StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on John Wiese

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring John Wiese, who's coming to St. Louis to perform in a concert presented by New Music Circle on Saturday, November 11 at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall.

Wiese, who was born in Kansas, grew up in St. Louis, and now lives in Los Angeles, is an "artist, composer, publisher of books and records, graphic designer, typographer, and various other things" who has been called "one of the last decade’s most sophisticated and accomplished sound artists" by Vice.com.

According to the descriptive copy on New Music Circle's website, Wiese "doesn’t really think of himself as a musician in the traditional sense, and instead of writing purely notated music he works with manipulating, cutting and arranging sounds electronically. The end product is more like a meticulous collage, built upon dense, nuanced sounds ranging from the minimal to the frenetic."

Since graduating from the California Institute of the Arts in 2001, Wiese has performed at venues and festivals all over the United States, Europe and Japan, and has released hundreds of recordings as a solo artist, collaborator, and under pseudonyms and/or project names including Sissy Spacek and Bastard Noise.

For his St. Louis performance, he has created a new site-specific work that will include more than 20 local musicians. And in addition to his concert, Wiese also will take part in several other events while he's in town, including a public presentation on Wednesday, November 8 at Washington University and a screening of some of his short films on Thursday, December 9 at the Moolah Theatre. (You can see the complete list of collaborating players and associated events here.)

Since it's impossible to show videos of a piece that hasn't premiered yet, today's collection of clips instead offers a chance to check out Wiese's general aesthetic via several of his solo performances, starting up above with an excerpt from a show in April 2015 at Pariah in Dallas, TX.

After the jump you can see two more excerpts from performances in 2014 and 2013 at the Los Angeles art gallery 356 S. Mission Rd, and excerpts from shows at the Debacle Fest 2013 in Seattle and a performance in March 2012 in Cork, Ireland.

Finally, you can see a short video interview with Wiese (complete with French subtitles) from 2016, and a 2014 clip in which he goes shopping at Amoeba Music in Hollywood as part of their "What's In My Bag?" web series.

For more about John Wiese, check out the feature about him published in April 2016 by Vice.com, and his 2015 interview with Bomb magazine.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...