It was Basilica’s fourth season of bringing unique and exceptional films to the region through Basilica Screenings. The season emphasized expansive documentary practices, with selections from Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York, 1968-1986, formerly presented at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and hosting guest programmer Jake Perlin and filmmaker Charles Hobson. Additional highlights included screenings with filmmakers Kevin Jerome Everson and Wu Tsang in person, and a program co-presented with the HQTBD art collective that featured Peggy Ahwesh, Ephraim Asili and Takeshi Murata. And, the launch of our Sci-Fi Summer Nights Series included the community success Blade Runner Noodle Night! Our big annual events also featured crossover cinematic programming; 24-HOUR DRONE screened an all-female video program from the collection of Second Ward Foundation along with Bill Stone’s Pensato Clock. At Basilica SoundScape, Kiln Films presented Direct-to-Video, a program of films dedicated to eliciting dialogue between artists and challenge spectatorship, which was joined by Chris Bower’s We Won’t Bow Down along with several other Friday screenings in the North Hall.

(more…)

This year, Basilica launched the first annual stateside installment of 24-HOUR DRONE: Experiments in Sound and Music, an adventurous collaboration with Le Guess Who?, an annual festival in Utrecht, Netherlands. Summer began with our favorite ritual recognition of the (FREAK) Flag Day tradition in Hudson, helmed by darkwave goth queen Shannon F of Light Asylum with special musical guests and freak flag-making workshops. For the first time, the hallowed Main Hall was filled with opera arias when we collaborated with Il Cuore Canta (The Heart Sings), a workshop and concert series. It was wonderful to see our industrial church lend itself equally to chamber music by the rising young artists of the Catskill High Peaks Festival, the post-rock squall of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and intensity of talent at the fourth annual Basilica SoundScape. We wrapped up our season with CELESTINE V: A NIGHT OF ASTRAL SOUND, a celebratory sonic embrace of darkness and light. (more…)

HELLO DRONE DEVOTEES!

We are absolutely BUZZIN about tomorrow.  And wanted to give you a bit more information to ensure you have THE BEST TIME POSSIBLE.  Venue and assorted bits follow below:

LISTEN EAT DRINK LISTEN SLEEP LISTEN EAT LISTEN DRINK LISTEN SLEEP

Saturday Schedule
INVOCATION

2:30 pm ­ Doors open
3:00 pm ­ Harmonic Frost
4:15 pm ­ C. Lavender & Adriane Schramm
5:15 pm ­ Slow Collins
5:45 pm ­ Alex Turnquist
6:45 pm ­ Randy Gibson  – Intoning The Starfield Symmetry
8:00 pm ­ Lea Bertucci

DEDICATION
8:45 pm ­ Lincoln Procession interlude
9:00 pm ­ Bobby Previte ­ – A Lincoln Portrait
9:45 pm ­ Patrick Higgins
10:45 pm ­ SUUNS
11:45 pm ­ Jessica Moss

Sunday Schedule
PURGE

12:15 am ­ Prurient
12:45 am ­ Greg Fox
1:45 am ­ Brian Dewan
2:30 am ­ Ultraam
3:15 am ­ Evildroners w/Representative I
4:00 am ­ Saviour Self
5:00 am ­ Peter Aaron
6:00 am ­ Charles W.

PRAYER
7:00 am ­ Saviturn
8:15 am ­ Gong Immersion with Hariprakash & Theresa Widmann
9:00 am ­ Eric Fraser & Ehren Hanson
10:00 am ­ Rob Caldwell
11:00 am ­ PROPHETA
12:00 pm ­ Eliot Kessel
1:00 pm ­ Seth Chrisman & Nathan McLaughlin
2:00 pm ­ Arone Dyer ­ DRONECHOIR

Screenings
North Hall screening room by Second Ward open from sunset onwards with all-female video program featuring work by Leslie Thornton, Carolee Scheemann, Laura Steele, Diana Thater and Rivane Neuenschwander.

Re-visit Lincoln History
Lincoln reenactment happens OUTSIDE ONLY at 8:45 PM Saturday, followed by Bobby Previte’s “Lincoln Portrait” INSIDE Basilica, as part of DRONE program.

Tickets
Limited tickets will be available at the door for $20 starting at 2:30 pm. Doors and bar open at 2:30 pm.

Food & Drink
Bar is open from 2:30 pm until 2am and will serve beer, wine, sake, water, and tea.

