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Photo: Tina Beigelbec

Aaron Parks – I started playing drums in middle school band when I was 11 in Houston, TX, and started gigging with my dad about a month after I received my first real drum set. That was when I had just turned 13. I had been around music my whole life and my parents planted the seed of being a drummer by getting me a tiny kit when I was 3. So throughout high school I had played with a bunch of different bands with my peers – we played jamband, blues, classic rock, metal, original stuff, and whatever else we wanted to try to play. It wasn’t until I moved to Austin to go to UT that I discovered how awesome jazz was. I auditioned for jazz combos (although I was majoring in mechanical engineering), and was fortunate enough to get into one every year! I learned so much about form, styles, technique, tone, groove, breathing, posture, and all of the other elements that go into being a better musician. The last year that I was there, I took lessons with Brannen Temple and he really paved the way for me to lay a solid foundation down on my drumming. So ever since, I’ve been learning, gigging, writing, recording, and practicing to continue the growth of that aspect of my life. I’ve been a participant of jazz, experimental, progressive rock, fusion, singer-songwriters, cover bands, country, my own music, and other stuff that I’m sure I’m leaving out.

COTFG – What are some of the influences on your recent work? Musical or otherwise.

Aaron Parks – Well, so my most recent work(s) was a project that I decided to do during the pandemic. I wanted to record an album every month to work on my recording/mixing techniques and song-writing in general. Practicing for no gigs felt a bit empty, so it felt like a more productive use of my time at the beginning. My goal was to record something every day. And I did for awhile! I had been listening to Shugo Tokumaru, Bjork, Fiona Apple’s album – “Fetch the Boltcutters“, Tom Waits, Hermeto Pascoal, and other artists that use weird noises in a musical way. And they inspired me to really search for sounds and write songs with them. But honestly, everything has been an influence. Like birds, or squirrels. They are endless entertainment and their songs and noises have so much nuance. Or other sounds that are around us – cars, wind, AC units, traffic lights, chainsaws. I can’t even think of any noise that I’ve listened to and haven’t put a musical lens on at this point. I will say that Nate Smith has been a huge influence on my drumming lately, but I always go back to Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, Roy Haynes, and that list can go ON and ON.

COTFG – What have you been listening to lately?

AP – One of my favorite song-writers and musicians right now is definitely Madison Cunningham. But, honestly, I’ve been digging just putting on 91.7 – either KOOP or KVRX, I love both – and it’s great because I never know what I’m going to hear! “Natty Dread” the Marley album, I can’t get enough of that. I’ve been listening to Bjork’s catalog. I checked out all of Forq’s albums. Eric Dolphy, Roland Kirk, the new Mingus live album that came out recently. I always have to come back to Monk, and Coltrane. Honestly, I listened to SO much Monk AND so much Coltrane throughout the pandemic.

COTFG – What does “avant-garde” and/or “experimental” mean to you?

AP – If you are writing a song that conveys a feeling or emotion, and you are being creative with your instrument/sound selection, you are making experimental music. To me, experimental music should be an experiment – no boundaries. It can be as abstract as an emotion, or it could be narrative and tell an entire story. It could be all instrumental, it could be all acapella. It could be complex, or simple. I guess the line of “experimental” vs. “conventional” to me is that experimental music does not sound like anyone else’s music and isn’t trying to be anyone else’s. It’s your experiment. I would even go as far as to say someone like Billie Eilish’s music is experimental – with the way that they found sounds and produced them. It’s just very well-organized experimental music. I’m sure others would beg to differ. I also think that Monk’s music is very experimental, even though his music is well-regarded as some of the most classic jazz ever.

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You can hear Aarons work on his bandcamp and find out more about him on his website. Links by COTFG.

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Photo by Peter Gannushkin at Roulette Intermedium, 2019

Kim Alpert – I typically contextualize and categorize myself with the term ‘media artist’, but my practice doesn’t have a singular thing I do. It can be challenging at times to explain. I work with visual elements, primarily video, and create performance or exhibition systems, objects, and installations. I’m fascinated at the reactivity of time-based media and how analog and digital processing can alter and create moods. My subject matter explores bodied and disembodied experiences on topics that consume me, like happiness, memory, heredity, gender, health, etc. Someone once called me ‘a boundary person’ which I liked. I work across disciplines as well as outside art all together in the discipline of discipline, documenting and sharing practice methodology – most recently with my essay project. I make the work to learn to enjoy the process of making work – which has evolved in different ways over the past two decades. In life and in art I find classification and title very limiting and do my best to balance my own desire/belief to remain honest about the fluid nature of everything, while also giving some definition to be able to communicate well with others.

