Mark Solotroff "Black Openings" Book + Interview

 

I recently spoke at length to author, educator, and musician Meghan Lamb, about my music, my art, my relationship to Chicago, and other topics. Our conversation was transcribed and illustrated with some of my art, as well as other pertinent images. It was published this week by Bridge, Chicago's independent, interdisciplinary, hardcover journal and online magazine of art and public scholarship. I hope you take the time to read it, as it was a unique opportunity for me to cover a lot of ground with someone who clearly did their homework and who developed a great set of questions to guide the conversation. You can access it here: https://www.bridge-chicago.org/bridge-online-1/solotroff --- Black Openings Black Openings is a visual accompaniment to the 2023 album, Black Openings, by my band Anatomy of Habit. The fifty black and white pictures are derived from unreal photographs that I created using AI platforms, during the spring of 2023. I edited and manipulated the pictures in a way that parallels how I process music, in a familiar analog manner. The text that is included is the lyrics of the album's title track. Black Openings 01 (Variant) and Black Openings 02 (Variant) contain real and unreal architecture. The original versions of these two pictures appear on the covers/packaging of the LP, CD, cassette, and digital versions of the Anatomy of Habit album Black Openings. Black Openings 03-50 contain only unreal architecture.  Print length: 154 Pages Images: 50 / Text Squares: 21  Color: Black and white  Language: English  Dimensions: 6" x 0.35" x 9"  ISBN-13: 979-8393794385 Limited quantities are available directly via my Bandcamp page: https://marksolotroff.bandcamp.com/merch/black-openings-book The book is available globally via Amazon. Prime members and international buyers are highly encouraged to order directly from Amazon to save on shipping costs (available in all regions) USA: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Openings-Mark-Solotroff/dp/B0C47QCMT3/ ---  Also available: You May Be Holding Back Bandcamp Amazon Not Everybody Makes It Bandcamp Amazon --- http://marksolotroff.com http://marksolotroff.bandcamp.com/ http://www.instagram.com/marksolotroff http://www.facebook.com/solotroff

Focus on The Fortieth Day

 

NEWS Our previously announced album, "Under The Influence Of Delirium," will be released by Mexico City-based label, Ruido Horrible, but it has understandably been delayed due to the pandemic. Ruido Horrible will release it on cassette, after which, we'll release it on CD and across digital platforms. As a follow-up to our 2020 album, "Narratives Of Cultural Alienation," we also have a new album that we're making good progress on, but we're waiting to determine a release date until we have a better sense of when "Under The Influence Of Delirium" will be released. LIVE We're happy to announce that we have a live show in collaboration with Noise Crush coming up on Wednesday August 4, in support of multidisciplinary artist Bruce McClure. It's presented by Chicago Underground Film Festival and it'll be held at Elastic Arts. Full details are available on the Facebook event page: https://fb.me/e/1U4l4uZYf THREADLESS You can now find T-shirt, hoody, and tote-bag designs in our Threadless collection and we'll be adding more designs in the future: https://bloodyminded.threadless.com/collections/the-fortieth-day   LISTEN All of our albums are available on CD, or to stream/download, via Bandcamp: https://thefortiethday.bandcamp.com/ You can also stream select releases via: Spotify  /  iTunes/Apple Music  /  YouTube Music  /  Amazon  /  Tidal  /  Deezer Additional ordering options for CDs: BloodShop!  /  eBay  /  Discogs DISCOGRAPHY  Narratives Of Cultural Alienation (Cassette/CD/Digital, 2020, no label) A Mournful Silence (CD/Digital, 2019, no label) There They Made Their Peace (Cassette/Digital, 2018; CD, 2019, no label) Tenochtitlan: 1520 AD (CD/Digital, 2012, BloodLust!) The Fortieth Day + Sshe Retina Stimulants + Terence Hannum "Advent" (Cassette, 2012, Land of Decay; CD/Digital, 2013, BloodLust!) Constantinople: 746 AD - Part 2 (CD/Digital, 2011, BloodLust!) Constantinople: 746 AD - Part 1 (CD/Digital, 2011, BloodLust!) The Fortieth Day + Sshe Retina Stimulants (Cassette, 2007, BloodLust!; CD/Digital, 2009, BloodLust!) Syria: 638 AD - The Complete Recordings (CD/Digital, 2009, BloodLust!) Syria: 638 AD (LP, 2008, Diophantine Discs) Pelusium: 540 AD (Cassette, 2007, Cipher Productions; CD/Digital, 2010, BloodLust!) 03/30/07 (Cassette, 2007, BloodLust!; CD/Digital, 2020, no label) 02/20/07 (Cassette, 2007, BloodLust!; CD/Digital, 2020, no label) V (Cassette, 2007, BloodLust!; CD/Digital, 2008, BloodLust!) IV (Cassette, 2007, BloodLust!; CD/Digital, 2008, BloodLust!) III (Cassette, 2006, BloodLust!; CD/Digital, 2008, BloodLust!) II (Cassette, 2006, BloodLust!; CD/Digital, 2008, BloodLust!) I (Cassette, 2006, BloodLust!; CD/Digital, 2008, BloodLust!)