Spring Feast Kick Off Dinner will be served by Alimentary Kitchen from 5 – 9 pm Saturday. The menu is as follows:
Lamb Neck Sticky Rice Bowl
Tempura Spring Root Salad
Chai & Tea.

Late-nite bar snacks served by Taste of India from 9pm until wee Sunday hours.

Sunday Brunch will be served by Alimentary Kitchen from 10am to 1pm Sunday. Menu as follows:
Broth. Hand Cut Noodle. Soft Egg. Greens. Pickle
Eggs. Papas Bravas. Leek. Mascarpone. Harissa.
Tea & Coffee

Supplies
PREPARE FOR CHILLY WEATHER. Although it’s spring, it’s been cold the last few days and the nights still feel wintry.  We suggest giant scarves, fingerless gloves, hats for nighttime, wool sweaters and layers, layers, LAYERS!

We will have limited cushiony spots for seating, so we STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to bring camping pads, sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, and yoga mats. But please, ABSOLUTELY NO TENTS!

CASH STRONGLY PREFERRED.  We do not have an ATM on site, but there is one at the Hudson Amtrak station, open 5AM – 11PM every day.

Children & Families
PARENTS: due to loud frequencies, the late-night, meditative nature of this event, and the adult content of our videos, please use common sense as to whether this event is appropriate for your children.

Children 12 and under are free. Children 12 and over are regular price.

FAMILIES and ANY NON-DRONERS WELCOME TO COME TO EARLY DINNER & MORNING BRUNCH! No concert ticket needed.

Directions
We are located at 110 S. Front Street, Hudson, NY. If you are arriving via train, simply walk a block or so to Basilica from the Amtrak station towards the gigantic factory. If you’re driving from 9G and using Googlemaps, it will route you a weird back way through an industrial park– DON’T FOLLOW!  Please reroute your GPS to arrive via South Front Street.  Basilica parking attendants will direct you to our lot adjacent to the train tracks, past our building.  THERE IS NO PARKING ASIDE FROM DISABLED ON BASILICA GROUNDS. VIOLATORS WILL BE TICKETED.

WHEW!  Now that we got all that intense stuff out of the way, we can all TURN ON, TUNE IN, and DRONE THE F-OUT!

Looking forward to seeing you on the DRONE FLOOR.

Love,
Basilica Hudson

Say HELLO to our fifth season with the first annual 24-HOUR DRONE: Experiments in Sound and Music, an adventurous collaboration with the Le Guess Who? festival in Utrecht, Netherlands. An immersive event and all-encompassing experience, 24-HOUR DRONE features musicians from the region and beyond experimenting in electronic, psychedelic, classical, non-western and instrumental drone music for a full 24 hours of low-frequency fun, set in-the-round in Basilica’s Main Hall.

The event  will be a fully immersive experience in-the-round with no stage. The circular arrangement is based off of the concept of a “tonal clock,” a visual representation of the chromatic scale, and the harmonic sacred geometry that ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras helped develop.

Admission allows attendees to come and go as they please, but those who make the commitment to this endurance, long-duration work will be rewarded with the intangible feeling of meditative contentment, pure bliss, and communal collaboration.

The talented roster include the following performers, with more to be announced:

• Prurient, one of the most well-known and influential names in noise music.

• SUUNS, Montreal-based futurists

• Bobby Previte, a legendary percussionist and exceptional composer/orchestrator in the thriving jazz and experimental music scene

• Patrick Higgins, of ZS, polyglot NYC composer and out-of-the-box classical guitarist

• Arone Dyer, of musical duo Buke and Gase

• Randy Gibson, a minimalist composer/performer who creates enveloping and ritualistic works in Just Intonation

• Eric Fraser, an emerging exponent of a rare style of North Indian classical bansuri flute playing known for its purity and antiquity

• Brian Dewan, of Dewanatron; inventor, composer and local renaissance man

• Eliot Kessel, co-collaborator of sister and fellow musician Lia Ices, an extraordinaire of production and composition

• Slow Collins, the psych mayhem union of Alexander Turnquist and John Rosenthal

• Lea Bertucci, interdisciplinary artist/composer/improviser and bass clarinetist who is also an artist-in-residence at Issue Project Room

• Greg Fox (Guardian Alien, Liturgy; drummer extraordinaire)

