HEVM / David Grubbs

Please join Ars Nova Workshop and the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania for Dreamweapons, a series of performances celebrating the multivalent influences of Tony Conrad. Conrad was a central figure in numerous experimental film, music, and performance communities from the early 1960s until his death in 2016. These events are presented in conjunction with ICA’s presentation of Introducing Tony Conrad: A Retrospective, the first large-scale museum survey devoted entirely to the artist.

HEVM is a new group comprised of three distinct voices that hail from disparate parts of the experimental pop landscape: MV Carbon, Eve Essex, and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix.

MV Carbon (cello, electronics, amplified objects, magnetic tape) performs as a solo artist and is a founding member of noise duo Metalux, which has released music on Load Records, Hanson Records, and Kill Rock Stars’ late, great experimental sublabel 5RC. Carbon collaborated with Conrad on multiple occasions in the past, including as part of an exhibition at the Tate Modern.

Based in Brooklyn, Eve Essex (alto sax, piccolo) is a solo artist whose work straddles the nexus between jazz, classical, and drone. In addition to her solo work, Essex plays in the experimental quartet Das Audit and the avant-garde ambient trio Hesper, which can be heard on the compilation Mono No Aware.

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (guitar, electronics) is best known as leader of the transcendental black metal band Liturgy, which has been dogged by controversy from certain segments of the metal community since its inception. Hunt-Hendrix also releases glitchy shamanic rap-metal under the name Kel Valhaal. This past year, he presented Origin of the Alimonies, the prologue to a multi-part video opera cycle entitled OIOION, which featured a live score from a 12-piece chamber orchestra.

David Grubbs has released fourteen solo albums and appeared on more than 190 releases, the most recent of which is Creep Mission (Blue Chopsticks, 2017).  In 2000, his The Spectrum Between (Drag City) was named “Album of the Year” in the London Sunday Times.  He is known for his cross-disciplinary collaborations with poet Susan Howe, visual artists Anthony McCall and Angela Bulloch, and choreographer Jonah Bokaer, and his work has been presented at, among other venues, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, the Tate Modern, and the Centre Pompidou.  Grubbs was a member of the groups Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and Squirrel Bait, and has performed with the Red Krayola, Will Oldham, Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, and Loren Connors, and many others.