Name: EFW Presents AM/FM ( Ava Mendoza / gabby fluke-mogul )
Start: 2024-11-16T20:00:00-05:00
Location: Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center

$EFW Presents AM\/FM ( Ava Mendoza \/ gabby fluke-mogul )$

"Ava Mendoza and Gabby Fluke-Mogul (their duo cleverly called AM/FM), lit up glowingly in blue and red hues, engaged in one of the most exciting sets of the festival - not because of volume and intensity, but rather of imagery and intimacy. It would seem that Mendoza and Fluke-Mogul's origins, California and Florida, respectively, have somehow led them musically to the austere majesty of Monument Valley and swirling red rock canyons. Starting with a few long tones from the violin, Mendoza dove right in with a gunslinging attitude and a defiant blues. The two engaged in a bristling exchange of musical motives that kicked up the dust on the main street and flung the double swinging saloon doors wide open...Fluke-Mogul slid through double-stops and at times crushed her bow against the strings. Mendoza used loops to create sonic tapestry over which she unraveled a metallic melodic thread. After pieces that evoked crime noir and a bluesy folk tune, the duo ended their set on a sonic journey, shucking off the fetters of melody and harmony, and embracing a soaring abstract expressionism."
— Paul Acquaro, The Free Jazz Collective
"(AM/FM) shun the free improvisation that might be expected, instead turning to the blues, slinking and slurrying with rasped edges. F-M pulls out a sound that’s closer to a rustily amplified mouth-harp from the Chicago sawdust depths. They might still be improvising, but within a rhythmic song-form. Dirty-drag fiddle flops over twang-guitar resonance, with the second tune sounding very much like early Marc Bolan band John’s Children."
— Martin Longley, Jazzwise Magazine
"Ava Mendoza creates edgy, challenging music. She plays guitar and stompboxes and, no, she doesn’t use pedals to mask inferior technique or shoddy ideas. Her command of the instrument is prodigious, her tonal palette is expansive, she has an intuitive improvisatory awareness, and her lunchbox is chockfull of sonic goodies. Not staid or vanilla, her playing is a profound testament to the state of contemporary guitar. Mendoza has deep roots, too, and that includes years of classical training, a rich knowledge of old-school blues and traditional fingerstyle, a profound awareness of no-wave punk and sonic weirdness, and significant exposure to the free jazz masters. She also has the ears and chops to assimilate her disparate influences and execute difficult music."
— Tzvi Gluckin, Premier Guitar
"New York violinist gabby fluke-mogul is unabashedly experimental...employing extended techniques (rubbing, scraping, sawing, tapping), they extract a full spectrum of unconventional sounds from this conventional instrument. They do not eschew subtlety but instead use quieter, breathier portions of each track to serve as a counterbalance to the outside sections. And the playing is indeed aggressive, though not in a physical sense. Instead, the forcefulness is in how fluke-mogul challenges the listener to expand their conception of what sounds and structures their instrument can generate."
— Mike Borella, Avant Music News
Elysium Furnace Works is thrilled to present as part of its momentous 2024 season the peerless, fearless power duo AM/FM, featuring guitarist Ava Mendoza and violinist gabby fluke-mogul. AM/FM meet at the crossroads of tradition and extremity. Avant jazz, blues, and noise alchemize in their song forms and free improvisations. The duo sometimes honors, sometimes uproots and upends old time tunes, spirituals, and other folk forms as well as playing their own incendiary compositions. From the beaches of Miami and DIY basements in Oakland, to their current home of Brooklyn, Mendoza and fluke-mogul carry intersecting lines of experimental music past, present, and future.
AM/FM will perform on Saturday, November 16 at 8 PM at the VBI Theatre of Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center, located at 12 Vassar St in Poughkeepsie, NY. Tickets are $20 in advance and $30 at the door — advance tickets are on sale at https://amfm.eventbrite.com (please note: advance sales end at midnight the night before the concert).
EFW's 2024 season will conclude with one more, devastatingly hardcore concert:
December 7: Harriet Tubman (Ross / Gibbs / Lewis), VBI @ CHAC — EFW closes out our monumental season with the fiery intensity of the long-running eclectic, electric collective Harriet Tubman, comprising the insanely talented, accomplished trio of guitarist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer JT Lewis, rounding out 2024 on a monstrously high, heavy note. Advance tickets on sale now at: https://harriettubman.eventbrite.com/
Biographies of fluke-mogul and Mendoza follow below.
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Ava Mendoza is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer. Born in 1983, she started performing her own music, and as a sidewoman and collaborator in many different projects, as soon as she was legally allowed into venues. As a guitarist, Mendoza has received acclaim for her technique and viscerality. Her most ongoing work is as leader of art rock band Unnatural Ways, and as a solo performer of her own music and works by contemporary composers. In any context she is committed to bringing expressivity, energy and a wide sonic range to the music. Mendoza has toured throughout the U.S. and Europe and recorded/performed with musicians including Carla Bozulich, Malcolm Mooney (CAN), Steve Shelley, Mike Watt, Adele Bertei, Mick Barr, William Hooker, Nels Cline, Matana Roberts, John Zorn, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Fred Frith, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Object Collection (Travis Just), ROVA, Negativland, the Violent Femmes, and members of Caroliner. She has received composition commissions from film distributor Kino Lorber, new music duo The Living Earth Show, and John Zorn’s Stone Commissioning Series at National Sawdust. Recordings are available on labels Tzadik, Astral Spirits, Weird Forest, Clean Feed, Resipiscent, and New Atlantis.
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gabby fluke-mogul is a New York-based violinist, improviser, composer, educator, organizer and doula. Weaving within the threads of avant and free jazz, with deep roots in improvised and experimental music, their music has been described as “embodied, visceral and virtuosic” and “the most striking sound in improvised music in years”. gabby is humbled to have collaborated with Nava Dunkelman, Joanna Mattrey, Ava Mendoza, Charles Burnham, Fred Frith, Luke Stewart, Zeena Parkins, Tcheser Holmes, Lester St. Louis, William Parker, and Pauline Oliveros among many other musicians, poets, dancers and visual artists. gfm facilitates improvisation & composition workshops, curates programming for Creative Music Studio, and is a current Roulette Jerome Artist in Residence.
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Elysium Furnace Works is a cooperative project co-led by Mike Faloon and James Keepnews. EFW seeks to present the work of vanguard artists in settings as dedicated and uncompromising as the art itself, focusing primarily although not exclusively on live music performances in and around New York's vibrant Hudson Valley. Follow us on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/elysiumfurnaceworks — and on Instagram @elysiumfurnaceworks.