Through the hard work of the Feed Me Weird Things team, the Iowa City community, and friends, this year’s FEaST serves to commemorate and honor the life and legacy of Chris Wiersema, and a chance for Iowa City to come together to celebrate all things weird.

The third annual FEaST will take place from October 30th to November 2nd at The James Theater, with all shows starting at 7:30 PM. Eight acts will perform over the course of the four days: Ava Mendonza and Friend on Wednesday, Zeena Parkins and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe on Thursday, Wolf Eyes and Maria Chavez on Friday, and finally Sarah Davachi and Circuit Des Yeux on Saturday. Four nights of deep listening to some of the most enigmatic sounds collected.

Friend

Jon Mueller’s work holds a very special place for me. He was the first musician I ever wrote about when I was doing a review for KRUI of a Feed Me Weirds Things show, at Trumpet Blossom Cafe in Iowa City with him and Bitchin Bajas. In many ways his performance lingers with me. He sat behind and obstructed by an array of gongs, alternating in the way he pummeled them and let them ring. It gave a feeling of immense dread, but not necessarily in a visions of doom type of way. It was more percolating in essence, like you were being haunted by ghosts, but they were all people still alive, just obscured in the rolling haze making you feel invisible to them. Yet still you stand there mesmerized by the strangeness of the scene. All of it rolling in on sticks foaming up the brassy drone.  

Jon Mueller makes his return from a forgotten Wisconsin town as a friend of Feed Me Weird Things and Iowa City. He’s performing with Andrew Fitzpatrick, together as Friend. The two of them will be the first performance of this year’s FEaST festival, opening the Wednesday night show. Perhaps there’s no better artist to set the blissfully abnormal and often eerie tone of Feed Me Weird Things.

-John Glab, Editor-In-Chief

Ava Mendoza

Ava Mendonza is a Brooklyn based singer, songwriter, and guitarist. She is the leader of rock band Unnatural Ways and regularly collaborates with other artists in addition to her solo endeavors. She is best known for her solo guitar and voice performances.

Her latest album, The Circular Train, releases on November 15th. With the album, Mendoza says, “I had the honor of spending several years as the nightly entertainer onboard The Circular Train. Over this time I wrote, arranged, and honed these songs through routine concerts.” Said to be her most personal album yet, The Circular Train consists only of avant-rock, single tracked guitar playing and vocals. The record features a cover of “Irene, Goodnight” popularized by Lead Belly.

-Amanda Moy, Music Staff

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe is a longtime multidisciplinary musical artist with a long, colorful history. He cut his teeth in a bevy of bands scattered across the United States, most famous of the bunch being 2000s art rockers TV On The Radio, before settling into an equally rewarding solo career in progressive electronic and ambient soundscapes. His music is a conceptual left turn, yet one executed with grace, as Lowe is regarded as a respected figure in his field. You may have encountered some of his most recent work soundtracking Candyman, Grasshopper Republic, and Power. Regardless of your point of entry, Lowe’s contemplative pastoral palettes are sure to transport you to another plane. 

-Evan Raefield, Training Director

Zeena Parkins

Zeena Parkins is a New York based composer and multi-instrumentalist, best known for her custom electric harps. Her current electric harp is the third iteration of a design originally created for her work with experimental rock group Skeleton Crew, with the components of it fabricated by sound artist Douglas Henderson. She has also performed on standard harps, piano, and accordion. Her sound has been described as blending real and imagined instruments, along with exploring their boundaries and movement.

Parkins is a professor in the music department and holds the Darius Milhaud Chair in Composition at Mills College. She has collaborated and performed with a wide range of artists, including Yoko Ono, Björk, and Courtney Love’s band Hole. She has also organized with numerous dance companies, choreographers, and filmmakers. In addition, she has released fifteen albums, six of which are solo harp records.

-Amanda Moy, Music Staff

Maria Chávez

Relying on the modification of vinyl records by thoughtfully breaking them apart, using multiple needles to play different sections of a record simultaneously, and daringly introducing forward thinking methods of sculpting sound using a mixer and a turntable, Maria Chávez will make you rethink the concept of turntablism at this year’s FEaST. 

Born in Peru, she moved to the United States where it was found that her ears were full of liquid. Maria recalls fondly her first memory: after her ear draining procedure, she was able to hear for the first time. Since then, sound has been primordially present in her life, and later in her teenage years she picked up DJing. Her practice then evolved into eclectic and avant-garde techniques of turntablism which originated for her as a counterpoint to the male dominated DJ culture. Nowadays though she can also be seen DJing a tasteful selection of house music with ease in some off-shoot chances.

