This  is a work in progress. This  is a bootleg. this live  iteration was placed in the universe 8pm Dec 3rd, 2014 at Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn NYC
 It is a concert length, durational sound experiment  based on a video/paper graphic score sound strategy I created that  is also part dice game.....The Video Score: created around imagery of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and etc... I will load the video somewhere else  and link later.... the background image is a page of the score game. The entire score( paper and video combo) is based on the grand jury testimony of Darren Wilson and Dorian Johnson as well as various modes of astral numerology and ecological coordinates as related to  Ferguson Missouri and the murder of Michael Brown.

Sound adventurers, other than myself  in this configuration are:

Liberty Ellman, Guitar
Kevin Tkacz , bass
Ches Smith, drums

I am playing alto saxophone, loop pedal, tape player, clarinet, wind up timer and I am using conduction patterns created by the great late Butch Morris.

text i am  reading: Policy Mic :
http://mic.com/articles/96448/5-disturbing-facts-about-police-militarization-in-america

This is still VERY much a work in progress.... im most curious about modes of social justice, improvisatory sounds and how the two  coincide in realms of sound experimentation for the purpose of pushing change and reform....  thanks for listening.  and please continue standing up for what is meaningful to you through art making.... someone out there needs you.

Black Lives Matter.

recorded live in Bristol, not mixed, raw file, bootleg stylings

Bristol New Music Festival
recorded by A. Gardiner (anniegardiner.bandcamp.com)

April 2024
credits
released May 28, 2024

Matana Roberts: banter, soprano saxophone, sing speak

Kindred spirit witnesses: vocals and good vibes

Ph. cr.: M Roberts: Palestine Solidarity Bristol 4/27/24
----

I am You - Dr. Refaat Alareer

…Look in the mirror:
The horror, the horror!
The butt of your M-16 on my cheekbone
The yellow patch it left
The bullet-shaped scar expanding
Like a swastika,
Snaking across my face,
The heartache flowing
Out of my eyes dripping
Out of my nostrils piercing
My ears flooding
The place.
Like it did to you
70 years ago
Or so.

I am just you.
I am your past haunting
Your present and your future.
I strive like you did.
I fight like you did.
I resist like you resisted
And for a moment,
I’d take your tenacity
As a model,
Were you not holding
The barrel of the gun
Between my bleeding
Eyes.

…The very same gun
The very same bullet
That had killed your Mom
And killed your Dad
Is being used,
Against me,
By you.

Mark this bullet and mark in your gun.
If you sniff it, it has your and my blood.
It has my present and your past.
It has my present.
It has your future.
That’s why we are twins,
Same life track
Same weapon
Same suffering
Same facial expressions drawn
On the face of the killer,
Same everything
Except that in your case
The victim has evolved, backward,
Into a victimizer.
I tell you.
I am you.
Except that I am not the you of now.

I do not hate you.
I want to help you stop hating
And killing me.
I tell you:
The noise of your machine gun
Renders you deaf
The smell of the powder
Beats that of my blood.
The sparks disfigure
My facial expressions.
Would you stop shooting?
For a moment?
Would you?

All you have to do
Is close your eyes
(Seeing these days
Blinds our hearts.)
Close your eyes, tightly
So that you can see
In your mind’s eye.
Then look into the mirror.
One. Two.
I am you.
I am your past.
And killing me,
You kill you.

I AM YOU

The Crossing 
Donald Nally, conductor

"we got time." 
by Matana Roberts (2020)
from The Month of Moderns 2021
presented by The Crossing, Penn Live Arts, 
The Woodlands 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

Please support the Breonna Taylor Foundation
https://justiceforbreonna.org

The Crossing Choir:  We Got Time, By Matana Roberts

Elegy For Tyre:  Welcome To The World Through My Eyes

"Stitched" for Violin · 
 Johnny Gandelsman

This Is America: An Anthology 2020-2021


note: there is a moving image component to this score that the musicians are also reacting to in real time

'Stitched' For Violin by Matana Roberts

Auricular Hearsay (1st Version) · Claire Chase · Susie Ibarra · Senem Pirler · Matana Roberts

Density 2036, Pt. 8 (2021)

 Performer and commissioner: Claire Chase
 Performer: Susie Ibarra
 Performer, Mixing Engineer, Mastering Engineer: Senem Pirler
Producer: Matias Tarnopolsky
Recording Engineer: David Dennison
Composer: Matana Roberts

note: there is a moving image component to this score that the musicians are also reacting to in real time

Auricular Hearsay (First Version)

Festival boot leg.
This was a piece that was performed in Berlin a while back
It is for 37 piece chorus, based also in Berlin called the HKW Choir. A group of wonderful souls.
This is the 1st iteration built upon a moving image piece i created as part of a residency I did w/ a great organization called Blank Forms.
This is another commentary in my eyes/ears of the problems  that exist around the unwarranted killing of black bodies in america by american  police.
The entire piece is a call to healing.
( photo credit: B. Morgenstern )

protest...you must.

live set from Peter Brötzmann  festival at London's Cafe Oto, September 2019

w/ Peter Brötzmann ,Masahiko Satoh ,John Edwards, Takeo Moriyama

this is a bootleg of a mixed media piece that i did at the park avenue armory. there is video. i will upload elsewhere and link here.
 is for snare sextet, saxophone,wordspeak and field recordings,samplers, and moving image. ( i also wrote the wordspeak segments)

the drummers were Kate Gentile, Tomas Fujiwara, Qasim Ali Naqvi, Mike Pride, Ryan Sawyer, and Justin Veloso. The wordspeaker was Geng.

Voice Memos

park avenue armory bootleg : blood blues a remembrance iteration I

this is a mixed media sound quilt  in my I CALL AMERICA series that was premiered last year at the Time Spans festival in NYC. the score on this was a mix of digital and analog, i will link to the video on my website soon. Sandra Bland did not deserve death. She should be here along w/ George Floyd and all the other victims of police brutality. it was honor to create this and work with the fine musicians listed here:


I call america: Sandy Speaks... , 2019 *
World premiere
Commissioned by The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust

Jaimie Branch, trumpet
Matt Lavelle, bass clarinet and pocket trumpet
Maria Grand, tenor saxophone
Geng/King Vision Ultra, wordspeak and sampler
Roberto C. Lange, wordspeak/electronics
Tomas Fujiwara, drums
International Contemporary Ensemble

Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Ryan Muncy, saxophone
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Levy Lorenzo, percussion
Cory Smythe, piano
Mariel Roberts, cello

Sandy Speaks

my 1st string quartet recorded by Brooklyn Rider. Pls support them on Bandcamp.

borderlands... is built around historical data about the US-Mexico border crisis and the problems that have ensued with the more recent archaic American immigration policies... It’s a sham and a shame. We can do better...

borderlands...

I'm an American mixed media multidisciplinary artist, sound explorer. I'm a hybrid of many different American traditions. I like to work between the cracks of creativity...As far as music making is concerned, I do not believe in genre....My core instrument: alto saxophone, my core visual medium: collage/assemblage/moving image. This page is a mix of uploads...bootlegs and self recordings...

Matana Roberts/ odds and ends....

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