Press
July 27, 2011 : Playback’s AudioBus Takes the Show on the Road — Literally, SFWeekly
“Mediate’s Playback series does this one better, featuring “the most acclaimed events” (read: audience favorites) from its already well-regarded (read: expertly curated) Soundwave Festival”. Read Article
July 27, 2011 : Playback: AudioBus, SF Bay Guardian
“Every few years, the Soundwave Festival inundates the Bay Area with adventurous sonic experiences, like watching tiny solar-powered speakers bloom like flowers on Civic Center trees, or hearing a concrete bunker in Marin reverberate with waves of bass.” Read Article
July 19, 2011 : Party on a Bus, SF Station
“Not your typical method of partying, the open-top double-decker AudioBus has been traveling the streets of San Francisco for nearly three years now while musicians onboard provide a soundtrack appropriate for the scenery passing by.” Read Article
August 9, 2010 : The End of Soundwave on Pirate Cat Radio
Artistic Director Alan So talks about the end of Soundwave Festival ((4)): Green Sound and reminisces the past two-month festival on Tiny Antennas Have Large Receptors with DJ Words and DJ Rousch. Listen to Clip
August 6, 2010 : Soundwave Festival’s Illuminated Forest Sees Final Performances, SFWeekly
“Video art. Interactive sound. Live performances. All in a high-tech “Illuminated Forest” that only truly comes alive when humans enter. (Yes, it knows when humans enter.) This is the Soundwave Festival’s Illuminated Forest exhibit — a so-called “multimedia exhibit and reactive performance space” at the Lab.” Read Article
July 30, 2010 : SF Artists Explore What ‘Green’ Sounds Like by Jennifer Hattam, Treehugger
“What does “green” sound like? Artists and musicians in San Francisco are attempting to answer that tricky question with a series of avant-sound performances and shows, including a month-long installation that allows visitors to explore an illuminated “forest” that changes with their presence, reflecting the impact people have on real ecosystems.” Read Article
July 30, 2010 : Cold Core by Michael Leaverton, SFWeekly
“Good sound artists don’t do things halfway. Cheryl Leonard was interested in the Antarctic, so she went to the Antarctic. She collected field recordings — of penguins, seals, birds, ice, storms. She made instruments — of penguin bones, limpet shells, ice, rocks.” Read Article
July 23, 2010 : Editor’s Pick of the Week, Flavorpill
“The duo spins out spooky electronic drone music on treated electric guitars. The Gothic jams are also inspired by Bay Area natural wonders like Muir Woods and the Presidio. Tonight at the Lab, Barn Owl uses their dark, atmospheric music to haunt the Illuminated Forest, a multimedia landscape created from projections, sound, lights, and shadows.” Read Article
July 19, 2010 : All Natural Technology by Tonya Warner, ArtSlant
“The exhibition strongly makes the case that man’s relationship to the natural world has shifted so thoroughly that the intervention of interactive technologies seems not only logical but the necessary way in which to engage an audience. The star of the show, however, is not the machines themselves but their source material, which has been craftily reinvented into a rather fantastical landscape.” Read Article
July 16, 2010 : Illuminated Forest by Jessica Wise
Academy of Art student, Jessica Wise, produces a wonderful video piece about the Illuminated Forest. View Here
July 14, 2010 : Shrouds Illuminated, SF Bay Guardian
“I walked in and these great swaths of white tulle were draped, floor to ceiling in front of the entryway and all around the exhibit hall, separating each small nook from the next cranny, and providing screenage for video projections of forest color and form.” Read Article
July 5, 2010 : Soundwave Fest on KUSF 90.3FM
Artistic Director Alan So and Technical Director Jorge Bachmann previews the Illuminated Forest on KUSF 90.3FM on Monday at 10:30am with DJ Jacob featuring tracks by Geraud Béc, Jim Haynes and Alyce Santoro. Listen to Clip
July 4, 2010 : Soundwave Fest on KALX 90.7FM
Artistic Director Alan So talks about the Soundwave Festival on KALX 90.7FM on Amazing Grace Sunday at 12p with DJ Helen featuring tracks by REDSHIFT, Barn Owl, Odessa Chen, Crooked Jades, Myrmyr, The Drift, Geraud Béc, Thomas Carnacki, Christopher Willits, and Cheryl E. Leonard. Listen to Clip
June 10, 2010 : Soundwave Festival by Tessa Stuart, KQED
“Strange noises echoed out of an abandoned WWII fortification hollowed into the hillside above Rodeo Beach. Gregg Kowalsky orchestrated elegant, almost hypnotic, loops that reverberated viscerally around the audience; Jacob Felix Heule and Kanoko Nishi stormed the tunnel with an incredibly cinematic improvisational duet; Fog billowed around Danny Paul Grody mixing and re-layering loops of feedback as swallows darted in and out of the battery circling the audience in such perfect sync with the music it was as if Grody had choreographed their movements.” Read Article
June 8, 2010 : Sounding Good by Michael Leaverton, SFWeekly
“Unweathered Embers takes place in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, a 1895 Romanesque Revival building designed by architect Henry Geilfuss. The red-brick masterpiece structure has two towers, pointed arches, pier buttresses, a rose window, and a large, fine organ. Why are we telling you so much about it? Because for Unweathered Embers, part of the ambitiously Soundwave Festival ((4)) Green Sound, you should consider St. Mark’s not only part of the band, but its throat.” Read Article
June 1, 2010 : Spill It Over by Marke B, SF Bay Guardian
“…we may be entering a genre-free experiential zone. So why not step it up by immersing yourself in the two-month wonder of our very own experiential music festival, Soundwave? Trust, it’ll be amazeballs. There will be illuminated forests. There will be “extreme natural resonance” drones in abandoned bunkers. There will be live string duets inside famous sculptures.” Read Article.
