Born in Lima, Peru and based in NYC, Maria Chávez is best known as an abstract turntablist, sound artist and DJ. Coincidence, chance and failures are themes that unite her work across mediums, including improvised performance, sound and marble sculpture, visual art, book objects and an extensive history with multi-channel installation. Her approach is rooted in Deep Listening, a form of embodied listening developed by her late mentor Pauline Oliveros. Maria’s relationship with Oliveros was recently covered in a BBC3 radio episode of Afterwords, chronicling the late composers impact on a new generation of artists. She also graced the cover of The Wire in April 2023 with The Turntable Trio.
Maria is the only abstract turntablist in the world who performs with a rare needle known as the RAKE Double Needle. This special device contains two needles on one head, allowing it to read two different segments of a single record at the same time. Paired with her inimitable ability to create unforgettable sonic experiences from shards of broken records, each performance is truly unique.
Maria’s practice is profoundly expansive, responsive and curious. Her work has been featured and supported by a myriad of institutions over the past decades including Rewire Festival, Counterflows Festival, Donau Festival, MoMA PS1, The Getty, DOCUMENTA 14, the JUDD Foundation, Cambridge University Press and many, many more. Chavez’s 2012 book, Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable has garnered a reputation as both an academic resource on turntablism and a foundational text for a new generation of turntablists.
With origins in the year 2024, Miracle Wastes is the duo project of Kwami Winfield and Charles Chatman, who quickly found kinship in their different approaches to glitchy noise improvisation. The resulting mischief of hardware, software, instrument, and object is a scrapyard oasis. A hazy latticework of tactile and digital rupture approaching concrete infinity. Miracle Wastes has released recordings and performed at noise festivals including Ende Tymes XVI and Buddyfest XI.
A mysterious superspreader of dank melodrama and musty grumblings, Winnipeg’s Barn Sour has a predilection for what he considers phoney actions, provisional disharmony, and farrier nails into tape. The roars, coughs, rustlings and detonations going on in those Manitoba barns walk the borderline between insanity and beauty.