COTFG – What are some of your influences for your recent work? Musical or otherwise.

Kim Alpert – Lately, I’ve been working with time processing. The subjective experience of time has always been fascinating to me. I’ve begun to create a visual language that speaks to the elasticity concepts I’ve been experiencing through how trauma alters memory, the perimeters of consciousness, and how our plasticity can alter our reality. Which is to say, in particular to how we perceive time over time. Examples of this can be seen in the post processing on the gorgeous video from Nick Hughes for Chris Pattishall performing Libra or in my video from the We Series at Elastic Arts about Health.

Much of my work is collaborative with a cast of incredible musicians and their influence is vital to each project. I also just finished preparing the digital version of a new release from the live performance of Momentum 5: Stammer (triptych) from Ken Vandermark. It’s dedicated and inspired by Tony Conrad and Alvin Lucier. Those two are huge influences of mine as well and part of my seminal education toward how to express the inexpressible. The Ohmme music video I made over the summer took on a very specific feel based on the shared experiences the band and I have around home videos, VHS, old antenna TV, etc. My work with distortion and analog effects has been ongoing and the aesthetic of electric experimentation fits this uncertain and charged time we are in. This also informed the creative for Anteloper’s Bubble Under, which was also in production in the summer of 2020.

What have you been listening to lately?

I’ve been listening to a lot of Mal Waldron in recent weeks. I heard a recording of him playing All Alone for the first time while in isolation last year. The sound of it cut deep. I spent about 9 months separated from my partner due to the pandemic closed borders between the US and Canada in 2020. The tone in the recording reminded me of times in my childhood I would be sitting too close to my father’s piano hearing the detail in the hammer and resonance in the wood. There was a big gap in Mal’s work for me so I’m making up for that now. I listen to so many different things all the time it is hard to really answer this with any precision. I can be wildly serious about music and deep listening, but I also really love dance music and goofy mashups. I’ve started looking for albums to pair with family dinner these days which has led to a lot of discovery. I also have a rotation of music I listen to with my morning practice each day which currently includes Waldron along with Gábor Szabó, Yusef Lateef, Mulatu Astake, Moondog, Jeff Parker and others. I listen to a good amount of talks and lectures too. I listen to Ram Dass’s Experiments in Truth and Dying into Life over and over again. There is an almost endless cirriculum there for me.  I also put the CD It Only Happens at Night, from Mike Reed’s trio, My Silence, into my car CD player and have yet to take it out. I do hear that pretty often. It features Jason Stein, Nick Butcher, Sharon Van Etten, along with Mike on Drums. I’ve been way out in the Canadian countryside and the balance of music and weird feels about right for the surreal time I’m having.

What does experimental/avant-garde mean to you?

This is an evolving definition for me as I’m not that academic or authoritative a person to which I feel I can make a claim to this. For me, experimental/avant-garde is more of the how or the approach then a definite consistent outcome. For some things at some times it may be wild, maximalist and totally existing outside time or convention, it may also be minimal, lovely, melodic and peaceful. I see truth in the work’s approach with curiosity, rigor, exploration, and immersion by the creators, thus resulting in presenting it in an authentic way.

In what ways have you used stream streaming with your projects so far?

I’ve had a few shows on twitch and tried a few different methods of live performance streaming. With analog equipment it can be challenging to get the same visuals onto a digital screen as they come out. I’ve tried to use that limitation as a device to drive some innovation from building miniature projection rooms to shooting small physical experiments that lead into a final visual. One of the harder projects for me was in choosing to not mix the live camera feed for Brokeback at Constellation, despite having built the visuals for it.  I completely respect the band’s wish to do the stream live and am lucky to know and trust the team at Constellation to get the best shots and cuts. That said, watching it felt like my hands were tied behind my back while I was trying to eat soup. Albeit delicious soup.

I am a true believer in how distance and asynchronous interaction, streaming, and connectivity can support building a more sustainable infrastructure in the arts. At Experimental Sound Studio, where I serve on the board, we took a deep focus in expanding our streaming with the launch of The Quarantine Concerts. It’s been humbling and inspiring to see the different communities all over the world connect and see different shows. I love seeing people in the comments and hope to see a commitment to this type of blended experience continuing once attended events start up again. Streaming is a viable option to grow audiences. There are a lot of pre pandemic times I would happily pay to watch a show that happened in a small venue across the world or even just across town.

