Music Mondays Presents: Sound Unbound, Volume 2

"If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If it’s still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." --John Cage.

Tonight Alamo Music Mondays presents Sound Unbound Volume 2, a film examining American avant-garde composers from the late 1940s through to the early 1980s. Through extensive interviews, performance footage and video art, the film focuses on experimental musicians (including John Cage, Philip Glass, Angus MacLise and Ornette Coleman) and attempts to connect the dots between music, film, visual art and dance.

Much like the music it documents, Sound Unbound initially appears to have an unusual rhythm – though it’s not in any real chronological or thematic order, it eventually settles into a natural, hypnotic groove, usually focusing on one composer at a time but often overlaying the genre's varied themes and personalities.

The film was compiled by local poet, musician and filmmaker Anne Heller (herself an experimental artist and member of the bands Aurora Plastics Company and the Austin Theremonic Orchestra), and we think you’ll find it makes a fantastic companion piece to the recent Music Mondays favorite A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise.

And if you Attend Sound Unbound tonight, you could win free tickets to the new Phillip Glass musical "Waiting for the Barbarians" at the Austin Lyric Opera in January!