May 28, 2010 : Soundwave Fest Preview on Pirate Cat Radio
Artistic Director Alan So previews GREEN SOUND on Psionic Dehiscence with DJ Yuri G on Pirate Cat Radio 87.9FM San Francisco. Listen to Clip
July 20, 2008 : Academik.org
“The AudioBus: one of those rare ‘life doesn’t get any better than this’ moments” Read
July 10, 2008 : SF Chronicle 96 Hours by Reyhan Harmanci
“AudioBus’s installation create[s] unique, participatory sound experiences.” Read
July 8, 2008 : Nitevibe, Issue 344
“[AudioBus] may be the coolest ride of the year…sure to permanently change the way you think about – and listen to – SF.”
July 2, 2008 : Last Tango in Traffic by Jennifer Maertz, SF Weekly
“what better place to have a city music festival than on a bus…commuting takes on new meaning.” Read
August 21, 2007 : THE BEST’07: PROJECT>SOUNDWAVE
Project>Soundwave awarded ‘Best Sound Sculptures: Future Classic’ by San Francisco Magazine’s Annual Best Issue.
August 15, 2006 : RADIO FEATURE: Sight Unseen
Interview with ME’DI.ATE director Alan So and artists Justino and Night Night on perspectives about sound, the Soundwave>Series, and the Bay Area’s sound art scene by Tania Ketenjian, Resonance FM (UK)
Listen
July 19, 2006 : Sound of Mind by Frances Reade, SF Weekly
“The Soundwave Series has sought to make irrelevant the typical distinctions between artist, musician, audience, stage, and venue… idiosyncratic performances that are challenging, charming, magical, assaultive, and (as is always the case with really sweet sound art) deeply personal for everyone present.”
July 12, 2006 : TELEVISION FEATURE: Matt Davignon/Live Play, SPARK*, KQED-TV (PBS)(Premiered July 12, 2006, Episode: Performance Ideas, KQED-TV (PBS Northern California affiliate) Channel 9)
SPARK*, the Bay Area’s arts television show, featured the Soundwave>Series event LIVE PLAY on ther program titled Performance Ideas. The segment takes a look into the Bay Area’s experiemental music scene and chronicles guest curator Matt Davignon’s day as he prepares for the LIVE PLAY show. Appearances by artists Marielle Jakobsens, Agnes Szelag, Moe! Staiano, Lance Grabmiller and Soundwave>Series producer/curator Alan So.
Watch
July 06, 2006 : Nitevibe, Issue 241
“It’s an artisitic and exploratory experience for your senses that will open your eyes and your mind.”
July 1, 2006 : Pop Beat , SF Chronicle
“The aural scientists behind Project Soundwave are taking the phrase “that’s music to my ears” and running with it.”
June 28, 2006 : Summer List, SF Weekly
“Two nights of experimental music, noise, and crafty sounds will have you scratching your head, in a state of awe, or both.”
June 6, 2006 : Flavorpill SF, Issue 214
“[The Soundwave>Series is] a combination of electronics, improvisation, and giddy experimentation”
May 12, 2004 : Rip, Rig, and Sample by Kelly Vance, East Bay Express
“A group of avant-garde sound artists using everything from loops to found ojects to electronic permutation, to push the frontiers of what we call “music” far beyond what we are accustomed to hearing”
March 31, 2004 : Vinyl Exchange by Bill Picture, SF Examiner
“The result is a breathtaking assortment of experimental sounds, noises and rhythms, including samples of escalators and appliances picked up on the cheap at thrift stores, that approach sound from a uniquely artistic perspective…testing the limits of sound’s raw emotional capability.”
