Author: Y2K Admin

Scott Kungha Drengsen

Y2k22 Artist, Y2K23 Artists, y2k23 Bassfest

Scott has been performing as a solo looping “bassartist” since 1998’s “Bassapes” CD . And, he was a part of the first International Looping Festival in Santa Cruz, California. He continues to explore and expand the parameters of the instrument, being influenced by Indian music, Spectralism, post-classical, Jazz and most any great bassist you could think of.(Scott Lafaro,Mick Karn, Al Fischer and Michael Manring have probably had the biggest impact)His performances have a strong improvisational element and can cover anything from soundscapes to Be-Bop. Everything emanating from his bass and pedalboard..  He performs on 6,7, 8 and 12 string basses of his own design and is a perennial invitee to the PhilJones Solo Bass Concert/Contest series.

His latest album is a rendition of the gnostic poem “Thunder, Perfect Mind” composed for the artist residency.

 His work (besides soundtracks, collaborations and cameos) can be found on YouTube and most all streaming services. 

Liz Ruvalcaba

Y2k22 Artist, Y2K23 Artists

Singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist live looping artist from Guadalajara. Her main instrument is her voice which makes her music sound atmospheric and ethereal deep rooted in mexican tradition. 

Specialist in choir and vocal ensembles and participating in opera galas, concerts with several orchestras around Mexico for more than 20 years, some of them under the direction of maestro Plácido Domingo and singing in the renowned world tour of maestro Andrea Bocelli.

Singer and songwriter in the live looping duo CIAN during six years with which she traveled to Havana Cuba to the ‘Les Voix Humaines’ International festival organized by maestro Leo Brouwer.

Liz has been actively participating in Y2K International Live looping Festivals since 2014 and she was honored with the invitation as Headliner artist in 2019 closing the festival’s main concert at the  mythical Catalyst Club. She has recorded two albums and one EP. The albums were in collaboration with an international project: ‘Positive Songs Project’ created in Birmingham U.K. during pandemic with the purpose of creating music that helps people overcome the negative effects of confinement in 2020. She has many long-distance collaborations focusing on experimental music and improvisation with artists like Samuel Hällkvist, Frank Payne, James Sidlo, Bill Austin and Rick Walker. And in Jazz and Folk music with Laura Stavinoha, Mickey Van Gelder and Richard Lomax aka Granfalloon.

With Mexican artists Liz has worked with artists like Leika Mochan, Juan Pablo Villa and Pilla Piano in Free Jazz. She is currently creative in the world of dance, composing original music for three different projects for Zarawato Bus Company and Alonso Noriega Dance Company.

Liz Ruvalcaba is Co-Director of the mexican chapter of the Y2K International Live Looping Festival since 2016. 

Eliud Ernandes

Y2K23 Artists, y2k23 Bassfest

Festival Headliner. Eliud Ernandes began his artistic training at the young age of four years old. He has received awards and recognition from institutions such as Yamaha in Mexico and Japan, the Consulate of Mexico in Houston, Texas, the office of Master Leo Brouwer in Havana, Cuba, and the Mayor’s Office of Santa Cruz, California. He has collaborated either recording or performing with artists from Mexico, Argentine, Frances, Spain, the Netherlands, and the US.

In addition to his musical activities, he is the founding director along with Lizeth Ruvalcaba of Mexico Y2K International Live Looping Festival, having as one of his main objectives linking the music and culture of various nations, generating an international community of artists that collaborate, dialogue and develop new ways of making music.

He is arranger and musical director of the Mexican productions of the off-Broadway musicals: Sessions, National Pastime and Paparazzi, and part of the project Broadway Without Borders, with which he is fully identified, since it does not only represent a job opening for Mexican artists abroad but more importantly, tear down the walls that divide us ideologically.

Pedeplei – aka Israel Peña (Mexico)

Y2k22 Artist, Y2K23 Artists

Pedeplei is an improvised electronic music project where Israel Peña explores the real time sound manipulation capabilities of the iPad. Israel’s performances are never planned or rehearsed, the music can be created with contact microphones, wine glasses, cans, iOS virtual synths or all of the above. The resulting music can sound like ambient music or EDM or cumbia or folktronica. 

https://pedeplei.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/pedeplei/
https://www.youtube.com/pedeplei

Gary Regina

Y2k22 Artist, Y2K23 Artists

Berklee College of Music alumnus Gary Regina live-records layers of music, producing trance-like grooves of increasing beauty and complexity, one piece at a time until the sound is that of a much larger band. His instruments include woodwinds, ethnic flutes, saxophones, percussion, guitar, wind synthesizer,vocals and a drum machine. His sound is very much his own, containing traces of trip-hop, world-beat and ambient music with jazz overtones.

2 Songs on Youtube: https://youtu.be/vXTbsR-FBA

Tim Thompson

Y2K23 Artists

Festival Headliner. Tim Thompson is a software engineer, musician, and interactive installation artist. His wide-ranging artistic work includes a programming language for MIDI, interactive installations at Burning Man and other festivals, musical performances with Playstation dance pads and QWERTY keyboards, and real-time video looping and processing with a handheld security camera. 

 Recently, Tim has focused on the expressive potential of three-dimensional input in visual music instruments, using devices such as the Microsoft Kinect (in the original Space Palette) and the Sensel Morph (in the newer Space Palette Pro).


