Program

In 2010, the musical project known as Ahleuchatistas (AH - LOO - CHA - TEES - TAS) began performing new music for guitar & drums duet. Shane Perlowin plays guitar and Ryan Oslance plays drums. This arrangement of the band officially premiered at the 2010 Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee on March 28th and was followed by 23 concerts in Europe from March 31st to April 25th. (Incidentally, this tour finished with an extended stay in Dresden, Germany due to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, which spewed ash into Europe's airspace and grounded all flights for a week. So it goes.) Production of a new album is underway and tour dates are forthcoming.

Since its inception in 2002, the music of Ahleuchatistas has always been difficult to pin down with words. The current sound has broadened the band's palette with elements of noise, African music, ambient/drone, Chinese traditional music, minimalism, classical music, and electronica. It blends block-form, thru-composition, and improvisational musical strategies. Perlowin and Oslance have a unique psychic interplay that can be incredibly elastic or razor-sharp tight. Ominous walls of sound morph into tight-knight rhythmic figures, haunting melodies float over martial drumming, roaring moments of sustained tension acquiesce into screaming silence, a musical promise is fulfilled. On the earliest recordings an interest in pure sound and texture can be heard on select cuts. This tendency became more prevalent with each successive album. The new music continues to push in this direction, still with the characteristic rhythmic intensity. Rock and roll!