Sabaw Presents The Arvie Bartolome Experience

S.A.B.A.W. Presents
"THE ARVIE BARTOLOME EXPERIENCE"
WHEN: June 22, 2007, 9pm
WHERE: Mag:net Café, Katipunan
AGCOR Building (In front of Mirriam College)
335 Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City
http://www.magnet. com.ph/
ADMISSION: 100 Php

S.A.B.A.W. will be releasing Arvie Bartolome's debut album, "HEAD EGO", a four-part anthology album of Arvie's work from 1998 until 2007. S.A.B.A.W. will also be releasing his latest album, "MY SHOEGAZING EXPERIENCE", which is a conceptual "pseudo-shoegazing" recording (read on), so absurd and ridiculous that only Arvie could have thought of it. Arvie is one of the country's unrecognized geniuses in the music scene, a silent outsider musician, a practicing sound engineer, and a clinically schizophrenic. Relatively unknown in his own country's local music scene, Arvie has been making music for more than a decade. He describes his music as vague and cryptic as "been some 14 years of music for me. Dived into several genres in the process and somehow made quite a mess with my taste." Arvie has been suffering from Schizophrenia since 2002. His work is highly idiosyncratic and unconventional that it often displays its own internal logic - straddling the thin line between absurd insanity and genius.

During the event there will be live performances by local sound artists, video artists and musicians.

PERFORMERS:
Blums Borres (on video) vs Inconnu ictu
Elemento + Ugong
Pow Martinez + Sharam Kiyoumarsi
Ria Munoz + Atchoo Ilagan
The Loveteam
ARVIE BARTOLOME (Main Act)

BLUMS BORRES is a time-based media artist who experiements with sound, video, and animation. He has a BA in Multimedia Arts from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He took major subjects in 3D animation and minor subjects in sound composition. Currently, he is the technical director of the computer graphics department of Toei Animation Philippines and is addicted to the online MMORPG game, Rappelz.

ELEMENTO is the brainchild of experimental multi-media artist Lirio Salvador. Lirio Salvador, a native of the Philippines has created a number of experimental instruments based on his own concept of ethno-industrial art/music. His band Elemento produces oriental industrial noises and experimental music using his own instruments that include strings, electronics, winds and percussion.

Inconnu is Latin for "unknown person", while ictu means "a stroke or a blow" and when combined the meaning can be described to the person behind INCONNU ICTU. His fixation with a plethora of analog electronic devices and being infamous for playing "too loud" has earned him the title as "The Philippine Merzbow".

Conceptual + Sound + Science + Philosophy + Experimentation + Tradition = UGONG

POW MARTINEZ is a practicing visual artist and sound artist. He used to play with Ria Muñoz in a sound art duo, Nasal Police. SHARAM KIYOUMARSI is a guitarist from legendary underground grindcore metal band, L.O.C. (Loss of Control). The two have been collaborating recently and will perform their own brand of "drone doom" on album launching.

RIA MUÑOZ first worked with another sound artist Pow Martinez as the duo Nasal Police, doing sounds for most of the performances and dance projects by contemporary dancer Donna Miranda at CCP, notably for the WIFI project and for series of Anatomy Projects at Green Papaya. ATCHOO ILAGAN is a drummer, most notably for the band of "wonder girls", Wake Up Your Seatmate. The two had performed together once on Ria's solo album, Sough, and will pair up on a live performance on
the 22nd.

THE LOVE TEAM consists of Julius Valledor as frontman and guitars, Mister Puppy on lead guitar, Nick Lazaro on drums, and Diego Abad on bass and according to them they don't know what the hell they're doing.

THE ALBUMS:

HEAD EGO is comprised of his old cassette music dating back from 1998, where its alienating sounds, forlorn melodies, and demented disco beats, drove him mad, that he destroyed all existing copies of the music, smashed his computer and his head on the wall after four years where his first schizophrenic breakdown occurred. According to Arvie, "the music was a hinting of my psychosis" I was somewhat singing to things that are inexistent." HEAD EGO, he claims was "made out of deluded thoughts and feelings- that I had this habit for delusion unconsciously? kind of thought that I knew exactly what I was? and that found its way to a great disillusion? " Having all existing copies of HEAD EGO destroyed, only after FIVE years, a cassette copy was unearthed from a friend whom he had given a copy, years ago.

Being a four-part anthology, the album consists of the "infamous lost cassette tapes", with fairly recent various EPs: "Dysfunctional Noose", "It's pathetic but it's true" and "My Schizophrenic Love Story" whereas he claims that "My Schizophrenic Love Story emphasized expression of being in a severe state of erotomania." The album draws influences (to the point of twisted imitation) from NIN, Aphex Twin, John Zorn, Slint, Marilyn Manson, and My Bloody Valentine, among others. HEAD EGO is presented like a broken puzzle where the pieces do not fit. Although the songs are arranged chronologically, they can also be played at random, making each listen a new discovery. HEAD EGO is a physical manifestation of his mental breakdown and his attempts to redeem his sanity. It is his most personal album yet.

MY SHOEGAZING EXPERIENCE is a concept album that plays with the shoegazing genre and it also presents the "lighter and playful side" of Arvie Bartolome. Its concept is so absurd and ridiculous that it has become one of the most original ideas this year so far. The concept: consists of an imaginary recording session wherein he had at his disposal, more than a dozen stomp boxes (guitar effects), a couple of drum machines, stacks of huge amplifiers all miked and hooked into a multi-track recorder and subsequently gets all the equipment destroyed and toasted due to extreme levels and voltage overdrive. In real life, he was only equipped with a small old Macintosh computer, a few music software demos (notably Guitar Rig 2 demo) and his trusty Fender Stratocaster and an insane amount of creativity and concentration to be able to record thru the whole thing in two 15-minute takes without readily hearing the result of what he was recording! Amazingly, he emulates all the "destruction" he has done with his imaginary equipment the unwanted noises, the crackling of electricity, the muddy recorded sounds due to popping wires, to the sound of burning amps; and is skillfully able to make the recording melodically and aurally interesting.

"Shoegazing" is a genre of alternative rock in UK and coined by the Brit music press because the musicians in these bands maintained a motionless performing style, where they stood on stage and stared at the floor while playing their instruments, hence the idea that they were gazing at their shoes. Therefore, My Shoegazing Experience is "pseudo-shoegazing" because he never even sets an eye on his feet during the album's creative process. All the eleven tracks in this album chronologically tell the tale of Arvie's "Shoegazing Experience", and it also includes two bonus tracks that are soon to be "sleeper hits".


ALL ALBUMS COMPILED AND PRODUCED BY TENGAL.
ALL ALBUMS ARE LIMITED TO A FEW COPIES ONLY!
For album orders and reservations, questions and feedback please contact:
Tengal: Call 0920.6045559 or Email tengald@gmail.com for more details.

S.A.B.A.W. is a sound art collective and record label that represents a cross-section of sound artists, performance artists, contemporary musician-composers and is dedicated to promoting and releasing the best in avant-garde, experimental and noise music in the Philippines.
www.sabaw.tk
www.groups.yahoo. com/groups/sabaw