Eric Ruin’s Ominous Cloud Ensemble / Chiff Chaff Trio

Philadelphia visual artist Erik Ruin and his Ominous Cloud Ensemble will be trying out a slightly different format than usual, a new immersive long-form four-channel performance-installation with each musician tied to a channel of projections. Imagery will combine animation, shadow puppetry and experimental video. This time around the ensemble will be guitarist DM Hotep of the Sun Ra Arkestra, cellist Tom Kraines of the Daedalus Quartet, Myles Donovan of Disemballerina and A Stick And A Stone on viola and Julius Masri AKA Mephisto Halabi on percussion and electronics.

Chiffchaff Trio—features Caleb Gamble (double bass), Tre Abalos (woodwinds), and Ricki Weidenhof (cello)—is based out of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and their  music blends structured improvisation with drones, microtonality, voice-play, and carefully woven samples. Raw, energetic bursts and quiet, immersive soundscapes emerge .

Erik Ruin’s Ominous Cloud Ensemble is an ever-evolving, collectively-improvising large ensemble for projections and music, led by visual artist Erik Ruin, recently lauded by The New York Times for his “spell-binding cut-paper animations.” Erik manipulates intricate paper-cuts and painted films on overhead projectors to create abstract landscapes and fragmentary scenes that are nonetheless charged with meaning, merging with music that ranges from dark atmospherics to ecstatic peaks of dissonance.