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You can find more about Kim Alpert on her website, Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram

As the founder and executive director of AFRORACK™, Aaron does more than give talented young African American students access to modular synthesis education. With more than 15 years of professional sound for cutting-edge directors and ground-breaking advertising agencies, he’s obsessed with innovating new ways of creating engaging experiences. Aaron represents the new and defining vision for STEM education, a composite style that bridges the gap between communities of color and equity opportunities in the tech industry.

COTFG – What were your musical or general artistic influences for your historical work or current projects?

Aaron – I remember seeing a segment about movie magic and how the Hollywood sounds were made. They had collections of objects and sound-making contraptions the folly artists used for the ’70s, 80’s sci-fi films. Commercials. Westerns. All those things. That right there—being able to visually connect physical objects to the sounds, was really inspirational. I found ways of pulling a lot of that expression into my own practice.

What other ways of expression do you hope to explore using recorded video or live streaming?

Cartoons. Animation. It’s a timeless art form and an extraordinary communication tool. During 2020, we weren’t doing many live streams. I hosted something for Ghostly Records and a few other things. Still, the focus was on our animation division. AFRORACK™ is committed to designing meaningful and exciting ways of delivering modular synthesis concepts. We chose a unique approach of adapting our students’ stories to animation.The idea was to create this sort of feedback loop. The students’ interpretation of sound is transformed into visuals, then those images are shared and re-examined. It’s really cool, and we’re very excited about the possibilities. Maybe something more will grow from all this. Something unexpected and new. The animations are entirely silent; there’s no language or sound at all. Purely visual.

What have you been listening to lately?
During the first half of the year, during the lockdown, I listened to a lot of MoMa Ready and AceMo. It was so cool because it felt very new, but at the same time, it felt familiar and comforting. I think that’s why I was so drawn to it. Their music was the soundtrack to my COVID lockdown experience. It definitely inspired me and kept me going.

Towards the end of 2020 and into the new year, I worked with an artist, Ali The Architect (who’s also one of our AFRORACK™ instructors), on his debut album. He does all his work on the modular. Ali creates these textured beat-driven compositions. He’s definitely exploring and playing in a lot of different genres; it’s really difficult to predict where he’s going from track to track. Ali, without a doubt, released one of the most impressive modular albums so far this year; there’s nothing like it out there. He’s a brilliant artist; you just have to experience it. The album is called “The Interstellar Orchestra.” Check it out—you gotta check it out.

What does experimental/avant-garde mean to you?

Something that challenges how the medium can be used. A significance in the way that the sound communicates with the participant or interacts with the environment. It definitely means taking the listener out of their comfort zone. What we hear should also make us think critically and become the basis for new conversations.

Photo by Angela Mejia

You can find more about AFRORACK™ on their website and Instagram.

They accept donations to support their mobile STEM education workshops here.

Flobama is a hip hop/electronic producer & performer from Austin, TX. He cut his teeth making beats & rapping in the UT West Campus co-op house show scene as member of experimental rap collective Hermit Kingdom, also serving as radio host for KVRX 91.7 FM’s premier hip hop + beats show ‘Champion Sounds.’ He went on to tour France twice as the DJ for Mindz of a Different Kind, and played SXSW 2018 as the official DJ for Vietnam-based international touring duo New Fame. Flobama has recently gained notoriety for his show-stopping finger-drumming performances using 2 samplers, and weekly installments of beat videos using his collection of vintage Casio synths. His latest album ‘Warp Mode’ was released in May 2020 by Austin-based inSECT Records, since then he has also released numerous beat tapes and EPs on bandcamp including “H-E-Beats” and most recently “Have A Biscuit EP.”

See video “J Dilla “Get Dis Money” x “Come Get It” SP404SX / MPC Live Flip”

COTFG – What were your musical or general artistic influences for your historical work or current projects? 

Man i could go on forever about my influences but I’ll try to keep it somewhat concise… The artists who originally inspired me to start making hiphop beats are Flying Lotus (his album Cosmogramma was something of a musical awakening for me) and J Dilla. This was around my first year of college in 2010, before that I had already been in love with Jazz, particularly the funk/rnb-tinged jazz fusion work of Herbie Hancock, who is still my favorite living musician. Around this time I also delved into Miles Davis’s experimental/electric work like Bitches Brew & In A Silent Way, & the laid-back gentle calm of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Bossa Nova compositions.

