In the legendary annals of Baltimore’s experimental music history, few creative partnerships yielded as bizarre outsider music as Thus. Neil Feather and John Berndt, both founding members of the High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music, contributed to building a music scene focused on experimentation and orthogonal approaches to sound. Over the years, they constructed many new instruments of bowling balls, glass, industrial springs, re-engineered guitars, hobby horses, balloons, broken speakers, and more. These instruments challenged musicians because, by design, they could not play conventional music. The duo developed a neoteric musical vocabulary specifically around the physics of these new instruments. The music swung with the force of gravity, twanging both ends of a stretched string, to the rhythm of suction cups on a pane of glass.

This partnership reawakens for a special show at the Red Room. Hear and see Feather and Berndt perform their music for you. It still feels novel, like hearing the folk music of an undiscovered tribe.

Dan Conrad will open the show with an invocation on flute.

Neil Feather is currently residing in and visiting from New Zealand. Tonight he’ll be accompanied by a small subset of his past collaborators. Bob Wager is a terrific drummer, known for his backyard film screenings. Eric Franklin is a multi-instrumentalist. There are so many other souls around that Neil Feather has touched. We hope to see them and you there in celebration of Neil’s visit.

Event location:

Red Room, 425 E 31st St, Baltimore, MD 21218