January 15, 2016

Friday night live at Transistor: experimental guitar from Christopher Riggs, viola & electronics duo Hanna Brock & Will Soderberg and one-man math rock from The Roarer. Sound by Jon Monteverde.

Christopher Riggs makes his electric guitar sound like underwater pterodactyls, cellos from space and the inside of a trash compactor by playing his instrument with springs, magnets, pieces of metal, dowels, and violin bows. He creates these un-guitar-like sounds without the aid of processing or effects. He performs as soloist and releases all of his recorded output for free on his website. He is the former operator of the now defunct Holy Cheever Church records, a record label specializing in cassette tapes of experimental music. He has his Bachelor of Music from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Master of Arts in Music Composition from Wesleyan University. He currently works as an elementary school teacher in Chicago.

For his performance at Transistor, Christopher Riggs played a set of solo electric guitar music using a splendor of extended techniques.

Visit his website.

Hanna Brock is Johanna Wiesbrock, a Chicago-based violist, electronic musician and sound engineer. Trained in orchestral music, her work fuses jazz, house, classical and bluegrass. She often collaborates with other improvisers, both dancers and musicians. Her most recent work can be found onSoundcloud.

Will Soderberg uses guitar, electronics and field recordings to evoke sounds ranging from the dawn of sound reinforcement to the digital future that doesn’t include you. His work has included multimedia installations and performances exploring the outer limits of sound and video for over three decades, including shows across North America and in Germany and Japan.

For this Transistor performance, the duo performed compositions, improvisations and deconstructions melding experimental and classical influences.

The Roarer hails from Lake County, Illinois, a project born from lack of band members. Armed with a battle station of equipment, EJ Singson does his best impression of an octopus by playing multiple instruments and samples with his hands and feet. He enjoys video games, anime, and reading.

For his performance at Transistor, The Roarer played a set of “one-man math rock” using a double neck guitar-bass, loops and samples.

Visit The Roarer’s website.