Bill Caraher | 

I get too many emails and the ones that I open and respond to in a timely way (my apologies to anyone awaiting a response) vary day to day. Yesterday morning, I opened an email telling me that Maria Chávez is performing at Solar Myth, the music venue operated by Ars Nova in Philadelphia. 

Maria Chávez is a sound artist and abstract turntables. Her performances use broken records, two needles picking up two separate tracks simultaneously, and a wide range of other techniques. 

It’s better just to let her explain:

Or listen to her collaboration with Valentina Magaletti:

In many way her work reminds me of William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops where loops of tape are run through a machine over and over and recorded while they break down. While Basinski’s recording are subtle, hypnotic, and even soothing, Chávez’s performances are jarring, abrupt, and sometimes disorienting. They offer the sonic embodiment of the fractured media which she uses to make her sound art. 

For some reason Chávez’s sound feel more fitting for the contemporary mood than Basinski’s post 9/11 loops. 

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Bill Caraher is a blogger, a historian, and editor of NDQ.