Ann Arbor musician and artist Jib Kidder conquered AADL's 2022 Summer Game

MUSIC PULP LIFE INTERVIEW

Jib Kidder sits in a blue fabric sling and on a gray yoga ball. He's in his basement, which has colorful puzzle mats on the floor.

He came in like a yoga ball: Jib Kidder hangs out in his basement. Photo by Io Schuster-Craig.

When the Ann Arbor District Library's 2022 Summer Game came to a close on August 28, one name was top of the leaderboard among the record-breaking 10,114 participants:

Jib Kidder.

That name might be unfamiliar to you if you're not into underground electronic music—or missed the 2013 episode of So You Think You Can Dance that featured a guy getting down to "Windowdipper," Kidder's booty-bass track built from samples culled from the Windows operating system.

But for the past 15 years, the man born Sean Schuster-Craig has explored the more esoteric and experimental side of electronic music with relentless vigor while never losing track of the beat. When listening to his music, I kept thinking of the out-there sounds of Aphex Twin and Autechre if they kept their love of hip-hop in the foreground, but Jib Kidder cuts a singular figure as a creative individual.

Whether as a musician, visual artist, video creator, or in the case of our email conversation below, a writer, Kidder approaches his creative endeavors with a slice-and-dice intellectualism that mixes collage, social theory, and humor. (A recent post on his sometimes inscrutable Instagram account features an image with the words "philosophy is just electronic music but words," which seems an indicator of his approach to the arts.)

Kidder cites Weird Al as an early influence, but I have to think avant-garde art and political movements like the anti-capitalist Dadaists and Situationists are right up there, too, alongside his professed love of 1990s Southern hip-hop and, as he told me in one email, "Lindsey Buckingham and Roy Orbison - huge influences." (Kidder is also a classically trained guitarist in addition to being a sampling savant.)

Ann Arbor electronic-music producer Jack Withers turns sadness into sound on his new album, "The Price of Beauty"

MUSIC INTERVIEW

Jack Withers standing outside next to a street. He has close-cropped hair and is wearing a white T-shirt.

How does an artist alchemize sadness into something beautiful?

Ann Arbor producer Jack Withers ponders this question on his third album, The Price of Beauty.

Withers has released music consistently since around 2019 and is heavily involved in the electronic music community in Ann Arbor as co-president and graphic designer for the Michigan Electronic Music Collective. His music, with influences from Aphex Twin to Flume, ranges from energetic drum 'n' bass to organic ambient sounds.

The Price of Beauty is Wither's shortest album. It's also his most experimental while at the same time feeling the most grounded, perhaps due to a more pared-down sound.

We talked with Withers about his new album, his work, and what’s next.

Future State: The Portingales draw from past experiences on “Paint a Little Tree” album

MUSIC INTERVIEW

The Portingales’ Phillip Campbell and V. Rose Cieri perform “Beautiful Soul” at Ann Arbor’s Big Sky Recording.

The Portingales’ Phillip Campbell and V. Rose Cieri perform “Beautiful Soul” at Ann Arbor’s Big Sky Recording. Photo courtesy of The Portingales.

The Portingales thoughtfully depict the future on Paint a Little Tree.

The second album by the Ann Arbor indie-rock duo of Phillip Campbell (vocals, guitars, bass, drums, piano) and V. Rose Cieri (vocals, violin, viola, cello) explores how past experiences, relationships, and life lessons affect how we handle what’s to come.

“I really feel like the theme of this album is ... ‘Your life is what you’re going to make of it. What choices today will you [make] to create the life that you want for yourself while coming to terms with where you’ve been?’” Campbell said. “It’s very much an album at the crossroads of life where you’re sorting things out.”

At that pivotal moment, The Portingales hover between a glistening hope and a haunting melancholy on Paint a Little Tree. Each track elicits a deep search for identity and purpose while tackling longtime challenges and setbacks.

Friday Five: Human Skull, Molly Jones & Hunter Brown, Dillan Pribak, Broomway, Future Holograms

MUSIC FRIDAY FIVE

Friday Five album covers for the artists featured in the column

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features punk-ish rock by Human Skull, avant-garde sound sculpting by Molly Jones & Hunter Brown, and various takes on electronica subgenres by Dillan Pribak, Broomway, and Future Holograms.

 

​​University of Michigan Museum of Art’s expansive "Watershed" exhibit flows through the political and social history of the Great Lakes region

VISUAL ART REVIEW

UMMA's Watershed exhibit

Inside the gallery at ​​the University of Michigan Museum of Art's Watershed exhibit. Photo courtesy of UMMA.

​​University of Michigan Museum of Art’s (UMMA) Watershed exhibition comments on the complicated relationship the Great Lakes region has with water. Despite the area's broad access to fresh water, cities like Flint have endured ongoing water crises, rivers like the Huron are impacted by contaminating spills, and the Great Lakes watersheds continue to degrade.

