Thor & Friends

Thor & Friends – Drogheda Arts Festival, 28th April

Swans’ Thor Harris will make two appearances at this year’s Drogheda Arts Festival

On Thursday April 27th at the Living Room in Sarsfields Thor performs An Ocean of Despair, his spoken-word work based on his personal experiences with depression, followed by a conversation with journalist, author & activist Michael McCaughan.

The following evening, Friday April 28th,  Thor will perform with his band Thor & Friends in St.Peter’s Church of Ireland for the only Irish date of their European tour.

Polymath percussionist Thor Harris inaugurated “Thor & Friends” in the autumn of 2015 after five years of touring as the percussionist of iconic avant-rock ensemble Swans. The project is intended as a vehicle for experimentation with the conceptual vocabulary of American Minimalism collaborating with a rotating cast of Austin-based musicians.

A crafter of musical instruments and stylistic polyglot Harris is returning home with Thor & Friends and the resultant music is an elongated greeting and ode to his community, woodworking shop and the instruments his hands shape and bring to life.

The ensemble has three core members, Thor, Peggy Ghorbani and Sarah “Goat” Gautier — with its line-up expanding and contracting with the flux of compositional and improvisational contexts. The range of tonal color depends on what instrumentalists are present or absent from the process at any given time. They can perform purely acoustic or shaded with hues of electronic instrumentation, as a stripped-down trio or a large ensemble.

Thor & Friends draws on classic Minimalist composers, including Terry Riley and Steve Reich, but also amalgamate such diverse influences as Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, Moondog and The Necks around a polyrhythmic core of mallet-struck instruments, primarily marimba, xylophone and vibraphone. Circling these core motifs are shifting streams of everything from processed pedal steel and analog synthesizer to violin, viola, stand-up bass, clarinet, duduk and oboe.

Tickets are available now for An Ocean of Despair and Thor & Friends from http://droghedaartsfestival.ie

http://www.thorharris.org
http://droghedaartsfestival.ie
http://thirtythree-45.com

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