Maria’s practice has led her to perform and be involved in academia all over the globe, including London, Houston, Valencia, New York City, and now Iowa City for FEaST. Maria Chávez’s performance; whether it be presenting her out of the box techniques of turntablism, a tasteful selection of house music, or a delightful combination of both; is sure not to be missed.

-Andrés Mora Mata, Music Director

Wolf Eyes

Wolf Eyes is an experimental group boasting the noisy synthesis of Nate Young and Aaron Dilloway. Since the group’s inception in 1996, as the solo project of Young in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the band has toyed with everything from sound collage to hard dance beats. Despite the range of sounds, each features the dense texturing and sporadic use of sound effects that the group is known for.

One of their newer albums, Dreams in Splattered Lines, contains a predictably wide range of musical stylings, including many electronic free improvisation sessions. The sample work on this project shows the band at their absolute best, featuring thumping drumbeats and static, misty chord progressions, complete with haunting, distorted vocals. If you want to feel as if a blanket of haze is wrapping around you on a cold night, let this feeling consume you, and make sure not to miss Wolf Eyes’ performance at FEaST. 

-Casper Bakker, Editorial Staff

Circuit des Yeux

Since 2007, Chicago singer-songwriter Haley Fohr has been releasing music under the stage name Circuit des Yeux. Since then, she has released seven albums, including ones under Drag City and Matador, and collaborated with people like Claire Rousay. Her compositions are primarily structured around her immense vocal range and fluttering guitar playing. Her instrumentation often has a varied chamber like halo feel to it, ruminating from the ground up until it surrounds you in its columns. Fohr’s voice then croons over these sounds, wavering immensely from reverberating lows, to searing atmospheric highs. Any room that she enters floods in a uniform, unescapable, drowning sound.

-John Glab, Editor-In-Chief

Sarah Davachi

The work of Sarah Davachi can be described as an eerie and fanciful approach to minimalistic synthesizer music. Though she is native to Canada, she boasts many international projects commissioned by the likes of the London Contemporary Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Radio France, and the Canadian International Organ Competition. Her work has also been featured at The Museum of Modern Art, The Getty Museum, and Grace Cathedral. She has held residency with the Banff Centre for the Arts, EMPAC, the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, the National Music Centre, and the Swiss Museum & Center for Electronic Music Instruments. She earned a master’s degree in electronic music and recording media from Mills College in Oakland, California but is currently up for a doctoral position in musicology at UCLA. This of course is not the full extent of her accomplishments by any means, as she is a very experienced composer of great acclaim.  

Her pieces are structured around classical piano, from her experience as a trained pianist and organist, along with chamber choir music. Davachi has composed in both electronic and acoustic mediums, often combining the two. Her main instrumentations consist of pipe organs, electronic synthesizers, and at times brass and string instruments. In her own words, her sound is, “an intimate and patient experience that lessens perceptions of the familiar and distant.”  

Davachi’s style employs the listener to engage in more active and focused listening. Her latest album The Head As Form’d In The Crier’s Choir, is an hour and a half of very dark and extensive tones, conveyed in intense emotion, with interjections of elongated peaceful sounds across its runtime. The seven compositions on the album are a reflective suite on human memory and fondness. The album touches on the Greek myth of Orpheus, with it also “an observance of the mental dances that we construct to understand acts of passage; the ways that we commune, memorialize, and carry symbols back into the world beyond representation.” 

-Lee Nienhaus, Editorial Staff

Tickets and passes for FEaST by Feed Me Weird Things are available for purchase now and at the door of The James Theater. Enjoy all things weird.

Cover image via Anna Kritz

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On a chilly Monday night, a crowd of around 30 people assembled at Trumpet Blossom Café for an evening show. The show was assembled as a feature of the ongoing Feed Me Weird Things program; A series of events organized to bring in eccentric and abnormal performing acts to the live scene of Iowa City, whilst promoting and boosting local artists.

Early arrivals to the quaint cafe, typically closed on Mondays, were greeted by the scene of Tengger eating dinner in front of the stage. Opening act Birdlabs, an Iowa City via Chicago electronic beatsmith, charmed the audience with tasteful selections from their repertoire of releases. They saved the best for last with a blissful ambient loop and then a bouncy house bop to top off the set.

