Shores Artistic Resume

Shores are a new band which formed in May of this year. We've played one show so far, a full audio-visual production whose light show and documentation on film were part of the overall artistic concept. The show took place on June 20th at a performance space in the Richmond District called “The Mirror Room”, a stage inside a cage enclosed by mirrors and Mylar sheets. Experimental filmmaker and artist Chris Gray provided films that projected color and light onto the band as it performed, forming in their confluence with the performance space an interplay of light, shadow, and aurual and visual reflections and refractions. Band members Alex Darr and Jude Morris also built a slide show of artistic images and photographs of shorelines throughout the world, which was projected onto the floor in front of the band, to create the impression that the performance was effecting a journeying through the world’s liminal regions. Videos of this show were shot by documentarian Jaakko Vilpponnen, a film student at the SF Academy of Art, and Kirsten Hove, a local artist.

The inclusive purpose was to provide visual complements to the music as conceived in the Shores Philosophy statement: to create an environment that is interchangeably electric and acoustic, one which opens avenues for performer and audience alike to explore where their consciousness of self and experience of nature meet in a chiasmus of these electroacoustic phenomena.

Since that first show, Shores have been practicing rigorously, developing their songs more, conferring on their philosophy and aesthetics, and conceiving their vision for future performances. Shores view themselves as less of a “bar or club” band, and more of a performance environment one. To explore other possible performance contexts, they are currently applying to play at the annual Experimental music festival held at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, organizing a collaboration with other experimental filmmakers, musicians and artists to take place at the LiPo Lounge in SF late October, and planning a series of shows to take place in our most natural environments, shorelines around the Bay Area. We want to bring music and performance out into nature, and nature into the performance environment, as a way of creating interactive experiences for our members and audience that raise environmental consciousness and open doors, liminal relationships, between electronics and acoustics, nature and our selves.

Though two complete electronic tracks are available on our Myspace page, Shores have not yet produced any recordings of the full band. We plan on producing home recordings through November and December, and recording professional tracks at the Soundport Recordings Studio early next year.