• Jessica Moss (Montreal-based violinist and visual artist best known as a member of Silver Mount Zion)

Adding depth and diversity to the lineup will be local favorites C. Lavender (sound artist and healer), a Sunday morning gong bath with Hariprakash & Theresa Widmann, John Rosenthal (bassist/composer and manager of Second Ward Foundation), Alexander Turnquist (accomplished 12-string guitarist and composer), Ultraam (improvising psychedelic noise rock/jazz band), Logan Visscher (noise/experimentalist of World Lines), Harmonic Frost (Troy-based drone/ambient musician), sound artists Seth Chrisman and Nathan McLaughlin, Evildroners which is comprised of Hudson icons Melissa Auf Der Maur (Hole, Smashing Pumpkins), Dan Seward (Dan Bunny, Bunnybrains of Warren Streets’ The Record Shoppe), and C. Lavender joined by Shannon F.), Peter Aaron (front man of blues punk legends the Chrome Cranks and one half of the Peter Aaron/Brian Chase Duo), and Saviturn (Tibetan sound bowls and participatory vocalizations).
This is 24-HOUR DRONE’s first installment stateside, with plans to hold it annually in the U.S. and Europe, after the idea was sparked during a late-night New Years conversation in 2007 between Basilica co-founder Melissa Auf der Maur and festival organizer Bob van Heur. The first 24-HOUR DRONE was held in tandem with the Le Guess Who? festival in November of 2014.

24-HOUR DRONE occurs in conjunction with a re-creation of what happened when Lincoln’s funeral train stopped in Hudson on April 25, 1865. Organized by local historian Carole Osterink, at 8:45 PM, a reenactment will set forth from the outdoor grounds of Basilica, cross over the train tracks, and honor Lincoln’s passing with a dirge sung by women dressed all in white. Timed to coincide with the very hour of Lincoln’s funeral train arrival 150 years ago, the original event was described by the train commander as “one of the weirdest ever witnessed.” Afterwards, Bobby Previte will conduct an ensemble of Hudson Valley musicians at Basilica, in his re-imagination of Aaron Copland’s masterpiece, Lincoln Portrait, narrated by Brian Dewan.

Basilica will present video work from Second Ward Foundation’s permanent video art collection in the North Hall on Sunday in tandem with 24-HOUR DRONE. Special thanks to John Rosenthal and Second Ward Foundation for collaborating and supporting the event.

In collaboration with Wave Farm, 24-HOUR DRONE will be streamed online in its entirety, with selected hours broadcast on Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM radio station in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley.

There will be a spring kick-off feast with dinner for sale on Saturday evening and brunch for sale on Sunday morning prepared by Basilica’s most beloved chef, Nicole LoBue of Alimentary Kitchen. The feast is open to the public with food available for purchase; no concert entry ticket is needed. Kids, families, parents, and any non-droners are welcome.

During the event, a cash bar will be open on Saturday night for event goers. Late at night, Hudson’s own Taste of India Food Truck will be at Basilica to fuel the wee hours.

Because Basilica is a unique industrial setting with limited seating, organizers recommend that drone attendees bring camping pads, yoga mats and/or pillows; sleeping bags/blankets, comfortable clothes, bottles for refill at Basilica’s water fountain, and endurance-enhancing snacks.

In a rare off-season winter event early in the year, we convened for Nous: A Musical Rite (“Luring with Sound, but Aiming For Something Deeper” – The New York Times). Summer began with a double bill: Baltimore-based experimental rock band Horse Lords, and a debut Hudson performance from Berlin-based electronic artist Lucrecia Dalt with local favorites Palm. Our very own Freak Flag Day goth club returned with Shannon F at its helm and a few special guests to boot. We forayed into new musical territory with our launch of the 24-Hour Dronefest at the Le Guess Who? festival in the Netherlands. AND, the ultimate highlight of our year: the fourth annual Basilica SoundScape provided a sold out audience with a tightly crafted lineup of music, art, and community events. (more…)

NOVEMBER 20 – 23
UTRECHT, THE NETHERLANDS
24-HOUR DRONFEST

featuring
WILLIAM BASINSKI
STEPHEN O’MALLEY
EMPTYSET
TIM HECKER
STEVE HAUSCHILDT
RAIME
DIRK SERRIES
JULIANNA BARWICK
CARLA BOZULICH AND JOHN EICHENSEER
and more