The exhibit brings together a diverse group of 15 contemporary artists whose works focus broadly on the Great Lakes area. Watershed offers wall text in both English and Anishinaabemowin (translated by Margaret Noodin and Michael Zimmerman, Jr.) in recognition of the Anishinaabeg (commonly referred to as Ojibwe) being indigenous to the Great Lakes region.

​​Watershed is complex and expansive. As curator Jennifer Friess states, it “immerses visitors in the interconnected histories, present lives, and imagined futures of the Great Lakes region.” The exhibition title refers to “the geographical network of the Great Lakes basin—the five lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior) and rivers, streams, and reservoirs that feed into them.”

The artists’ engagement with the concept of the Great Lakes regions’ rich and often exploited resources vary in scope and content, offering a wide array of responses to past, present, and future iterations of activism and justice related to these waterways. Friess notes, “Many sound an alarm about the pervasive and lasting effects of corporate self-interest and extractive pollution. … All demonstrate how art can contribute to and shape current dialogues on the critical problems confronting our region.” 

​​As noted, this exhibition features six new commissions from artists selected by the museum:

Look Up: Astronomy at the Beach returns for first in-person event since 2019—and will create a comet

PULP LIFE INTERVIEW

A sunset shot in front of a lake with telescopes set up and silhouettes of people.

Photo courtesy of Astronomy at the Beach.

Astronomy at the Beach (AATB) is an annual two-day event each fall sponsored by the Great Lakes Association of Astronomy Clubs. This year AATB will take place in person after two years as a virtual-only event. It runs September 16 and 17, from 4 pm until midnight each day, at the Island Lake Picnic Grounds inside Island Lake State Recreation Area in Brighton, Michigan.

We asked AATB’s communications volunteer Brian Ottum to give us an overview of the event and what we can expect this year.

Friday Five: William Bolcom, Michael Malis and Virago, Jack Withers, Nadim Azzam, Mark Zhu

MUSIC FRIDAY FIVE

Albums covers for the musicians featured in Friday Five 09-02-2022

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features composer William Bolcom, post-classical new music by Michael Malis and Virago, electronica by Jack Withers, singer-songwriter hip-hop by Nadim Azzam, and a music video for Mark Zhu's recent ballad.

 

Agent Audio: Ypsilanti label AGN7 runs a stealth operation dedicated to drum 'n' bass music

MUSIC INTERVIEW

AGN7 Audio logo

Scrolling through Bandcamp’s releases tagged “Ypsilanti,” it won’t be long before you find a mysterious label called AGN7 Audio that's releasing top-notch new drum 'n' bass songs and albums—along with some techno and dub—by artists from around the world.

Founded in 2015, AGN7—pronounced “Agent"—is one of the few modern labels to focus so deeply on d 'n' b, also known as jungle, which started in the early '90s U.K. rave scene and is characterized by fast, skittering breakbeats and a dystopian-funk vibe.

Despite garnering respect among hardcore junglists, there’s not much AGN7 information or media coverage out there, and the label tends to keep a low profile. So we reached out to AGN7 co-founder and current chief, Aaren Alseri—aka Ronin Selecta in his DJ days—to learn about the label's origin, influences, and future. 

In U-M prof Jacinda Townsend’s “Mother Country,” one woman claims another’s daughter and perpetuates family patterns

WRITTEN WORD INTERVIEW

Author Jacinda Townsend and her book Mother Country

“Some people wanted freedom, she thought, and others wanted safety. She’d never find the two in the same place.” 

This reflection by the character, Souria, in Mother Country weighs the impossible choices that characters make—or are forced to make. Jacinda Townsend’s new novel examines the repercussions of human trafficking, the implications of family bonds, and cross-continental ties. Townsend is the Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Fiction at the University of Michigan. She is also the author of the novel Saint Monkey.

In Mother Country, when one mother, Souria, loses her child in Marrakech, another woman, Shannon, becomes a mother, gains a daughter, and brings her to Louisville, Kentucky, even though the events leading up to the switch—and also following it—are problem-ridden. Shannon learns, “The right thing never felt like the good thing.”

Souria’s and Shannon’s lives intertwine in ways made more visible by chapters that alternate between narrating their two separate lives. Later on, the perspective of the daughter—once known as Yumni, then as Mardi—emerges, as well as that of Vlad, who is Shannon’s husband. They all are cognizant of their missteps in life, but there is no turning back to change them. For example, Shannon, who often gets high to blunt the lingering pain from her near-fatal car wreck, perceives her flaws, yet cannot remedy them: 

Friday Five: ​​​​​​​PRISM Quartet / Timothy McAllister and Liz Ames, Von Siwel, Doogatron, Flight Patterns, Rosary

MUSIC FRIDAY FIVE

Friday Five album covers for August 26, 2022 featuring PRISM Quartet / Timothy McAllister and Liz Ames, Von Siwel, Doogatron, Flight Patterns, Rosary

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features classical-jazz-new music by PRISM Quartet / Timothy McAllister and Liz Ames, R&B via Von Siwel, techno by Doogatron, emo-indie courtesy Flight Patterns, and synth-pop by Rosary.