New Langton Arts presents Bay Area ensemble Eddie the Rat in
an evening of uncategorizable music that merges abstraction with
tunefulness, experimental headiness with emotional response. The group, led
by musical omnivore Peter Martin, creates “audio inkblots,” incorporating
sounds from sources as diverse as Javanese gamelan, punk, and electronica,
fused with live vocals, percussion, bass, and keyboards.
Eddie the Rat is a loose collection of Bay Area performers which began as a
one-man electronics project, and evolved over the past five years into an
ensemble of up to 15 musicians. The instrumentalists and vocalists play
looped rhythmic cycles which are often arranged in the moment to complement
each other. The group’s cut-and-paste process creates a sonic collage of
vocals, found sounds, synthesizers, and repetitive grooves. At Langton,
Eddie the Rat includes Dan Ake (instrument-builder, percussionist), Ronnie
Camaro (bass, vocals), Peter Martin (piano, drums, miscellaneous
instruments) and Molly Tascone (vocals and percussion).
Eddie the Rat’s music is rooted in the electronic music experiments of the
‘60s, but also incorporates elements from contemporary genres like techno,
drum ‘n bass, choral music, pop-punk fusions, and themes from contemporary
media and culture. As bandleader Peter Martin describes, the group seeks to
create music which challenges the listener’s emotional response. Avoiding
the logic and drama that informs music composed with traditional use of
chords, tonality, and linear rhythm, the ensemble’s music instead creates
odd juxtapositions and superimpositions of familiar sounds. By
recontextualizing the familiar, the music seeks to elicit emotion in a new
way, and asks the listener to reflect on how they might make sense of what
is being presented to them.
About the Ensemble
Eddie the Rat has been performing since 2000. The group has collaborated
with transgender performer Didik Nini Thowok from Java at Yugen Theater
(2003) and has performed at the Loud Music Symposium at Yerba Buena Center
for the Arts, San Francisco (2003), as well as at many other Bay Area music
venues. The group has released recordings on Negativland’s Seeland label
and San Francisco’s Entartete Kunst label.
Cost: $10/$8 members, students, seniors