Reviews
CatSynth regularly features reviews of music and art. The focus is on modern, contemporary or experimental work in a variety of media. We primarily cover the San Francisco Bay Area, but occasionally find ourselves in New York or such far away locales as an electronic music show in Tokyo or an underground club in Shanghai.
Check out the featured review below as well as other recent reviews. If you are interested in having your event or work reviewed on CatSynth, please contact us or leave us a suggestion on Facebook. Note that with a volunteer staff of one human and one cat, we probably won't get to all of them.
Featured Article: Weekend Cat Blogging: back on the patio
We had another warm weekend, so Luna and I enjoyed some late-October time out on the patio.
I particularly like this second photo, with its sparse quality. Luna and screen are discrete elements on the continuous field of stone squares.
Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted this weekend by Samantha at the New Tuxedo Gang Hideout.
The [...]
Stella Zhang, 0-Viewpoint, Chinese Culture Center
A week ago I saw the exhibition 0-Viewpoint by Stella Zhang at the Chinese Culture Center here in San Francisco. Zhang is the 2010 featured artist in the CCC’s Xian Rui (”Fresh & Sharp”) series, which showcases “the work of an incredibly talented but under-represented Chinese artist in America.” This year’s exhibition also [...]
Instagon 543 and Richard Bonnet, Luggage Store Gallery
Last Thursday I participated in Instagon 543 at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. Instagon is an improvising ensemble where the personnel change every time, i.e., no two performances contain the same group of people. In addition to myself and Lob, the group’s founder, this version included Lena Strayhorn, Mark Wilson (aka [...]
Reconnaissance Fly at Luna’s Cafe, Sacramento
This is the “official CatSynth report” from our Reconnaissance Fly show at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento last Monday.
Luna’s Cafe is in downtown Sacramento, within a couple of blocks of the large park that surrounds our State Capitol.
[click to enlarge]
I had stopped in during then In the Flow Festival back in may, so everything was quite [...]
First Thursday Art Walk, August 2010
Last week I went on the First Thursday art walk of downtown galleries for the first time in several months. August is a bit of a down month, and so there weren’t really many things opening, and for several exhibitions this was really more of a “last Thursday” as they close to make way [...]
Mission Arts and Performaning Project (MAPP), August 2010
Yesterday I attended the August Mission Arts and Performaning Project (MAPP), where various arts venues, businesses and private homes open themselves up to present artists in the community. This month was actually a lot smaller than the June MAPP, but there was still more than I could see in my brief visit.
I started, as [...]
Outsound Music Summit: MultiVox
Today we at CatSynth conclude our series from the recent Outsound Music Summit with my own report from the MultiVox program that featured Reconnaissance Fly, the Cornelius Cardew Choir, and Amy X Neuburg. We did feature a guest review by Joe McMahon last week, which covers the same show from an outside perspective. [...]
Outsound Music Summit: SoundScapes
We resume our reports from the 2010 Outsound Music Summit after a brief break. In this article I review the last night of the festival, titled “SoundScapes” and featured musicians whose music focuses on noise and sound textures. While this is often from electronic sound sources such as effects pedals or DIY synthesizers, [...]
Guest post: Friday at Outsound: Reconnaissance Fly, Cornelius Cardew Choir, Amy X Neuburg
[While I work on the reviews for the Friday and Saturday shows at the Outsound Music Summit, we have a guest review from Joe McMahon, ambient music/soundscapes - pemungkah.com. Given that I was a performer in two groups on Friday, his review provides an interesting outside perspective.]
Friday at Outsound: Reconnaissance Fly, Cornelius Cardew Choir, [...]
Outsound Music Summit: Blurred Lines
Last night was the first full concert of the Outsound Music Summit. “Blurred Lines” focused on the combination of music and visual media, i.e. film and video. The pieces were more of a collaboration between film and music rather than one serving the other per se, although in each case the music making and [...]
Outsound Music Summit: Touch The Gear Expo
Once again, the Outsound Music Summit opened with Touch The Gear Night this past Sunday, in which the public is invited to come and, well, “touch the gear” and interact directly with many of the festival artists who use technology in their music. “Technology” included software, electronic devices, DIY projects, and mechanical and sculptural [...]
