To some, it might look like a musician’s paradise; Hours and hours of 30-minute performances by artists from multiple countries and multiple music genres, all jamming with, well, themselves and a bunch of looping equipment. What you might NOT know, is that Santa Cruz is the place that spawned much of the international craze called looping. Looping is essentially a sound or word or tone recorded as a repeating audio sample and used as an ever-evolving soundscape to play an instrument or sing over. Since Covid crashed the 20th anniversary, Rick Walker, long time advocate and practitioner of looping and local music icon, has brought 30 looping artists to Santa Cruz from many countries to play a “post-covid” show at the Tannery Arts Center’s Indexical space. Here’s more from Rick:
For immediate release:
Y2K22 “Pandemic Edition” INTERNATIONAL LIVE LOOPING FESTIVAL
October 19th through 24th
For the first time in 3 years, the Y2K22 INTERNATIONAL LIVE LOOPING
FESTIVAL will resume with a special ‘Pandemic Edition” featuring shows
in San Jose, Scotts Valley and the MAIN FESTIVAL at INDEXICAL
(1050 River St., #119) in the Tannery complex in Santa Cruz on Saturday and Sunday,
OCTOBER 22nd and 23rd.
The Festival Headliners Concert on Sunday, will feature performances by
George Demarest (USA), Israel Pena (Mexico), Katja Sulc (Slovenia) EToOto (Japan) and
Philippe Ollivier (France) and R DUCK (USA).
George Demarest is an American multi-instrumentalist who has been performing live looping
concerts for over 20 years. A highly accomplished classical Flugehornist and Trumpeter, he also
plays keyboards and uses a beautiful singing voice as well as Wind Synthesizers to augment his performances.
Israel Pena is a very creative iOS artist who
mixes found sounds and synthetic sound into a highly eclectic and idiosyncratic take on
sound design and performance.
Katja Sulc is an art-chamber vocalist
using minimal instrumentation to create an ethereal blend of human voice and processing.
EtoOto is a fascinating artist (originally from Japan) who mixes real time digital painting with his own software creations that converts his paintings into sounds and
Philippe Ollivier is a master Bandeonist whose
powerful, state of the art looping software, LOGELLOOP he created
with his own software company and which he uses to create a beautiful blend of ‘out of the box’
acoustic/electronic music.
R Duck is an experimental electro acoustic artist who has been featured in many live looping festivals and frequently at the presigious Woodstockhausen and Micro-Hausen Experimental music festivals. He is noted
for continually weaving a Dadaistic sense of humor to everything he performs. His shows are a delight.
R Duck is also famous for his very long term association with supporting New Music in Santa Cruz with his radio programs on Radio Free Santa Cruz, the Pirate radio station that has been pivotal in the Avante Garde music scene in Santa Cruz County.
There will also be a BEST of the Y2K22 LIVE LOOPING FESTIVAL on
Wednesday, October 19th at the Anno Domini Gallery (366 S First Street, San Jose),
an outdoor Tribute to the Loopers of Mexico on Thursday, October 20th
at Robbie’s Pizza and Subs (841 B Branciforte, Santa Cruz) as well as and a final
LOOPERS BRUNCH at Abbott Square (725 Front St, Santa Cruz) on Monday, October 24th.
About the festival: The Y2K International Live Looping Festival is the longest running
and largest international live looping festival. In it’s 20 years of existence, it has brought
hundreds of live looping artists from all over the world to participate and it spawned
satellite festivals and directly inspired the creation of live looping festivals in
100 cities in 30 countries, worldwide. Additionally, a large amount of the innovation,
technically, in the International Live Looping community has come directly from artists
who create their own looping software and hardware (many of which have been featured
in World Premiere presentations and performances).
The community is entirely funded by it’s participants and all the artists who perform
travel to the festival from all over the world on their own dime. The Y2K International
Live Looping Festival is also has 501C Non Profit status and relies on the donations
of all those who enjoy the festival.
For more information, interviews, photographs or artist profiles, as well as
a Full Schedule of this year’s festival, please contact: Rick Walker at looppool@cruzio.com
text: +1 (831) 425-8659
or go to the Festival website at y2kloopfest.com
