The New Music Co-op Presents:

Willow Street Spring Concert Series

Rick Reed - "Solo Electronics & Film by Ken Jacobs"
Saturday, March 5th - 8pm
1010 Willow Street

In this performance Rick Reed will counterbalance the mesmerizing pulse of Ken Jacobs' film with his spacious electroacoustic music.

Rick Reed (born. 1957) is a composer / visual artist originally from Corpus Christi, Texas, who has been working in the Austin underground music scene for the past 20 years. In addition to playing solo, Reed has been involved with free noise improv group, 'The Abrasion Ensemble' and the electronic music trio, 'Frequency Curtain'. Since the mid 90's, Reed has released several LP's and CD's on labels such as Ecstatic Peace, Beta Lactam Ring, Pale Disc Japan and Elevator Bath. Currently, Reed has been active co-sponsoring experimental music programs around Austin, including two of the well received INTERSECT shows. Some people may recognize Reed as being the host of Commercial Suicide, a two-hour program of experimental and hard to define music heard Sunday nights on KOOP Radio. A few of the higher profile musicians he has played with over the years include No Necks Blues Band drummer David Nuss and guitarist Keith Rowe of the legendary English group AMM. Reed also recently provided musical accompaniment to the films of avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs which have screened at Cinematexas 9 and the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2004.

A master of the avant-garde American cinema, Ken Jacobs (born in Brooklyn, New York, 1933) began working in New York in the late fifties, creating a truly 'beat', 'underground' cinema - what he called an 'urban guerilla cinema', working with the legendary, flamboyant performer and filmmaker Jack Smith. In the 1960s and 70s, Jacobs continued to be a very influential and important figure in the burgeoning New York avant-garde cinema, alongside Hollis Frampton, Michael Snow, Joyce Weiland and others, creating his masterly visual elaboration by re-filming an early silent short: Tom Tom, the Piper's Son (1969). For many years Jacobs has been developing his "Nervous System" of film performances, shadow plays and magic lantern, these variously involve special projection, remarkable 3D effects (and specially developed apparatus), and light play to create hallucinatory, optically warping experiences.