Image via Evan Raefield

Tengger, the headlining artist of the night, is a Pan-Asian trio/traveling family of musicians, currently touring North America in support of their latest self-titled release. Hailing from South Korea, they offer a transformative blend of ambient, drone, progressive electronic, and gospelesque vocals, creating a subtle but transcendental experience as the notes grow and change before the audience’s very ears.

As they began their set, the very venue around us felt as though it was expanding as their tonal bliss filled the room, as Itta flexed her vocals’ delicate but glorious reverberation. I cannot speak for everyone in the room, but I can absolutely say that the gossamer chorus over the ever-present warm hum of the synthetic soundscape turned my mind to concepts of grandeur. Electronic elements like minimalist drones and downtempo bleep-bloops combined with the inherent humanity of such instruments as the harmonium, bells, and vocals.

Image via Anika Maculangan

About midway through the set, the group played a composition of the youngest member Raai’s creation. Written during the COVID years, when the family was fractured by Marquido’s return to Japan, Raai wrote the song in order to express the feelings he was experiencing at the time. The emotion put into the song was tangible, to say the least. During the song, Raai and Itta came down from the stage with bells, went to each individual member of the audience, and played them over their heads. It was as though I could feel my connection to everyone in the room, and appreciated them thoroughly.

Faith is a hard thing to come by in these seemingly ever-dimming days. We had each come into the night unsure, and had come to find that for just a moment, we were in the right place at the right time, in the company of good people. Maybe that is faith enough. After the show, they immediately headed to their merch table at the back of the room, and personally thanked every audience member who came by. I did not hesitate in buying a CD and thanking each of them for one of the most special live experiences I’ve ever had. If the primary goal of art is to move its audience, then I would say Tengger is one of the most successful artists operating today.

Image via Casper Bakker

“If I shall ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph- ‘THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC'” – Kurt Vonnegut

The post Birdlabs and Tengger Bewitch and Transfix appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Upon my arrival, I heard a booming noise upstairs. The sound check was strong enough to make the stairs shake. It sounded like what you’d hear if you’re some Berghain hopeful, standing in line for like 5 hours, only to be rejected by the bouncer for looking like a poorly-dressed poser.

What you’re left with is the throbbing techno spilling out into the open air. The sound brings a foreboding feeling of exhaustion, a hint of the wild experience ahead. This aggressive thudding from above informed me that these performances wouldn’t be demure in sound or scope. There would be no lullabies, only night terrors.

The Feed Me Weird Things listening series, who sponsored the FEaST festival, brought three extreme voices together for one night: Masma Dream World, Joe Rainey, and Duma. It was a trio that celebrated otherness in music. If there’s one word to describe each act succinctly, it would be loud. Noise loud enough to give you tinnitus, to make your blood pulse faster.

The artists gave performances rooted in unique cultural practices that informed their abrasive, individualistic sounds. When the show started, I was curling up underneath an air dryer, trying not to die of temperature exposure. When I exited the bathroom, someone wrapped in a yellow shawl jumped off the stage, which was now soaked in red light. Surprise, I actually died and this is the obituary I wrote from hell.

In what appeared to be a cleansing rite, the figure visited each corner of the room with lithe but warning movements. I soon learned that this figure was Masma Dream World.

Masma Dream World

Masma Dream World, or Devi Mambouka, resides in a unique place culturally as an African immigrant from the Bronx with ethnic roots in both Gabon and Singapore. Within this exchange of multi-ethnic identities, a new voice is found.

This voice is a variety of spiritual practices, such as Reiki, that culminate in a performance akin to a sacred ritual. Throughout their set, a spectacle comparable to Diamanda Galás emerged. Hissing, screaming, and singing worked against each other to channel a greater force into Iowa City. With ferocity in their eyes, the music shook the floor as they entered a state of what appeared to be religious ecstasy. Mambouka fell to the floor mid-performance, convulsing .

The emotionally dynamic set closed with a stellar finale. A drum was introduced, used, and attacked while a chanting backing track clashed with Mambouka’s own vocals. The space became anxious and enrapturing, like some ancient god’s wrath.

When the performance ended, Mambouka snapped back into normal consciousness like nothing had happened. The seemingly wild, uncoordinated performance now looked all the more impressive, with an extreme level of commitment to one’s art.

Mambouka explained afterwards that these means of practice and performance can help channel and find individual magic within themselves. This magic enables them to process pain and trauma in a meaningful way.

