Making Sparks Fly

The Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts is about to light up Minneapolis; for the eighth year, this nigh-week-long freakout will bring artists from all over the world to the Twin Cities to do their respective things. I’m so excited I can barely contain myself. Here are a few events I’m especially looking forward to:

• • Earworm at the Love Power Church, 10 p.m., Wednesday: I haven’t seen Earworm since one of their earliest performances some years ago, and after interviewing two members (Zac Crockett and James Holdman) I’m eager to hear how they’ve grown.

• • Jazari at the Regis Center, 4:30 p.m., Thursday: Jazari is Patrick Flanagan’s itinerant robot band. Steampunk cyber-djembe controlled by a power glove made of springbok horn? Sock it to me.

• • Talea at the Love Power Church, 8 p.m., Friday: This young, New York-based ensemble is bringing music by Stockhausen, Ferneyhough, and Takasugi; yours truly will be twiddling knobs to control a tape loop and feedback for Time and Motion Study II, but I wouldn’t want to miss this concert even if I weren’t helping out.

• • Fred Frith, FURT, and Klaxon Gueule at the Love Power Church, 8 p.m., Saturday: How could this triple bill of improvised music not be exceptional? I think the LPC is going to fill up quick for this one, so come early if you’re planning to attend.

Expect a full recap once the dust settles next week—or, if you live in the area, swing on by to witness Spark firsthand.

You thought its glory days had ended, but it lives on! This week the New Music Scrapbook is the place to hear Josh Musikantow read his paper “Music and Industrial Machines in the Digital Age: Our Changing Relationship to Technology,” an exploration of the fluidity with which two living composers put aesthetic technology to use. We’ll be posting items like this every so often, so do check back from time to time!