EXPERIMENTAL | Bill Meyer
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After living in Chicago for more than a decade, during which he played with groups such as Town & Country and Pillow, Vida moved to Brooklyn in 2009. He immersed himself in electronic music and enrolled in Bard College’s MFA program, the academic base of one of the 20th century’s great sound-art pioneers, the late Maryanne Amacher. Certain of Amacher’s electronic pieces were designed to evoke otoacoustic emissions—tones that form inside the ear. “Though I never had the chance to study with her,” Vida says, “her ghost remains and her influence is still very much felt within the program.” Esstends-esstends-esstends lacks the brute power of Amacher’s music, but it’s just as psychedelic when his laser-sculpted tones start tumbling like dominos somewhere between your ears.
Vida is coming back to town for concerts on May 17, 18, and 20. The first, a solo set at Strobe Recording (2631 W. Division), will explore the same otoacoustic terrain as the LP. The next night at the Block Museum of Art, Vida will improvise accompaniment to silent movies by Walther Ruttmann and Ralph Steiner as part of Northwestern University’s Sonic Celluloid series. And on Sunday afternoon at the Green Mill, he’ll begin a collaboration with Access Contemporary Music’s Palomar Ensemble—together they’ll perform Liminal Bends, a work in progress that they’ll play twice more this summer. “This commission allows for me to develop a piece in steps—it allows for trial and error,” says Vida. “More than anything, I just want to continue to have experimentation at the heart of the work I am producing, and that means making mistakes. Having an ensemble that is willing to go through that process with you is rare.”
JAZZ | Peter Margasak