Through this showcase, Mambouka accomplishes that goal. Even though the music itself is austere and in some ways esoteric, Masma Dream World allows emotion to spring forth like light against shadow. 

Joe Rainey 

Imagine traditional, vocable, indigenous powwow music. Now imagine that powwow music set to rapid-fire, experimental electronic music. Enter Joe Rainey and his producer, Andrew Broder of Fog.

This avant-garde fusion of music, both of past and present, results in a sound that, truly, you have never heard before. Rainey’s vocals acted as sort of a battalion strike against the percussion and synths provided by Broder. A mix of repeating analog tape recordings of past powwows and vocal splice added an imposing history to the performance. It created a musical collage of both time and emotion, set at breakneck speed.

Such a singular combination of genre seems like an impenetrable listening experience. But Rainey came off as unpretentious in his red Vans. He used his performance as an interlocutor for the rich heritage of Native music combined with industrial, innovative production, while not losing his cultural footing.

Rainey’s vocals were complemented by Broder, who moved wildly in an MF Doom tee, working with his electronic setup. He scratched his turntable and hit a synth board to Rainey’s ever-changing analog, while the lights flashed and flared blue and pink.

The audience seemed wildly intrigued but at the same time unsure of what was happening. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about how to respond to this music. Like do I move? Do I do a little dance? The first thought that came to my head was that one video of that random dude at a Merzbow concert brushing his teeth. However, to conceive of this music as something thought of, rather than felt, would be missing the point.

Once I let go of trying to process Rainey’s music by comparing it to a hegemonic notion of traditional music, his ethos of clashing time and culture slowly flourished in my mind. Things felt comprehensible, if only for a moment.

Rainey’s performance came as a vivid blur that left a distinct impression of his musical identity. With Broder’s help, Rainey radically reconfigured that identity into a transcendent sound like no other.

Duma

The night closed with Nairobi’s own Duma, a Kenyan noise-metal group that produces abrasive, grindcore music. They’re a duo composed of Martin Khanja (stage name Lord Spike Heart), and Sam Karugu. Both artists are willing to push music to its breaking point and trample on its shattered body.

The audience at Gabe’s that night was extremely varied, but skewed towards an older crowd. Gauging the crowd’s reaction was difficult. They were mostly taken aback, or intrigued, or a combination of both. The handler’s reactions where hilarious; imagine total annoyance and confusion.

Even though the audience, with their craft beers in hand, could get past the spiritual neurosis of the first two acts, Duma was about to throw them for a massive loop. The night was full of experimental, abrasive music, but somehow Duma immediately established itself as the loudest, like a predator claiming its territory.

The duo began their set with Karugu in a white balaclava and Khanja in devil-hooded leather jacket. The stage lights became epileptic with rhythmic ramming of what could be conga drums. Sound filled the room like deafening machine guns firing, with shrills of guitar tearing through the speakers.

Frenetic energy was all around, exemplified by the headbangers who came to the front and started moving with Khanja as he screamed and sang their hellish songs. They filled the stage with their presence, and Khanja’s movements were straight out of a horror movie, carnal and charged, slow and fast. Duma acted as the harbingers of chaos while the pulsating lights created a hallucinatory atmosphere. Maybe Duma is the 5th horseman of the apocalypse.

I remember turning around and seeing an uncomfortable man’s face. He looked twisted, as trying to fight against Duma’s sonic path of destruction in that moment was like fighting madness itself. My head spun and my body moved unintentionally, trying to find its way in this new, distorted world. I could only clench my fist and beat it against the nightmarish entity inhabiting the stage. A drunken man smelling of weed-gummies shouted and threw his body back and forth to the music.

The set stopped after a ravaging 30-40 minutes. It took a while to readjust to reality, like being pulled out of a raging vortex. After congratulating Duma, I managed to get a quick word in.

To paraphrase, Duma spoke of the incredible work that this festival seeks to promote, by letting performers from all around the globe showcase their work. After crossing oceans, mountains, and too many farms, they were ecstatic to play Iowa a second time: the home of Slipknot. Duma was grateful to showcase the emerging creativity coming from the Kenyan metal scene right now. 

That’s what I gained through this show and festival: a diverse roster of artists coming together to showcase their unique talents and perspectives, broadening both cultural and sonic landscapes. I ended the night by listening to some of each acts’ songs while walking home, eating pizza in the freezing rain. 

The post Call this TERROR: A Night with Masma Dream World, Joe Rainey, and Duma appeared first on KRUI Radio.