Concert recordings from two innovators in sound and media art: analog alchemist Lary 7 and filmmaker/drone music pioneer Tony Conrad, who supported each other’s work on and off the stage for decades. Lary 7’s work employs archaic and obsolete electronics and mechanics such as tube oscillators, spinning speakers, cannibalized turntables, and amplified gadgetry, often with light or projection effects, and embraces the struggles and failures of the gear for their surprising sounds and gestures. Tony Conrad’s work influenced the course of filmmaking and minimalist music with his “structural” flicker films and development of drone instruments and alternate tuning systems. In this program we hear Lary 7 in solo performances, the soundtrack from his hallucinatory Owl Movie, and in a duo with Tony Conrad on violin. Plus Conrad in a duo featuring his Long String Instrument with vocalist Jennifer Walshe, all recorded in concert at Roulette between 2003-2020. Image: from the documentary film on Lary 7, Not Junk Yet, by Danielle de Picciotto.

Tracking The Odds: The Roulette Concert Archive is a monthly hour-long radio special produced by Roulette Intermedium (roulette.org) and broadcast in partnership with Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM and Standing Wave Radio. The broadcasts feature selected highlights from Roulette’s New York experimental music space dating from the early 1980s to the present. Thousands of rare, formative, and often unheard recordings by innovators and adventurous musicians populate the archive. Tracking The Odds airs the fourth Monday of the month from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. and is archived at wavefarm.org.

Founded in 1978, Roulette operates a 400-seat concert hall on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn with a focus on experimental and unorthodox music and performance across all genres and media. It's archive of thousands of audio and video recordings is currently being restored.