The Lab: January, 2025

It is not too soon to start making plans for next year. My own January calendar has already accumulated a generous number of commitments, even if most of them are “usual suspects.” Where my inbox is concerned, the first organization “out of the gate” to notify me of January events is The Lab, which can usually be counted on for “bleeding edge” events of interest.

For those not yet familiar with the venue, The Lab is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street. This is particularly convenient for those using public transportation, since it is a short walk to the corner of 16th Street and Mission Street. Busses stop at that corner for both north-south and east-west travel, and downstairs there is a station for the BART line running under Mission Street. There will be three two-set concerts in January, all beginning at 8:30 p.m., and doors will open half an hour in advance. Specific information, including a hyperlink to the event page that provides both background material and hyperlinks for ticket purchases, is as follows:

Tuesday, January 21: Mary Ocher is based in Berlin and will be making her first visit to the United States in five years. She is a sound artist whose work pushes the boundaries between pop and avant-garde. She is also both a visual artist and a punk poet. Her performance will be structured around selections from her latest album, Your Guide To Revolution; and she describes the pieces as involving cumbia, post-punk, folk, field records, cosmic synth compositions, and deconstructed techno. The opening set will be taken by multi-instrumentalist Kashika Kollaikal, who performs as Flung. Her approach to experimental pop explores found sounds such as car horns, hand-punched music boxes, and the buzz of foil woven through piano strings.

Blevin Blectum performing in front of her video animations (from her event page for The Lab)

Saturday, January 25: Gregg Kowalsky will perform a single long-form work. He will draw upon material from his latest album, Eso Es, as well as his past two decades of composition involving minimalism, maximalism, and classical Indian music. Blevin Blectum (born Bevin Kelley) will perform a mash-up of tracks from her two most recent albums, OMNII and Multitudes of Venom. This will be presented in a setting of psychedelic video animations created by Alexander P Dupuis.

Thursday, January 30: This program will be co-presented by Arab.AMP, which will be beginning its 2025 season. It will consist of two sets directed by Leyya Mona Tawil. Strider is the duo of violist and composer Joanna Mattrey with artist Steve Long, who works with sound, language, and space. St Celfer is the performing name of john macdougall parker (lower-case intentional), who draws upon his American and Korean origins to improvise “future-folk compositions.”