Kuumbwa Jazz & Indexical Present: Alex Zhang Hungtai & Voicehandler

Since retiring his project Dirty Beaches, Alex Zhang Hungtai has been focusing on explorations of improvised music, free jazz, and his new role as a composer of soundtracks for film. His latest musical output predominantly works with saxophone, synthesizers, percussion, and piano, furthering his research on ritualistic music of liminality. Solo output aside, he is also a member of an experimental trio with Portuguese musicians David Maranha and Gabriel Ferrandini, based in Lisbon. Zhang currently lives in Los Angeles and is also working as an actor in independent films.

Voicehandler plays intuitive, incantatory music grounded in the most primitive and somatic instruments — the voice and percussion — juxtaposed with contemporary, disembodied electronics. Their improvisations are shaped by their setting and context, and use site-specific installations to more deeply experience spaces. Voicehandler deconstructs song forms in relation to mythology and literature to explore our collective humanity and the shifting discourse surrounding it.

(Ticket Includes 5% City of Santa Cruz Admission Tax)