYCH just won this year’s Isao Tomita Special Prize from the Prix ARS Electronica. Choose-What-You-Pay via the Unsound landing page at Lincoln Center.
Leyland James Kirby will perform as The Caretaker live. Over the past 25 years, The Caretaker has released more than a dozen full-length albums which were initially inspired by the trapped-in-time ballroom from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining before then exploring audio representations of memory deterioration. His explorations of nostalgia and deterioration recreate the atmosphere of a 1930s dance hall with a warped, confusing and haunting verisimilitude. The avant-jazz poet and musician Moor Mother opens the evening with the premiere of a brand new performance based on her 2021 album Black Encyclopedia of the Air. In this first ever live presentation, Moor Mother will celebrate the poetry and spoken word traditions in the 60s and 70s featuring an array of special guest appearances featuring underground hip hop icons and legendary artists along with the innovative jazz band Irreversible Entanglements, dancer Kayla Farrish, and tap dancer Melissa Imaguer. Choose-What-You-Pay via the Unsound landing page at Lincoln Center.
The opening event of the Unsound Festival New York is at the David Rubenstein Atrium on December 1, with two leading voices of the Polish avant-garde scene. Guitarist Raphael Rogiński is an expert improviser who draws from jazz, blues, and folk traditions from across the globe. Rogiński’s key inspirations lie in his Jewish roots and the American outsider audio art of experimental composers and performers like Harry Partch, John Fahey and Henry Cowell. For this performance, he'll present his interpretations of John Coltrane classics as well as his new Unsound-commissioned project Žaltys, inspired by Lithuanian mythology. The ambient and experimental artist Martyna Basta opens the evening with a set of delicate atmospheric sound that Pitchfork calls "enchantingly enigmatic." This event is free. Info here.
Unsound New York is part of Lincoln Center Presents and is presented with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, in partnership with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.