Event: January 24th -- Daniel Higgs / Lauren Pakradooni



Open Mouth Records Presents:
Daniel Higgs and Lauren Pakradooni
Friday, January 24th, 7:00pm

Daniel Higgs
Higgs is known primarily for his work as the sole lyricist and frontman of the band Lungfish, a four-piece dedicated to charting, in this listener’s estimation, nothing short of the evolution of all species, known and unknown. That the band has undertaken this pursuit in the guise of a humble rock outfit, in the absence of any public relations fanfare, metanarrative, or manifesto has been enough to endear them to tens of thousands. They are enshrined as one of America’s last true folk bands, and Higgs anointed as a patron saint to artistic purity.

In recent years, Higgs has released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the ultimate in isolation, worlds away from the hypnotic, communal rock of his band. On Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot, Higgs weaves meditative, casually ruptured drones using acoustic and electric guitar, upright pianos, banjo and jew’s harp, recorded entirely at home on cassette recorder. He pairs the music with a series of paintings that call to mind religious iconography passed through the disfiguring surrealism of Miro.

Higgs has wedded his music and his visual art into a singular being, meant to be encountered as a conjuring force similar to that of the tarot experience. The yggdrasil is the great tree of Norse myth that connects all worlds of cosmology. Passing into Christian folklore, the tree is said to connect heaven and earth. In his relentless pursuit of the indivisible, Higgs travels up and down this spine and hatches a new transubstantiation of sound and image into life-form.
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Lauren Pakradooni

a Philadelphia-based visual artist and musician who produces and performs music under the moniker Tether in which she creates and manipulates cassette tape loops. Art multiples, repetition, and layering are a shared language between her visual and aural work. Her work emphasizes the slippage of form between the truly physical vestiges of ruins and the fantastical of half-rendered computer generated imagery.

$10 suggested
byo drinks & snax

Author Event: January 19th -- Our Flesh of Flames::Theodore A. Harris / Amiri Baraka

 Sunday, January 19th, 5:00pm
 Our Flesh of Flames::Theodore A. Harris / Amiri Baraka

collagist Theodore A. Harris will be presenting a recorded performance by the late poet Amiri Baraka reading his poem "Our Flesh of Flames" as composed in conjunction with Harris' collaged images.  Copies of Harris' book of collages with Baraka's poem will be available at the event for purchase. 

Our Flesh of Flames “Posed against an eerily iridescent orange sky,” and Harris’ collaged landscapes are filled with urban dystopia. Upside down capitols, distorted bank notes pose the reality of a society fettered by the cash nexus. Controversial critic and poet Amiri Baraka provides lyrical assault through his captions with his trademark humor and biting social commentary.

Theodore A. Harris is a collagist, poet, and has co-authored:
Our Flesh of Flames with Amiri Baraka
Malcolm X as Ideology with Fred Moten
i ran from it and was still in it and TRIPTYCH: Text by Amiri Baraka and Jack Hirschman.