Angry Times, Matt Sargent

~stolen from Zukauskas

Brushback tipped us off to a guy named Matt Sargent recently. "Matt Sargent" is a super badass name, like an action hero from the late 80's or something, so naturally I was intrigued. Turns out he is a musician from Hartford, but not just any ol' musician; Sargent is a graduate of the Hartt School of Music and St. Mary's College of Maryland. In other words, he's a nerd. He appeared on the hipster radar because he drums for a new band called Angry Times. Check out the post on One Base on an Overthrow for more about them. Since it seems they haven't recorded yet, all we have to go on is Brushback's word that they're good. If his word isn't good enough for you, then go back to reading Pitchfork you louse.

It looks like Matt Sargent probably majored in English as well, considering there isn't a drop of ridiculous hyperbole in the bio on his MySpace page:

His composing grows out of an appreciation of natural resonances, acoustic spaces, field recording, and outdoor listening. These influences often enter his music in tangible ways, such as the use of pine sap drops as melodic material in his Soft Song (for solo cello), or the spatial arrangement of players and audio speakers (often spread hundreds of feet apart) in many of his ensemble works, such as Evening Song and Ghost Light Trio.

Matt frequently collaborates with musicians, writers, filmmakers, and visual artists. Since 2007, he has codirected the Hartford Sound Alliance, a CT-based multimedia collective of composers, sound engineers, performers, and video artists, that presents concerts, installations, improvisation performances, and workshops at universities and art spaces across New England, including The Sync Effect, a video/music concert with video artists Gene Gort, Devan Mulvaney, and Liz Stephens.

Other recent collaborative projects include Space Between, a series of intermedia pieces (including canvases, videos, and live performance works) created in collaboration with visual artists John M Adams and J.T. Kirkland, which was premiered at Artomatic 2009 (Washington D.C.), a set of new works currently in development with visual artist Ken Weathersby (involving speakers and mp3 players installed into canvases), and a newly commissioned electroacoustic piece for the Full Force Dance Theatre (to be premiered in April 2010).

In 2009, Matt joined the board of directors of the CT electronic music non-profit organization, SEMI (Studio for Electronic Music, Inc.). In June of 2010, he will be in residency at the Goldwell Open Air Museum in Death Valley (Beatty, NV), along with trumpeter/composer Chris Kallmyer, to develop a new work at the site of the Rhyolite mine and ghost town. He also recently completed an East Coast mini-tour with Bill Solomon of his new concert-length solo percussion work, Ghost Music, which included performances at Artspace Hartford, Towson University (Baltimore, MD), and St. Mary's College of Maryland.

Some of his other notable recent performances and installations include Real Art Ways (Hartford, CT), One Brooklyn Bridge (Brooklyn, NY), Zeigteist @ Outpost 186 (Cambridge, MA), the Warehouse Theater (Washington D.C.), An Die Musik (Baltimore, MD), Strand on Volta (Washington D.C.), the Chapel (Seattle, WA), Geneva Conservatory (Switzerland), Santa Caterina Cathedral (Alba, Italy), Brandeis University (Waltham, MA), Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH), the Hartford Art School (West Hartford, CT), the Patricia Sitar Arts Center (Washington D.C.), WHUH Radio (University of Hartford, 91.3 FM), and Artomatic (Washington D.C.). His music has been performed by numerous professional ensembles, including the Talujon Percussion Ensemble, Yale Brass Trio, and the Hartt Percussion Ensemble.

In addition to composing, Matt maintains a busy schedule as a performer and educator. He is an adjunct professor at Capital Community College (Hartford, CT), where he teaches, directs audio technology lab, and co-curates the Concerts@Capital music series. He regularly performs across the Northeast with singer-songwriter Kat Mulvaney and the Hartford-based indie pop band Sunspots.

I cannot believe this. The guy is based out of Hartford, he rocks lowbrow and composes highbrow music (maybe even shreds unibrow, too, for all we know), but the bum has been too lazy to record any Angry Times yet. That shit ain't right.

Here are a bunch of dates when you can catch Sargent in action:

Mar 9 2010 8:00P Cafe Steinhof (w/ Sunspots) Brooklyn

Mar 13 2010 10:00P Arch Street Tavern (w/ Sunspots) Hartford

Mar 14 2010 8:00P CalArts Valencia, CA

Mar 20 2010 8:00P La Paloma Sabanera Hartford

Mar 27 2010 8:00P Abigail Cafe (w/ Kat Mulvaney) Brooklyn

Apr 3 2010 10:00P Sully’s Pub (w/ Sunspots) Hartford

Apr 16 2010 8:00P Full Force Dance Theatre @ Charter Oak Cultural Center, Hartford

Apr 17 2010 8:00P Full Force Dance Theatre @ Charter Oak Cultural Center, Hartford

Apr 29 2010 8:00P Axiom Gallery Boston

May 21 2010 10:00P Sully’s Pub (w/ Sunspots) Hartford

Jun 1 2010 8:00P Goldwell Open Air Museum (month-long residency) Rhyolite, Nevada

Aug 1 2010 8:00P Windsor Art Center Windsor, CT