Traysh/8550 OHIO

The Clocktower's Willis Arnold in conversation with the directors of Traysh in advance of their June 6, 2014 Knockdown Center benefit for the arts collective and their residency program and rural art center, 8550 OHIO.  Event is 5pm-2am, $20 with many performers. The Knockdown site tells all.

Traysh is a multimedia operation focused on blurring the lines between physical, digital, audio, tradition, and experimental arts. 8550 OHIO is located on an working tree farm in the Southern Ohio Appalachia.  For more information check out Traysh and 8550 OHIO.

Jason Ajemian has acquired a high profile in the improvised music scene over the years, performing with Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Brian Blade) weekly for five years in Chicago, Rob Mazurek's Mandarin Movie, Exploding Star Orchestra, and the Chicago Underground Trio, Ken Vandermark's Crisis Ensemble.  After moving to NYC in 2010 he's been performing with Helado Negro, Devendra Banhart, Marc Ribot's Sun Ship, Matana Robert's CoinCoin.   Ajemian's curiosity has ranged far and wide—he's just as comfortable in the hushed, folksy setting of Born Heller, his duo with Josephine Foster, as he is in the breath-processed arrangements of his large ensemble Who Cares How Long You Sink. Given such a variety of musical interest, a detour like From Beyond, Ajemian's backwards version of Back Sabbath's Into the Void for chamber ensemble, begins to seem like an obvious stop on this bassist's journey from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains to Chicago and his current homes in New York City & So Eastern Ohio. 

Joe Jeffers is an American producer of electronic sounds and organizer of strange events of various proportions. For nearly 10 years he has been holding residencies for emerging and mid-career artists and musicians on a 900-acre tree farm in Ohio, under the auspices of Harold Arts, now 8550 OHIO. Currently he's busy producing sounds for EPs for Charlie Deets and Hannah Zhalih Mickunas, making sound sculpture for Sabina Ott's upcoming exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center, and finalizing arrangements for second TRAYSH ISLAND festival @ 8550 OHIO. In the past he has worked with Bodega, Chicago Artists Coalition, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The New Art Dealers Alliance, Union Hall Theatre, Heaven Gallery, the Empty Bottle and many more to produce public and private cultural events.

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