Environs No. 7

Environs Friday 10/17 at @dadabarnyc . Fresh grooves and excellent fusions of sound from @blk_ikwe, @friendswithheads, @paper_gem and a surprise guest!

Images from Environs No. 7

IKWE is an African American and Ojibwe artist and musician from St. Paul–Minneapolis, now based in Brooklyn. A first-generation descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, her multidisciplinary practice includes music composition, storytelling, audio-visual installation, and hand drum making. She is a two-time recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant (2018, 2019) and was awarded the 2022 AudioFemme Agenda Grant. In 2018, she was an Artist-in-Residence at The Shed, where she developed MAKADEWIIYAASIKWE (“a woman of African descent” in Ojibwe), a multidisciplinary performance work. Her work has been presented at the Wyckoff House, Lincoln Center Out of Doors with La Casita, Brooklyn Prelude Festival, SECCA (NC), Buckham Gallery (MI), Wa Na Wari (WA), and Blindside Gallery (Melbourne, Australia). Kelsey holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MA in Music Technology from NYU Steinhardt, where she developed a virtual Indigenous hand drum.

Friends with Heads is an electro-acoustic ensemble exploring compositional improvisation and experimental sound. Led by drummer Luke Runels, the group focuses on experiments in timbral dialogues, reductivist beats, and live warping. The pieces come together into a music that moves fluidly between droning ambient sound worlds, deep electronic grooves, and modal melodic jazz. Pulling from late Miles, along with the underground rhythms of the 90s, the late electronic work of Brad Mehldau, and Sakamoto—Friends with Heads feels like surrealism made sound; creating work that is both alien, and soulfully human. Luke Runels Ethan Cohn Tree Palmedo Alexander Baiz

paper gem produces sample-based hip hop and is experimenting with melding ambient, slowcore and electronic styles. He is a part of the 100Fold collective (a mix of rappers and producers) and has previously released projects with the collective, as a duo alongside rapper Nigel Xavier and beat tapes/remixes as a solo artist. He’s exploring visual art/collage and DJing to share some of his eclectic music tastes.