Black Friday Show Announced

 
Sshe Retina Stimulants (Milan, Italy)
The Fortieth Day + Noise Crush
Neil Jendon

Friday November 27, 2015
Doors: 9:00 PM / Show: 10:00 PM

The Hideout
1354 West Wabansia
Chicago IL 60642
773.227.4433
www.hideoutchicago.com


$10.00
Tickets: http://www.hideoutchicago.com/event/982493

 

The Fortieth Day plays this Friday 10/24

Recall 

High Concept Laboratories

2233 S Throop St.

Chicago, Illinois 60608

Friday October 24, 2014
Doors at 7:30 PM
Show starts 8 PM
4th Floor HCL Studios
at Mana Contemporary Chicago
$5 admission 

About Recall: 
The project Recall aims to open a platform to reflect and explore the fundamental flaw in the construction of memories through processing and recollection, based on sound or visual compositions. The project’s goal is to allow the act of recall to be executed in a live performance setting, where these elements can be further contemplated.
Recall consists of three projects to perform a set in which memory is activated, not as a true recreation of the moment, but rather a distorted construction of the experience.


Performances: Anthony Janas /Amanda Gutierrez, Nick Briz, The Fortieth Day + Noise Crush

Aunties: Anthony Janas /Amanda Gutierrez

The first project is a collaboration between Amanda Gutierrez and Anthony Janas entitled Aunties. This case focuses on the personal story of two sisters who live in Chicago and its visual analogy with two sisters who live in Mexico City. These relationships seek to emphasize the reflections of middle class women, evident in their oral histories and the spaces they inhabit. The video and sound techniques open the possibility for formal constructions, using metaphors resolved as an abstract portrait.

http://tonyamandasound.wix.com/avproductions
http://anthonyjanas.com/
http://www.amandagutierrez.net/


Nick Briz

…will be rendering a realtime audio + video landscape/portrait of his home town Hialeah [ Miami ] Florida. This rendering will manifest live + will be informed by personal photographs, google searches, realtime phone calls with relatives && childhood friends >> filtered through his personal && computer memory.

http://nickbriz.com/


The Fortieth Day + Noise Crush

Is a live performance collaboration between audio group The Fortieth Day and video artist Lisa Slodki.

The Fortieth Day is the duo of Isidro Reyes and Mark Solotroff, both key players in the heavy-electronics outfit BLOODYMINDED, a band known for its aggressive and confrontational live shows. Solotroff is also known as the vocalist in the doom/shoegaze band Anatomy of Habit. In The Fortieth Day, Reyes and Solotroff utilize guitar, bass, drum machine, and analog synthesizer to create epic, blackened, psychedelic-industrial drone soundscapes, likened to "sustained, withering blasts of high-pitched noise that are as distinct from one another as spotlights sweeping across the night sky; jackhammer clatter, jet-engine whines, and forlorn keyboard melodies dart in and out of those huge sounds with the grace and impunity of plovers picking a crocodile's teeth" [Bill Meyer, Chicago Reader]

http://www.facebook.com/thefortiethdayhttp://www.facebook.com/thefortiethday


Lisa Slodki creates real-time performances and installations, often working in collaboration with the Chicago experimental audio and noise communities. Performing with The Fortieth Day under her Noise Crush moniker, Slodki generates VHS tape loops which are mixed live through a battery of VCRs to construct evolving projected superimpositions. Pulsating light of decaying VHS tape and manipulated found footage conjure familiar yet indiscernible images, engaging with the fragility of both medium and memory.

noisecrush.com

Facebook event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/752816731447238/?notif_t=plan_user_invited

Reader Previews The Fortieth Day 11/1 Show

Our thanks to Monica at the Reader for the great preview of next week's show!

Soundboard

Fortieth Day, Caltrop, Black Skies, Alma Negra, Al-Thawra 

When: Thu., Nov. 1, 8 p.m. 

Price: $5

Appearances by this intense Chicago band are few and far between—this is only the second this year. They're a spin-off of brilliant and terrifying electronic-industrial group Bloodyminded, and began as a duo of two of its members, Mark Solotroff (guitar) and Isidro Reyes (bass and programming); they've since been joined by a third, Milwaukee noise artist James Moy (synth). Where Bloodyminded is a force of nature, with all the depth and complexity that implies, the Fortieth Day is more like a surgical procedure, with a stripped-down and relatively chilly hypnotic-drone aesthetic. Historical seminarratives are the band's stock in trade: previous releases on their Bandcamp page include Pelusium: 540 AD and Syria: 638 AD. Their latest is Tenochtitlan: 1520 AD, a subject that Solotroff told me will be woven into the show's Day of the Dead theme. Like their previous concert, this will be a collaboration with video artist Lisa Slodki, aka Noise Crush. —Monica Kendrick Caltrop, Black Skies, Alma Negra, and Al-Thawra open.