Website:  https://timthompson.com

Wayne Jackson

Y2k22 Artist, Y2K23 Artists

Engineer worker drone by day, Wayne Jackson uses his shreds of free time to dabble in the arts. He has hosted, promoted, and performed in experimental music events in the Santa Cruz area for 20+ years (Woostockhausen 1998-2007, µHausen 2010-present, Electron Salon, Looping Festivals, R Duck Show). While his professional audio development has centered on sound engines for immersive VR and games, his private work has focussed on usage of “emergent systems”, specifically the genetic algorithm, to develop “augmented creativity” tools for himself and other sound and/or visual artists. With this in mind, be forewarned that his infrequent musical performances have a fly-by-night DIY aesthetic where the unexpected may occur for audience and performer alike.

Today’s performance features sampling experiments including a new “mutation loop diver”, granular synthesis, and a recent innovation in “artificial life” sampling…

Web links:
http://www.darwinarts.com
https://soundcloud.com/darwinarts
https://www.facebook.com/stanley.jackson.1848/

Los Hijos de Doña Loope – aka Marcos Garcia Fregoso (Mexico)

Artist, Y2k22 Artist

Marcos García Fregoso is an experimental guitarist from Guadalajara Jalisco who likes to use music as a vehicle to explore the inner-self. He is well versed in traditional regional Mexican song traditions and creates a strong combination of modern live looping sensibilities and Mexican roots music.

Marcos performs as “Los Hijos de Doña Loope” (The Children of Doña Loope)

https://youtube.com/channel/UC3OxVZCYaOYAvtC-YipMVfQ

Daniel Lewis

Artist, Y2k22 Artist

Daniel Vee Lewis is bassist from Santa Cruz California.

A former MCA recording artist and local performer for over 35 years. Jaco Pastorius , Mick Karn , among many others Bass players have been inspirational in his development. “The first looping I ever saw/heard was Jaco , performing ‘Slang’ , so magical and inspiring !” 

EToOto (aka Yasushi Matsui)

Artist, Y2k22 Artist

Painting with Sound

EToOto is romanized Japanese, which means “Painting with Sound”.

Yasushi Matsui aims to establish new and innovative techniques that fuse together painting with sound

since technological developments have made possible the unity of a brush stroke with a sound. This project started the end of 2013, and got evolved with new technologies, programs and devices by trial and error.

Along with releasing the demo performance and tutorial videos, in 2018 the project featured in CODAME Art+Tech / Intersection in San Francisco, and also gave the presentation and performance at MINT (Music in New Technology) in Nova Scotia.

The latest experience is incorporating a tablet-sized pressure sensor, Sensel Morph, to improve the accuracy and sensitivity getting a new velocity as Twist and Pressure. Accompanied by self-built Puredata Patch, named ChromaticA, it creates new experience of conducting the sound with feedback loops and effects musically and expressively while I paint.
Web:

Website: http://paintingwithsound.net/
Youtube: https://youtu.be/7vAYdQPdbFU
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/etootopws/

Giacomo Fiore

Artist, Y2k22 Artist

Italian-born guitarist and musicologist Giacomo Fiore has premiered more than two dozen new works for justly-tuned, electric, and classical guitars, and released several recordings for Populist, Cold Blue, Pinna, Spectropol, Paper Garden Records, and his own impressum. As a scholar his research focuses on U.S. experimental music, intonation, and performance; he has published articles in Music Theory Spectrum, the Journal of the Society for the American Music, and TEMPO, and writes occasionally for Classical Guitar and SFCV. He teaches a wide range of historical and practical music courses at the University of San Francisco and UC Santa Cruz.

Giacomo is a member of Ninth Planet New Music (the chamber group formerly known as Wild Rumpus), and an occasional performer for New Music Works, sfSound, and other Bay Area organizations. He has served as a curator for the Center for New Music since 2019, and as the vice-president of the Northern California Chapter of the American Musicological Society from 2015 to 2019.

twitter: @gfguitar

instagram: @gfgeetar

website: www.giacomofiore.com

photo by Ross Victors

Katja Šulc

Artist, Y2k22 Artist

Katja Šulc is a singer, songwriter and musician from Slovenia. Moving between contemporary folk, chanson, traditional and experimental music, her work is characterized by poetry set to music and emotional, hypnotic atmospheres produced by  loop pedals, effects and vocal processors.

Katja studied music in Slovenia and US (New School, New York – Jazz & Contemporary Music Program)  Her debut album MILA (Sanje, 2008) is featuring poetry by Slovenian actress and poetess Mila Kačič. TWISTED DELIGHT (Celinka, 2013) set to music Katja’s own lyrics written at poetry workshops in New York. KAMLISAJLAN  (Casete México, 2016) presents Rromani poetry from Balkans and Eastern Europe. 

Complex, outstanding and critically acclaimed album reached several international radio stations (BBC, IMER, WFMU, RNE) and has been presented regionally and further, in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, France, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Nepal, China, United States, Mexico, Guatemala. Katja’s latest album CARICIAS (Casete México, 2021) is inspired by Mexico, including contemporary, folk and indigenous poems and songs. Having spent a major part of the decade in the country, Katja delivers a subtle homage to Mexico drawing from personal stories, old traditions and contemporary flows.

‘Caricias is fascinating, not fitting into any neat genres or boxes. You get the drift: this is fieldwork turned into contemporary, experimental folk song.’ – Songlines

‘Minimalistic layers that open up a mystical dimension with the spirit of magical realism.’ –Mladina

‘The magic lies in whispering, tender chirping and murmuring that revive traditional Rroma poetry in a modern, accessible form.’ – Radio Student

‘Otherworldly voice filled with warmth and power.’ – Music Traveler

www.katjasmusic.com