8pm Doors / 8:30pm Sound Tickets $18 (discounted or free for members) By purchasing a ticket, you agree that you and all guests are fully vaccinated. Masks will be required inside. The Lab will be limiting attendance to half capacity for all events and providing full refunds / live streaming options for guests who experience symptoms of illness of any kind. Email us at thelabsf@thelab.org with questions.
Ka Baird is an American multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, producer, and performer based in New York City. She is heralded for her raw, ecstatic, boundary pushing live solo performances involving highly energetic experimental body movements, extended vocal techniques and mic use, luminous driving flute meditations, and innovative use of live electronics. She creates a radically present tense and vigorous type of “body music" that seeks extreme release through physical exertion and psychic extension. Her latest recoding "Respires" on Brooklyn based imprint RVNG Intl was included on Pitchfork's Best Experimental Albums of 2019 list. Her previous album "Sapropelic Pycnic" was released through independent label Drag City in 2017. She is one of the founding and continuing members of the legendary psych-folk/avant-garde group Spires That In The Sunset Rise founded in Chicago in 2001. Recent national and international engagements have included performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), MoMA PS1, Issue Project Room, TUSK (Newcastle, UK), Incubate (Tilburg, Netherlands), KRAAK (Brussels, Belgium), Le Guess Who (Utrecht, Netherlands), and the Festival Of Endless Gratitude (Copenhagen, DK). She has been a music resident at Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago, IL), Pioneer Works (Brooklyn) and was a 2018 Jerome Foundation Artist-in-Residence at Roulette Intermedium.
Guitarist, singer, and player of some species of dismantled electrified folk, John Saint Pelvyn is a musical enigma of the best kind. At the root of his playing is something akin to fingerstyle blues, but rich with quivering whammy bar wobble and shimmering feedback which he seems to harvest from the air using his guitar like a musical dowsing rod. His playing is often interwoven with melodies sung in a haunting countertenor or occasionally slashed through by unnerving theremin squelches, an instrument he plays with a raw unschooled furry that has drawn comparisons to Beefheart’s approach to clarinet. One also finds an affinity for the likes of Robby Basho or Loren Mazzacane- Connors here, but this music is perhaps best likened to cinematic landscapes; sometimes harsh, sometimes otherworldly, but often as delicate as a hummingbird's wing. “When wandering the stage singing into the F-holes of his electric arch top bringing forth arpeggios of feedback, or waving the neck of his guitar in the vicinity of a howling theremin, indeed, he seems to be playing the very air itself.” – Electro Motive Records
We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. If you have questions about accessibility or require an accommodation such as captioning or ASL interpretation to participate in this event, please contact The Lab at thelabsf@thelab.org or via telephone at (415) 864-8855. Requests made by two weeks in advance will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but The Lab will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.