A couple of years later I became a fan of Canadian producer Memorecks, through his YouTube videos showcasing his MPC finger-drumming skills. I think this guy planted the seed in my mind of what would eventually become one of my own signature styles; finger-drumming boom-bap beats using multiple samplers. Recently I’ve been getting really inspired by artists who combine jazz, neo-soul, rnb + hiphop, particularly this mind-blowingly talented up-and-coming kid called Master Soul Boy. On the flip side of that coin, I’ve also always loved sample-based beats + raw-sounding hip hop, from Knxwledge to Alchemist, Samiyam, and rappers Freddie Gibbs, Action Bronson and Griselda to name a few. Recently I’ve been able to amass a decent following off my beat videos, currently my 2 greatest inspirations in that area are The KOUNT and Kaelin Ellis. 

See video “TUNNELS” Synth Lofi with SP-404SX, Casio CZ-101, Yamaha DX100, Casio MT-240“

COTFG – What other ways of expression you hope to explore using recorded video or live streaming ?  

I want to start off by saying that live-streaming shows (for me personally) are NOWHERE NEAR as satisfying as a real, in-person set, speaking as a performer AND audience member. Obviously, streaming has been the only viable option for music performance for the past year and I have been fortunate enough to perform a handful of them, including for Exploded Drawing TV and the Austin Asian American Resource Center. While it’s nice that I can pre-record my performances for these types of things + remove the ‘game-time’ pressure, I just severely miss real-time audience interaction and the sense of community that comes from everyone hearing the music in the same space on a big system. As far as the technical experience goes, there are definitely still some hurdles to overcome – with platforms like Facebook & Twitch muting live-stream audio for potential copyright strikes (see last month’s Twitch fiasco with Metallica) and just the myriad technical snags that come with fickle internet connections, audio routing issues + the like… This is why I currently much prefer pre-recording live-sets for a pseudo “live-stream” rather than playing in real-time where so many things can go wrong. 

That being said the 1 thing I HAVE enjoyed about live-streaming shows is the chatroom & being able to respond to folks in real-time. I did a series of sets on IG live at the start of the pandemic where it was part performance + part Q&A, and being able to interact with my fans in that way was actually pretty fun! That’s a concept that I hope finds its way into real shows when they start happening again – it would be so cool to have a dedicated chatroom during an actual event! Or maybe that would backfire and just have people staring at their phones way more. Either way, I definitely have plans for more live-stream sets in the near future, but GOD I miss playing actual shows. A lot.

See video “Exploded Drawing Television: Official Session XLIX“

COTFG – What have you been listening to lately?

A lot of this is in my first answer so I’ll just expand it a bit with a list of my current favorites:

Producers – ARK, Immrcy, 40hands, Nameless, Ohbliv, Alchemist, Samiyam, Madlib, Elaquent, BoomBaptist, Juicy the Emmisary, Dibiase, El-B 

Rappers – Freddie Gibbs, Griselda (Benny the Butcher, Conway + Westside Gunn) Boldly James, Pink Siifu, Fly Anakin, Brainorchestra, Scuare

Instrumentalists/bands/singers – Soul Coughing (my all-time favorite band), Herbie Hancock, Master Soul Boy, Moonchild, Lisa Bella Donna, Hiromi Uehara, D’Angelo 

COTFG – What does experimental/avant-garde mean to you?

For me it means creation without any link to established rules, convention or genre of any kind, OR could be the fusion of multiple disparate influences into something previously unheard. Maybe like the mindset Miles Davis was in when he recorded Bitches Brew. It’s so interesting how something that started off as weirdo experimental music has the potential to grow in popularity & dominate pop culture, like how Flying Lotus came on to peoples radar through his super-niche trippy Adult Swim bumper music, and now he’s basically one of the core influences of the entire beat culture as it stands today. As a guy who wears my musical influences on my sleeve, I don’t really consider myself to be an experimental/avant-garde artist. Maybe my performance style could be considered avant-garde in a way because it’s something not many people have seen before? Who knows man. I’m just tryna make beats & live.

You can find out more about Flobama‘s work at https://flobama.bandcamp.com/
IG @flobama91
patreon.com/flobama
Spotify
YouTube