Mattie Barbier, M.A. Tiesenga, Maddi Baird
November 17, 2022

Join us at Automata for a delayed release event for Mattie Barbier 's recent album threads on Sofa Music, threads. Threads is a solo record exploring the unique acoustic space of the Tank Center for Sonic Arts, an abandoned water tank turned recording studio in Rangley, Colorado. Mattie will present solos reworked for the acoustic space of Automata. They will be joined in solo sets for loud bari sax by M.A.Tiesenga and an improvised performance utilizing quiet tones and field recordings by Maddi Baird.

About threads: 
a feeling of place. a calm space to be present in during a space of chaos. of quarantining in a very conservative place as a non-binary person where your welcomeness is tenuous. of uncertainty of where non-binaryness fits as a parent- of still being a dad? or treated as one. but also the day of chaos- of leaving a farm before the sun rises and driving deeper into the country to find a water tank. of a several hour drive through curving mountain passes and a narrow valley of cow grazing. almost being late to the session as a herd of cows was blocking the road. that literal cowboys arrived on horseback to herd them away.

threads is Mattie Barbier’s duo with the unique acoustics of The Tank, where, during the session, they learn how to relinquish the control and directness of playing solo.

Shifting the ears and pace towards playing freely in a sound you cannot control but only exist within.
To preview threads, or to purchase the album, click HERE. 

Tickets:
$15 students, members, underemployed
$18 general admission

Click HERE for tickets.

Seating is extremely limited, advance reservations strongly encouraged
Note: Masks are required for all events at Automata.


About the Artists:
Mattie Barbier is an LA based musician and sonic researcher focused on experimental intonation, latent irrationality in acoustically rational systems, and the physical processes of their instrument. Their playing has been described by the LA Times as being "of intense, brilliant, virtuosic growling that gave the striking impression that Barbier was dismantling the instrument while playing it," by the Wire as “exploring the nooks of instrumental tone far beyond the reach of most mortals,” and by the New Yorker as being a "diabolically inventive trombonist-composer."

M.A. Tiesenga, originally from Chicago, IL, is an LA-based interdisciplinary artist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and animator. They work with images, sound, performance, and strive to find an encompassing synthesis between media with inter-sensory art. Drawing from a love of the outdoors, Tiesenga is inspired by the ways improvisation is analogous to cartography, how a map is analogous to a musical score - and how these theoretical terrains might be musically navigated / inhabited / manipulated. 

Maddi Baird is a Los Angeles-based composer, sound artist, and dj using performance and installation-based works along with empirical forms of research to explore the multifaceted ways in which humans relate to themselves, each other, and the natural world. They are actively examining the connections between tone, timbre, and acoustics as a means to further explore sound behaviors in collective environments.

Their work is enhanced through their role as a dj, which illuminates the intimate connections humans have with their physical bodies through sound. Working with archives of extinct and endangered sounds, they create immersive, textured soundscapes that use the evocative power of sounds to elicit “mood,” an experience that they distinguish from emotion because it is shared by both human and non-human agents. They are currently pursuing an MFA in Experimental Composition & Sound Practices with an emphasis in Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts