WNUR’s Sonic Celluloid w/ BCMC, CHEER-ACCIDENT, Lia Kohl

We’re back with another Sonic Celluloid at Elastic Arts, an annual event put on by Northwestern University’s WNUR radio program The Rock Show. The event highlights artists exploring the experimental and psychedelic sides of audio and film. This year each artist has chosen a selection of experimental films of the past to then compose / perform live scores for the evening.

BCMC, featuring Cooper Crain and Bill MacKay, unite to create provocative epilogues, warm avant-garde noir, and fiery over-driven jams to recall life’s sunnier and stranger days. Crain's organ and synths mix with MacKay’s guitars as they draw songs from elegiac themes and spontaneous statements that are equal parts east-west, deep space, rock’s dreamy lyrical interior, raga, fugue state, field recording, blues and beyond.

CHEER-ACCIDENT began as a gleam in the opening seconds of 1981 during an improvisatory brainstorming session among friends. At some point in the ‘80s, they morphed into an actual band, performing their first concert at The Igloo in Chicago, on 7/17/87. They have upheld the tradition of New Year’s Day-Long Improvs for more than four decades, dutifully depositing the results on Bandcamp. In between these improvisations, they have recorded and released 25 albums, largely compositional. Tonight, as they set five different film excerpts to music, will feature both sides of their dual nature: the spontaneous and the meticulously designed. In terms of its membership, CHEER-ACCIDENT is devoutly fluid, but these folx (and others) have comprised the ensemble for the past several years: Jeff Libersher, Thymme Jones, Laura Boton, Alex Perkolup, Eleanor Schumacher, Billie Jean Howard, Johanna Brock, Mike Hagedorn, Cory Bengtsen, Ross Feller, Angie Mead and Bethany DeGaetano Smoker.

Lia Kohl is a cellist, composer, and sound artist based in Chicago.Her wide-ranging practice includes composition and performance, installation, improvisation, and collaboration. She tours nationally and internationally, working in theater, jazz, rock, and experimental contexts. Her work centers curiosity and patience, an exploration of the mundane and profound possibilities of sound.

We’ll get started at 8:30pm. Please join us for this incredibly special night!

Host or Publisher Elastic Arts