Category: gigs

my new album – out now! with april concerts

Jace Clayton - Julius Eastman Memory Depot cover art

My new album — the first under my own name — was released last week! The Julius Eastman Memory Depot. There’s been a wave of great, thoughtful press: an action-packed feature on my work in The Guardian, a 7.8 Pitchfork review, a spot on NPR, and lots more. If you’d like to buy the album, Bandcamp offers downloads & physical CDs for the best price/money-to-artist ratio, or you can use iTunes | Amazon etc. This WQXR album-of-the-week profile is an excellent introduction to the project.

I’m doing 5 performances of The Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner this April, accompanied by a dream team of talent: pianists David Friend and Emily Manzo, vocalist Arooj Aftab, and special guest Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts. Arooj wrote the closing song with me, and it gives you a taste of the additional scenes included in the live performance version. These shows are not to be missed! Two grand pianos and electronics makes for lovely sonics, the musicians are top-notch… plus my actorly debut?! April dates below:

April 5 + 6 – world debut! Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati.
April 21 – MoMA PS1, New York City.
April 25 + 26, Liquid Music series, St.Paul Chamber Orchestra space, St. Paul Minnesota. w/ additional pianists deVon Gray and Bryan Nichols.

OTHER EVENTS THIS MONTH!!!

Tues April 2 – I’ll be speaking on ‘Rights, Rogues, Refugees’ panel at FFFFFAT LAB’s Gold show @ Eyebeam. I intend to explain my ideas of NON-LINEAR LEGAL POWER via cumbia sonidera, stop & frisk, and copyright’s cold watch
Wed April 3 – talk at intermedia class @ U. of Cincinnati/DAAP 1:30-3:30pm. JEMD/Sufi Plug Ins. Open to public!
Fri April 5 – unofficial JEMD afterparty in Cincinnati
Fri April 12 – DJ /rupture at Zemos98 Festival in Sevilla, Spain !!!
Wed April 17 – Keynote talk at Brooklyn College’s Caribbean Studies Conference.
Fri April 18 – ‘Migrant Locals’ all-star panel at EMP Conference, NYC, moderated by Wayne Marshall

DJ Rupture & Very Be Careful in Brooklyn! Sat. March 16

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This Saturday March 16th, I will join L.A.’s contagiously fun latin roots dance band Very Be Careful for a welcome-the-spring-with-a-sweat-sacrifice party at Brooklyn’s Littlefield! VBC specialize in fast accordion jams throwing in vallenato, cumbia, and more. For this special set, I’ll play mostly NYC cumbia poblana, joined by Oaxacan malandrín Talacha on the mic, sonidero style. For a taste of what we’ll bring, you can pick up our mix CD with Sonido Martines available only Tacos Zaragoza in the East Village (ask for it!), or check the excerpt below.

Saturday March 16: DJ Rupture & Very Be Careful @ Littlefield, Brooklyn.

THIS SATURDAY IN NYC: RUPTURE & ZS

rupture-sisk

This Saturday I’ll be playing a very special show with Zs as part of the Ecstatic Music Festival here in NYC’s lovely sounding Merkin Concert Hall. (I recorded the twin pianos on my upcoming album, The Julius Eastman Memory Depot, at the Merkin.) Saturday will open with 2 half-hour solo sets from the Zs & I. Then — after an intermission! — comes an hourlong collaborative piece. This is where thing’ll get really interesting. Some notes from our brainstorm/plotting session:

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It’s been a long time since I’ve had an opportunity to do a semi-improvised semi-structured collaboration with musicians. Despite the much-lauded (and real) dancer-DJ hive mind, it’s hard to shake off the legacy of DJ as perpetual soloist. In other words: it’s great fun to explore the turntables as an ensemble instrument & that’s why Saturday’s concert is so appealing to me.

In addition, you can do all sorts of things (like play with quietLOUD dynamics) at a seated venue that would be literally impossible (or at least inaudible) in da club. While this sort of experimental festival arrangement can happen fairly frequently in Europe, it is a true rarity stateside. So I strongly encourage you to come out & support. Damage is $25 but it’ll be worth it, and it’s my last hometown gig as DJ /rupture for awhile.

SATURDAY KEYWORDS: Wolf Government, Sufi Plug Ins, Needlework, Cloud Mechanic, Empty Gymnasium.

BONUS: I’ll have my hands-on-mixer projection setup going (photo above), which is like free DJ lessons for turntablists and follow-the-chaos/demystification for everyone else.

FUN FACT: Zs drummer Greg Fox (who is involved in 6 thousand cool projects including Guardian Alien, Ben Frost, former Liturgy etc) uses Sufi Plug Ins in this wild arpeggiated way, which you’ll get to hear.

Here are two images I instagramed while recording @ the Merkin this December:merkin

subwoofers only

BEIRUT / ISTANBUL DESIGN BIENNIAL / & etc

Tomorrow I’m off to Beirut for the Share Conference, “a weekend-long public, free and non-commercial hybrid event blending an Internet culture and technology related daytime conference with dynamic cutting-edge music festival by night.” I’ll be doing double duty: a daytime artist talk on Sunday October 7th, and a conference-closing DJ set that night. First time in Lebanon, looking fwd!

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From there I head to Istanbul for the opening of the Istanbul Design Biennial, where we’re taking over a room to install Sufi Plug Ins & John Francis Peters’ Morocco photographs. Beyond Digital by the Bosphorus! Last time I was in Turkey was a dozen years ago, touring with Wax Poetic & Norah Jones before she was (the) Norah Jones. Everyone says the city has changed more than any other in this time, turned ‘hip’, skyrocketed.

