This year’s festival will feature an exciting collaboration between two Communikey favorites; Portland’s AU and Denver’s Dovekins. Luke Wyland (LW; AU) and Laura Goldhamer (LG; The Dovekins) filled us in on some of the details of their project together and what we might expect from them on Friday night.
LG: The plan for the performance had been to bring in an international electronic musician and have him guide the performance. But when that ceased to be the case, I suggested to Kate Lesta (Creative Director of Communikey) that we bring AU to town because it seemed like the perfect fit for the project, the collaboration, and the night of music. AU bridges electronic (digital) and acoustic (analog) elements in such an explosively energetic way, the likes of which I had never seen before.
LW: Lucky for Dana and I (of AU) those plans fell through and we were asked to come and collaborate with our good friends Laura Goldhamer and the Dovekins. We’ve known Laura for a few years now and have played show with both her solo group and the Dovekins, to much success I might add. Our last show in the area was actually for Communikey at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art last fall, which is when we first met Kate Lesta…things unfolded from there. Laura and I have been talking for years around doing something of this sort, and had just been waiting for the right opportunity.
LG: We had originally talked about collaborating on a residency at the ATLAS building on CU campus, but this seems like the best of many and all worlds that we get to participate together on a crash course collaboration that culminates in a live performance on April 16th with the Books!
LW: For AU, it’s just Dana and I coming down to Denver/Boulder. Add in the Dovekins and most likely a few others and the group will most likely fill out to a healthy 8-12 people. Thus far, most of the set will be comprised of AU songs from previous albums, though there will be the debut of an epic 3 part suite that has yet to be released on an official AU album. All in all my songs are pretty malleable and can be performed as a duo or at their most with 20+ people on stage (choir and all). We’re also be working with Laura’s unique approach to the use of speakers (removed from their cabinets…etc) as both sounding devices and as microphones to bring a more spatial and sculptural presentation to the evening… she’ll do a better job of explaining this than I. And of course we’ll also work in some of the Dovekins songs as well. It’ll be a glorious celebratory mess I’m sure. Can’t wait.
LG: I have been working on getting 8 speakers (used with a switch box that changes their functionality from being speaker outputs to being microphone inputs) to all emit individually looped rhythms. I set them on drums (snares, toms, even bass drums), and the percussive sound coming out of the speakers actually resonate the drums… It is something that is coming together quickly but is still very much a machine in process!!!! It will be exciting to see how we can all use this nutty instrument machine in a song structure. Glorious celebratory mess indeed!
AU + Dovekins will be performing after The Books at the Future Folk showcase on Friday April 16th at the Fox Theater. We hope you can join us for this special performance. The show will also be LIVE BROADCASTED from KGNU Boulder 88.5 radio station. If you can’t make it to the show, tune in to check it out!
Support for this collaboration comes from Theory + Practice, a Denver gallery/venue space in the Santa Fe Arts District. They are really helping make this come together by providing the space for all the artists to stay, and for the bands to practice and explore this unique opportunity to create something out of working together. More information on this collaboration can be expected as we gather pictures and talk to the bands as they work… And then we will all see what they come up with on Friday!
