Only One July Event at The Lab (as of now!)

Having written yesterday about the latest installment in the Brutal Sound Effects Festival, which will take place at The Lab at the end of this month, I have discovered that things will be pretty sparse at that venue (at least for now) during the month of July. Only one event is currently “in the system.” Furthermore, while it is a three-set event, information is only available about one of those sets as of this writing! Nevertheless, for those that want to save the date, here is what is currently known.

The Horse Lords quartet in performance (photograph by Christopher Grady, from the Web page for the event being discussed)

One of the three sets will be taken by a Baltimore-founded quartet called Horse Lords. On the basis of the above photograph, it looks like the group consists of two guitarists and two percussionists. There also seems to be evidence that one of those percussionists will also double on tenor saxophone. According to the Bandcamp Web page for the quartet’s Interventions album, the saxophonist is Andrew Bernstein; and the other three members of the group are Sam Haberman, Max Elbacher (probably the two guitarists), and Owen Gardner (probably the other percussionist).

The band describes its repertoire as “intricate, polyrhythmic music [that] is tightly composed and complex, leaving little room for improvisation.” However, that claim is somewhat undermined by the suggestion that “elements of chance in Horse Lords’ music make it sometimes unpredictable in the moment, even to the musicians.” So, rather than approach the performance with expectations, the attentive listener should just be prepared to take what (s)he can get! The other performers scheduled for this program will be Evicshen (last encountered on this site when they played for G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S this past February) and Foreign/Domestic, the duo of guitarist Zachary James Watkins with drummer John Diaz, which performed for Other Minds Latitudes 21 in September of last year.

For those that do not already know, The Lab is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street, a short walk east from the intersection with Mission Street, which serves BART and both north-south and east-west Muni buses. The performance will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday, July 5, and is scheduled to run for three hours. Admission will be $23 for tickets purchased in advance through the event page. Entry at the door will be $25; and members will be admitted at a discounted rate (if not for free). As usual, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.