There are plenty of good reasons that the music of pianist/composer Matthew Shipp has been embraced by both the avant garde jazz and modern classical communities. These reasons become quite evident when the musician performs in a solo setting as he does on his most recent album, One (Thirsty Ear), and on his current tour which comes to Hallwalls next Thursday (March 23). As heard on Shipp’s new CD, the pianist is able to create music that is both soothing and dramatic, alternately frenetic and pastoral. Shipp’s playing style incorporates both subtle chord phrasings and dramatic single note passages. The musician’s songs often follow a specific leitmotif or repeated phrase before taking off on a wildly inventive, and highly rewarding, musical tangent. After arriving on the New York jazz scene in the mid-1980s, Shipp made a name for himself while playing with the likes of saxophonists David S. Ware and Roscoe Mitchell and bassist/composer (and recent Hallwalls visitor) William Parker. In the past few years, Shipp’s solo efforts have come into the spotlight and his local performance at Hallwalls provides concert-goers with the rare opportunity to witness a singular artist in an intimate setting.

It was around this time last year that I first heard drum n’ bass supergroup Pendulum. I was visiting a musician friend in Toronto, having one of our monthly “listening sessions,” where we share the most exciting music we’ve heard since the last time we’ve seen each other. The track was called “Fasten Your Seatbelt” and it was like nothing I’d ever heard before—it sounded like drum n’ bass but it was catchy, had a certain pop-sensibility and was extremely listener friendly. It turned out that, unlike many electronic music acts who release a single or two, Pendulum had an entire album for me to explore, Hold Your Colour (Breakbeat Kaos). The disc has catapulted Pendulum into electronic music superstardom and had the greater effect of opening the ears of non-drum n’ bass fans to the more interesting sonic possibilities of the genre. Pendulum has pushed the boundaries and widened the spectrum of the electronic music scene, making it inviting to musical thrill-seekers hoping to hear something that they’ve never heard before. Local support comes from Ewun, Dharma Lab and NC17.

Born in New Haven in 1944, Owen Land was an early figure in the history of structural film, in which the physical nature of film was emphasized over the pseudo-reality it created. Because so many of its exponents, including Hollis Frampton, Paul Sharits and Tony Conrad, have strong Buffalo connections, it’s only fitting that a retrospective of the short films Land made in the 1960s and 1970s, curated for the LUX Center in London, should play here following a European tour and dates at the Whitney Museum and Los Angeles Film Forum. Although Land once said, “My films are not intended as entertainment or easy viewing… A showing for the wrong type of audience could be commercially disastrous, though not necessarily without benefit,” his work is known for its humor and love of wordplay. He even parodies experimental film itself, while using contemporary references that make his films more accessible than mere academic exercises. For more information on specific films, visit www.hallwalls.org.

Acclaimed singer/songwriter Steve Wynn is responsible for some of the greatest underground rock music to ever come from the West Coast. As founder of the legendary group the Dream Syndicate, Wynn pioneered a movement of musicianship that collided 1960s guitar-jangle with post-punk song structure. The Dream Syndicate’s 1982 debut album, The Days Of Wine And Roses, was perceived as a landmark recording that has remained highly influential to indie and post-punk bands to this day. Since the Dream Syndicate’s implosion in 1988, Wynn has remained active as both a solo artist and as the leader of his new band, The Miracle 3. The guitarist/vocalist’s 2002 album, Here Comes The Miracles was a sprawling double-disc masterpiece, maybe the artist’s own personal White Album. Wynn’s new recording, Tick...Tick...Tick (Down There), is the third installment of what the musician calls his “Desert Trilogy.” Recorded in Tuscon, Arizona, on vintage recording equipment, Tick...Tick...Tick mirrors the environment it was recorded in; a stark, desolate landscape that is filled with both loneliness and discovery and that often displays dramatic changes in barometric pressure.