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Lest we forget – Last night’s radio now streaming:

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And in today’s news – at 2pm EST I’ll be talking music/tech/tools with Robin Sloan on the occassion of his 24-hour book party live stream.

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Spirit creature from last night’s radio show, drawn by Talacha live in studio:

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SUFI PLUG INS ON THURS., BOSTON PARTY ON FRIDAY

[screenshot from Sufi Plug Ins’ clapping drum machine, PALMAS]

This Thursday evening, Bill Bowen & I will present SUFI PLUG INs at Public Enemy producer Hank Shocklee’s Advanced Ableton Users meetup in Manhattan. Free with RSVP, live streaming. 7:30-10pm.

& on Friday Lamin Fofana and I are heading up to perform at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, where will be joined by DJ Rizzla for a night of ‘DJs on the Harbor’, throwing down at their lovely waterfront space. Come through!

NEW RUPTURE MIX – CHANGE THE MOOD!

Last night I hit the decks to put together 22 minutes of summer, blended and intensified for your listening pleasure.

Direct download here [50 MB].

Stream:

This mix was put together in anticipation of a Dutty Artz event of the same name. Here’s my original post about that, a combination birthday party (let’s roar, fellow leos!), fundraiser, and dutty wine dance up.

CHANGE THE MOOD! August 17th @ Glasslands, Bklyn

This Friday I’m throwing a birthday party slash mayhem management course slash fundraiser with the DUTTY ARTZ crew at Glasslands in Brooklyn. You are strongly encouraged to come. Flyer & info:

Dutty Artz presents CHANGE THE MOOD! a fundraiser party for Beyond The Block.
Fri. August 17th at Glasslands, 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 11pm. $10

Hosted by Pupa Bajah and Jasmin Cruz
NYC debut of Chants (live from Madison, WI)

DJ Ushka vs. a Rhino
Chief Boima vs. a Robot
DJ Rupture vs. an Elephant
Taliesin vs. a Vampire
Geko Jones vs. a Chicken-Stealing Fox
Atropolis vs. the Euro

visuals by Rainstick | Rupture’s birthday | silent auction fundraiser

RSVP here on Facebook


CHANGE THE MOOD! will feature performances by Dutty Artz affiliated visual artists, musicians, DJs, and MCs. A portion of proceeds & silent auction will support the Beyond the Block Sunset Park initiative. The party combines Dutty Artz’s ground-up artistic vision with a desire to connect music fans to the struggles faced by local communities of immigrants, artists, workers, and young people that often help inspire contemporary global fashion trends.

CHANGE THE MOOD! performers include Chants from Madison, WI, making his NYC debut on the strength of his ‘Night After’ EP (“Chants makes very beautiful sounds that make you feel like you’re swimming in an underwater world of loveliness” – Dummy Mag), recent WIRE mag coverboy DJ /rupture, Que Bajo’s Geko Jones, Rick Ross protégé Chief Boima, and more.

BEYOND THE BLOCK. Can a hype block party double as an opportunity to spread information about stop & frisk, immigrant rights, police surveillance, and housing? We say yes. As the championing of diversity, a global outlook, and a celebration of the local become increasingly common in today’s dance music scenes, we see an ideal opportunity to use the energy & open-ended vibe of a great party to connect musical ideas to their real-world analogs: to create a space where we can talk about – and dance to – an incredible musical selection while sharing useful information for our communities that are impacted by issues pertaining to undocumented workers’ rights, transnational identity, health care, police violence, housing and more. Happening on September 22nd, the inaugural Sunset Park edition of Beyond The Block is a collaboration between Beyond Digital, Dutty Artz, The Arab American Association of New York, La Unión, and individual artists and Brooklyn-based community members.

SEE YOU AT GLASSLANDS ON AUGUST 17!!!!!!!!

ITALIAN DATES & A REPURPOSED SKYSCRAPER

Everybody likes Italian dates, right? Well I got some:

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First: on Wednesday May 16, I’m giving an artist talk in conversation with Simone Bertuzzi at the Triennale Museum in Milan. Right after that, Soundways Records boss Miles Cleret will spin some records, and I’ll close the night with a DJ set. This event is free, and the DJing portion of the evening takes place in the design museum’s backyard garden. It’s nice.

And on Thursday May 17, I’m heading to Venice, where I’ll be performing at the Teatro Fondamente Nuevo. Details. This will be my first time in Venezia, so come say hello!

Now this –

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I just returned from Macao here in Milan — it’s a 32-story skyscraper. 10 days ago a crew squatted it, intending to transform the building (which had been shuttered for 15 years) into a ground-up contemporary art & culture center. This morning they got evicted by local police, which simply meant that everyone left building but the crowd on the street outside the Macao kept on growing… Fascinating moments over here. This Vogue Italia blog post provides background coverage and photos.

D.I.M. BROOKLYN – FRI MAY 4th

I haven’t played in NYC for awhile, so there are many things to be expressed. On the dancefloor. With Mykki Blanco (who’s in that rich moment where various magazines can’t decide which gendered pronoun to use), Prince Rama, & more. Coolest of all– it’s an 18+ show!

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^CARLOS V + OSCAR_1992 + STRYKER^ Present:
DIM 5.0: Fri., May 4. 285 Kent Ave. 10pm. $10.00. Ages 18+

LIVE EXORCISE DANCE PERFORMANCE BY *PRINCE RAMA*
BEATS: DJ RUPTURE <> PRINCE RAMA <> EVA ARIDJIS
<>STRYKER <> MESS KID <> WEIRD MAGIC <>