Also this issue: Founding Fathers The experts at Philly's new Foundry label want to make good music and good money at the same time. -A.D. Amorosi Bringing It All Back Home Bob Dylan returns to Newport. -Nate Chinen Mixed Messages Electronic music pioneer Mark Farina puts it all together. -Sean O’Neal The Catheters -Paul Burress Stephen Wade -Mary Armstrong

August 15-21, 2002

musicpicks

Tomas Jirku

Only 21 years old, Czech-born, Toronto-based Tomas Jirku has already had releases on labels like Force Inc., Mille Plateaux, Alien8, Traum and Klang Elektronik, among others. Avant-techno, click-house, glitch-core -- call it whatever you want. His techno-based, minimal soundscapes shaped and chiseled on a laptop are geared more for headspaces and headphones than dance floors. Clicks, cuts, crackles, pops and pringles erratically poke and splatter across the speakers atop deep, dubby, sub-bassy, pulsating mesmerism -- an up-and-coming sound already embraced wholeheartedly in Germany and showcased every summer at Montreal's Mutek festival. Like Vladislav Delay, Sutekh, Andreas Tilliander, Philly's own Jay Haze (a.k.a. The Architect), and other glitch-heavy, techno-minded computer-junkies, Jirku remains subtle with his digital frolic, creating layers of hardly melodic fluidity and charming, non-moody textures. At his Rotunda appearance this Friday, brace yourself for something a little different. The show is called the Rashomon Effect and is done in a "soundclash" format, where Jirku and other laptop-freaks each play four 15-minute sets. Snap, crackle, pop! Yes, you will be soothed.

Fri., Aug. 16, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., with Fidget, Hoopty Heaven, Zenas (Prime), VJ Kaboom and MC Dan Buskirk, The Rotunda, 4012 Walnut St., 215-573-6107.

—Sean O’Neal

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