Stratic

Filmed by our friend Peter Varshavsky – there’s two of these over on YouTube:

All photos by Carly Hoopes!

Stratic went up to the Northwestern part of the west coast in February.  First we presented a performance and lecture at the Evergreen State College Campus with help from our friend Ben Kamen.  It started raining for real, and our next stop was in Portland. We played at a great space called the Piano Fort down in the SE. Really friendly people there – and a stage made of four pianos!! Plus, check out this sweet tree made out of Piano guts:

We rounded out the weekend with a show in Seattle at the Racer Session over at Cafe Racer. This is a weekly series for new, experimental music. We played a set, and then presented a graphic score to the musicians there.  It’s good to see such a vibrant series going on in Seattle.

Oakland based Stratic creates avant-jazz / post-rock / experimental / improvised music that rejects traditional structure and combines acoustics & electronics into three distinct layers of sound with MSP-extended saxophone, polytonal keyboard melodies and textures, grounded and propelled by drums and percussion. With Michael Coleman, keyboards & electronics; Aram Shelton, saxophone & processing via MSP; Alex Vittum, drums. Their first album is in progress and will be released in early 2012.

Michael Coleman, originally From Brooklyn, NY, studied jazz piano with Barry Harris, Michael Weiss, and Dan Wall.  After earning his BA from Oberlin College, Michael relocated to Oakland to pursue a career in music.  He has toured both Europe and the US with several bands, including Miles Kurosky, Jug Free America, Beep!, and the Attachments. Has spent time in India studying tabla.  He is a highly active member of the Bay Area creative music scene,with style ranging from power pop to free jazz, playing piano, organ, synths, and clarinet.

Aram Shelton is a multi-instrumentalist on saxophones & clarinet, improviser and composer. Originally from southeast Florida, Shelton spent several productive years in Chicago and currently lives in Oakland. His active ties to the creative music scenes in the Bay Area and Chicago have garnered positive media acclaim including a recent feature in Downbeat. In California his music is represented by the groups Marches, Stratic, and Cylinder (with Darren Johnston, Lisa Mezzacappa & Kjell Nordeson).  He is also a founding member of the Oakland Active Orchestra and curates the Active Music Series. He maintains his connections to Chicago through the groups Fast Citizens (Delmark), Rolldown (Cuneiform), and Arrive (Clean Feed). Recent and upcoming performances include collaborations with James Fei, Kyle Bruckmann, Larry Ochs, Nate Wooley (NYC), Kjell Nordeson, Dave Rempis (Chicago), Devin Hoff, Josh Sinton & Mike Pride (NYC), Fred Lonberg-Holm (Chicago) and Swiss pianist Hans-Peter Pfammatter. For more information please visit www.aramshelton.com

Alex Vittum is a percussionist and composer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He combines the disciplines of percussion, instrument building and electronic music. He is a member of percussion duo Tide Tables, Powerdove, and performs solo electro-acoustic percussion. Alex has performed and recorded with a diverse group of musicians, composers and choreographers including Roswell Rudd, Kitty Brazleton, Ben Goldberg, Daniel Carter, Stuart Dempster, Gina Gibney Dance and Loop 2.4.3. He has a BA from Bennington College and an MFA from Mills College and has studied percussion with Milford Graves and William Winant. He is a recording engineer/producer and an educator in both music and wood working. Alex is an associate instrument builder and designer with the Paul Dresher Ensemble and a technician for synthesizer pioneer Don Buchla.