IF, BWANA (Al Margolis)

ABOUT THE ARTIST/BIOGRAPHY

Activist in the 1980s American cassette underground through his cassette label Sound Of Pig Music, co-founder of experimental music label Pogus Productions. Active under the name If, Bwana since 1984, making music that has swung between fairly spontaneous studio constructions and more process-oriented composition.

A recent review of Margolis's work says: "Let it be declared that Al Margolis/If, Bwana is some sort of evil genius working with raw materials which are never adapted to a genre or a context, because they create one in that very moment. Those sources are radically altered up to an utterly unrecognizable state, anarchic manifestations moving in compact determination." (Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes).

Currently Margolis is label manager for Deep Listening, XI Records, and Mutable Music; plays bass guitar in the legendary punk/post-punk band Styrenes; and continues his work as If, Bwana. He has recorded and/or performed with Pauline Oliveros, Ione, Joan Osborne, Monique Buzzarté, Katherine Liberovskaya, Adam Bohman, Ellen Christi, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jane Scarpantoni, Ulrich Krieger, David First, and Dave Prescott, among others.

In 2006 he has performed at the 15th Brooklyn College Electroacoustic Music and the 6th Sonic Circuits DC festivals, had installations at Diapason in NYC and the Santa Fe Electroacoustic Music festival, been commissioned by WDR Koln, collaborated with video artist Katherine Liberovskaya on "Take-off", which has been shown internationally, and just recently premiered "Three Songs in Search of a Voice", a "nohtopera" with MutaMYTHeatre - music by Margolis and text and voice, Lisa Barnard.  Back to Artists

LINKS

Al Margolis' Label:  pogus.com

If, Bwana:  ifbwana.com