Brazilian composer / songwriter Ricardo Dias Gomes and Rob Frye's Flux Bikes project present a special evening of music at ESS.

Thursday, September 15
Doors at 7:30
Music at 8:00
$10/8 students & ESS members

About the artists

"Ricardo Dias Gomes is a multi-instrumentalist composer who has previously been in the groups Do Amor and Cê (Caetano Veloso’s band). Talking about [his new release -11], Novas Frequências say, “-11 was crowdfunded and therefore all of its steps, from mastering to pressing, were his merit. You can see that in the sound of the tracks because you can notice his creative autonomy to build a little intimate world of drones and vibrant synthesizers and his personal life themes exposed with passion.” —Wire Magazine

"Rob Frye has gained notoriety over the last couple of years for the malleable approach to musical hypnosis and melodic beauty he’s brought to both Bitchin Bajas and Cave… Perhaps nothing demonstrates his ideals better than his project Flux Bikes, which he refers to as a “social practice.” Until recently I knew that this venture generated certain sounds by using contact mikes to amplify different bicycles parts as percussion, but I never knew how integral the bike was. Frye designs each performance as a kind of sustainable ritual by first riding to the show and then turning the bike into an instrument. The practice has extended well beyond Chicago, as he’s toured on wheels throughout Spain and between Austin and New Orleans—during which he was outfitted with a solar-powered sound system. This makes for a lovely backstory, but the music Frye creates in this manner measures up to the method. As heard on his 2014 cassette Prototype (Catholic Tapes), directed by a keen sense of dynamics, he builds mesmerizing percussive grooves that convey a strangely enveloping warmth akin to West African music, with passages of flute, saxophone, bass clarinet, and guitar beautifully floating over the loops." —Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader