MUSIC . Music Picks

Contemporary Voices

Sun., Nov. 9, 8 p.m., $8-$10, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 866-468-7619, ihousephilly.org.


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Published: Nov 4, 2008

experimental

I-House's program is aptly named, not just because this duo of duos presents four artists working in decidedly forward-thrusting idioms, but because both collaborations take a rather modernist look at voice and communication. Experimental guitarist/composer Alan Licht, who has also partnered with Loren Mazzacane Connors and Lee Ranaldo, teams with Japanese-born cassette manipulator Aki Onda, creating a miasmic sonic landscape from which scraps of sound and conversation emerge. David Grubbs, best known as co-founder of Gastr del Sol, conjures a sense of mystery and foreboding with electronics and the Laotian khaen on Souls of the Labadie Tracts, his latest collaboration with poet Susan Howe. The texts are based Howe's poem exploring the ill-fated history of the Labadists, a Utopian sect based in Cecil County, Md., in the late 17th century. While the words offer the tentative hope of a newfound community, Howe's deadpan reading and Grubbs' menacing drone contain the promise of eventual decline.

Sun., Nov. 9, 8 p.m., $8-$10, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 866-468-7619, ihousephilly.org.