The Lab

The Lab is a nonprofit experimental art and performance space located in the Mission District of San Francisco.

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Strider + St Celfer (Co-Presented by Arab AMP)

  • The Lab 2948 16th St San Francisco, CA, 94103 (map)

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Doors 8pm / Show 8:30pm
$17 adv / $20 door / free or discounted for members
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We usher in the Arab.AMP 2025 season at The Lab with Strider—the longtime duo of Joanna Mattrey and Steve Long. The group’s alchemical procedures fuse together field recordings, found objects, derelict instruments, keyboards, bowed strings, to create ambient soundscapes in miniature. Our evening opens with St Celfer, the folk, glitch, improvisational project of john macdougall parker who asserts, "There is a lot of noise today—we just need to hear the music within it."

Directed by Leyya Mona Tawil, Arab.AMP is a platform for experimental live art, music and ideas by artists of the SWANA diaspora, the region, and our allied communities. The Arab.AMP 2025 season highlights practices of listening and action; through sound, performance and conversation.

Strider

Joanna Mattrey is a violist and composer exploring free improvisation and new music. Using extended techniques and electronic alterations, she creates ritualistic performances and installations. Recent works include Battle Ready and Arrhythmia. Press and album reviews by The Wire, The Chicago Reader, Bandcamp Daily, Noise Not Music, and more. 'Joanna Mattrey is becoming a force of nature' (Foxydigitals)

Steve Long is an artist and organizer working with sound, language, and space. For him, creative work is an act of facilitation. His recent composition Aug. 26, 2024 included both professional and amateur musicians, resulting in an ensemble of 60+ participants. Press and album reviews by Tabs Out, Foxy Digitals, New York Jazz Review, and more. '[Long's work], is an act of sanctity and spatial purification; not a containment but a reclamation and honest hope to provide such spaces where words and barriers can collapse.' (Tabs Out)

St Celfer

St Celfer, treading glitch-tronic failure, creates improvisational future-folk compositions - sound is amalgamated and congealed into a resolution of crossed and overloaded signals. In performance St Celfer embraces sensory overload in order to unlock ways of perceiving a world made narrow by the impositions of power. St Celfer (john macdougall parker), of American and Korean origin, floats between NYC, Seattle, and São Paulo where you can find drawings on the 'Space Between Points' in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACUSP). 4 albums over 4 years are named "New & Notable" by the editors at Bandcamp.com including one featured wave track for Infrasonica.org, ‘Voicing Abstraction.’ His music has been broadcast on Ridgewood Radio (WFMU), Radio Eclectus (KHUH) and Flotation Device (KBCS). Part of the '00's New York music scene playing CBGB's, The Kitchen, Tonic, The Tank, Remote Lounge, Galapagos Art Space, Sputnik, and Stinger Club. John, in the spirit of Charles Ives, always made art and music alongside being a coach and former Olympic athlete.