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IF, BWANA





ABOUT

Al Margolis
Composer, Musician, Raconteur

Active since 1984 under the If, Bwana name, making music that has swung between fairly spontaneous studio constructions and more process-oriented compositions. Ran the cassette label Sound of Pig Music in the 1980s and co-founded and continues to run the experimental music label Pogus. Plays bass guitar in the long-lasting, legendary punk/post-punk band The Styrenes. Recordings of his work have been released on the Tellus, Anckarstrom, Ants, Absurd, GD Stereo, Odradek, Monochrome Vision, and Pogus labels. Recent projects have included a sound art commission by WDR Koln, a collaboration with video artist Katherine Liberovskaya on "Take-off", which has been shown internationally, and the premiere of "Three Songs in Search of a Voice", a "nohtopera" with MutaMYTHeatre - music by Margolis and text and voice, Lisa Barnard.

• Received "Meet the Composer" grant for performance at Generator in N.Y.C., 1989
• Included on Tellus "Compilation #13"
• Received write-ups and reviews in The New York Times, Keyboard, The Wire, The Village Voice and New York Press among others
• Founded Sound of Pig Music in 1984, a cassette only label with over 300 releases
• Co-founded Pogus Productions in 1989, a record/CD label with releases by AMM, Rune Lindblad, Robert Rutman, Morphogenesis, Pauline Oliveros, David Rosenboom, Kenneth Gaburo, Ross Bolleter, among others
• Composed music for one soundtrack and contributed music for two other films by Lorraine Lamas
• Participated in French - U.S. simultaneous live music broadcast on WNYC-FM
• Toured the United States, Canada and U.K. with various projects including If, Bwana, The Styrenes, and Bwana Dog, among others.

WEBSITE www.pogus.com


TITLES

EC12 : "CLARA NOSTRA"