Welding Tones with Distant Drones
A collection of quickly recorded raw auxiliary percussion sounds on homemade cassette loops to be composed and improvised amidst an array of portable Walkmans to immerse the listener with sound artifacts of surprise and chance encounters within the arcane medium of tape. Similar to a DJ creating a mix with a tightly curated collection of records, but with cassettes and specifically chosen percussion elements.
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Thom Nguyen is an Asheville, North Carolina-based improviser and drummer of MANAS and more. Producing energetic bursts and invoking a sensitivity to space that one often associates with Free-Jazz and New Music percussion, Nguyen’s approach elegantly bridges works of sonic sculpture with a punk aesthetic of immediacy, aggression, and playfulness.
Artist Statement:
This piece was inspired with the intent of taking the percussionist outside of the realm of percussion, composing a collection of pre-recorded cassette loops and improvising as I normally would behind a drum kit while playing each part at once without the confines of using four limbs.