• Reggie's Music Joint 
• 2105 S. State St. SOUTH LOOP
• 312-949-0120
• reggieslive.com/musicjoint

Unearthed Video of The Fortieth Day

Thanks to Jon Satrom for sending this clip of The Fortieth Day + Noise Crush playing at Cobra Lounge during a Día de los Muertos event nearly four years ago. Don't expect to see Isidro or me, as we are hiding in the dark... As always, it is all about Lisa's radiant video work: 

Tonight (11/13)

Flyer for 11/13

3/15 show Recap

Thanks to everyone who came out to see The Fortieth Day + Noise Crush last night at The Empty Bottle. We had a great time and hopefully this will not be our "annual" show. Preparing for shows with Lisa is always a pleasure, as we get to re-introduce the mesmerizing video element to our weekly sessions. It was also excellent to have James involved, for the first time. The fuller synth sound really clicked for us and definitely helped balance the rumbling bass and chiming guitar. I guess that it turned out to be sort of BLOODYMINDED in disguise. It was nice to have so many friends there, at what turned out to be a "technically" sold out show. The technicality was that there were a bunch of unclaimed pre-sold tickets. Weird. Neil Jendon was up after us, and while he seemed to offer the beat hungry audience some hope -- as Isidro's beats were about 20 BPM -- and people were bobbing their heads to Neil's throbbing modular synth -- it was only a matter of time before he switched to kill mode and unleashed some ear-gouging frequencies on the full house. You could literally see people recoil in horror. I have to say that it was a beautiful moment. Silk Flowers were up next and it was great to have them back in Chicago and back at The Empty Bottle. Compared to their previous show with Anatomy of Habit, their sound seemed clearer and more balanced and it felt like a totally accomplished and in-control set. Salem were up last and while some in the crowd were patiently waiting for a (Levi's/Fader Fort video-style) trainwreck, it never occurred. While the music was pretty basic dark dance music... sort of in the Q Lazzarus realm of synth-pop, with several songs having a strong female lead vocal presence, and their stage set had a handsome Dan Flavin influence, I could not personally get into the rap vocals, which were a visual disconnect, and simply not to my taste. It never got as syrupy-slow as I thought it might, either. The crowd remained pretty low key throughout the night, but polite and seemingly appreciative of the mixture and the progression of artists. Again, thanks to our friends, for their support. Thanks to Pete at The Empty Bottle for setting it up. Thanks to Patrick (Unur) at The Empty bottle for the great sound (all night) and the emergency guitar repair (phew!!!). Maybe again in the fall???

Sneak Peek: 03/15/11

The Fortieth Day - Status

Isidro and I had another very fruitful session last night, really taking our time arriving at jet engine volume level. But, my ears are ringing this morning... proof that we did arrive there. As usual, Isidro focused on bass and rhythms, and I stuck to Korg Monotron through a shitload of pedals. We dedicated last night to the gods of ProCo, worshiping the RAT, and during its functional moments, the TurboRAT. I will be reviewing the recording later, after more espresso and after "Heroes" plays for the eight-zillionth time (yes, I finally broke the Stones' grip on me... the new Interpol album helped that). This week, we intend to finalize mastering and art/design for the next full-length CD by The Fortieth Day - and - our associate in Milano, Sig. P.NG5361.B of Sshe Retina Stimulants and Sigillum S, is reviewing the recording of our WLUW radio session from November 2009, and we are discussing his availability for SRS Desktop processing for said recording. Discussions continue with Lisa (AKA Noise Crush) regarding a sound+vision release for our full, collaborative mode. Speaking of which, it is rather surprising to see just how few shows this band has actually played, particularly considering, from mid-2005 forward, how frequently we have actually gathered to play, practice, record, whathaveyou...

The Fortieth Day + Noise Crush
2007-02-20 - Elastic
2007-03-30 - The Flowershop
2007-06-12 - Elastic
2007-06-30 - The Empty Bottle
2007-08-21 - Elastic
2008-01-06 - Ronny's
2008-02-23 - Pictures and Sounds - Film Studies Center - The University of Chicago
2008-06-07 - The Empty Bottle
2008-11-02 - Cobra Lounge
2010-02-02 - The Empty Bottle

The Fortieth Day
2006-11-26 - Something Else - WLUW 88.7 FM (with Sshe Retina Stimulants)
2009-11-29 - Something Else - WLUW 88.7 FM (with Sshe Retina Stimulants and Terence Hannum)

Third Pass at 2/2 Poster

Date corrected... check.
Line-up listed as requested... check.

Revised Poster for February 2, 2010