That Dang Show Ami Dang

In Episode 8 of That Dang Show, Ami Dang chats with Wizard Apprentice, a music producer, live performer, and video artist from Oakland. As a highly sensitive introvert, her/their multimedia projects are strategies for managing an overwhelming world. Their music is a combination of lyrical precision, minimalistic composition, and technically-amateurish charm. They create media that takes advantage of accessible, user-friendly technology, skipping time consuming learning curves to focus on inventing highly relatable language for subtle personal experiences. Check out their work at https://wizardapprentice.bandcamp.com and follow W.A. on Instagram @wizard.apprentice. This is the final episode of Season 1.

In Episode 7, Ami Dang chats with Maral, a Los Angeles-based artist who has formed a unique vision of club music, one that embraces her heritage and recontextualizes it for a new audience. Focusing on the interplay between sounds and culture she combines Iranian folk field recordings with raw distorted beats, hoping it will introduce listeners to new ways of perceiving music. Through her music, DJing and involvement in the scene, Maral seeks to both educate and have a positive impact on others. Check out her work at https://soundcloud.com/maral66 and on IG @_ma_ral_.

In Episode 6, Ami Dang chats with Korea Town Acid, a Korean born, Toronto-based DJ/Producer/Live PA performer. She is a classically trained pianist evolved to free-form beat manipulator and creates swinging dance rhythms and moody bangers that meld disassembled minimalism, free jazz and the more avant-garde corners of techno. Check out her work at https://soundcloud.com/koreatownacid and on IG @koreatownacid.

In Episode 5, Ami Dang chats with Nailah Hunter, a composer, harpist, pianist, singer, and music educator from Los Angeles. Ami and Nailah discuss how she approached her compositions as spells, the annoying trendiness of new age spiritual practices, her (undiagnosed) synaesthesia, teaching music in quarantine, and more. Nailah Hunter’s debut album Spells was released on Leaving Records in May 2020. Each of the six tracks represent a spell, a unique sonic place forged by imagination and incantation. Check out her work at http://nailahhunter.bandcamp.com.

GRL PWR, a Baltimore-based collective run by Amy Reid and Pangelica, creates platforms for women and LGBTQ identifying people and elevates visibility for underrepresented artists and talent. GRL PWR collaborates with installation, projection and performance artists, transforming environments as a way to grapple with the lack of queer spaces in Baltimore. In today’s episode, Ami chats with Amy Reid and Pangelica, the artists behind GRL PWR, about creating inclusive space, dismantling white male supremacy, and the dissonance between institutions and artists.

Pangelica is a songwriter and music producer with a background in classical viola. While her composition process began with arranging classical works for viola and string quartets, she exchanged pencil and staff paper for creating music with a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), Virtual Studio Technologies (VSTs) and synthesizers. This shift of mediums is what eventually gave birth to the hyper-romantic synthpop sound of Pangelica. Amy Reid is a queer electronic musician, producer, sound, visual artist and curator striving to transform spaces sonically, socially, and visually. Inspired by her experiences as a musician, visual and community artist, her lifelong goal is to explore the environments in which all three worlds intersect.

“There’s an opportunity for evolution in every single moment.” In Episode 3, Ami Dang chats with Low Leaf (aka Angelica Lopez), Filipino-American Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer and producer. Her music combines an array of genres using the harp, piano, guitar, and her experimental nature, to create a unique sound that exists in a spectrum of its own. She is also a prolific painter, illustrator, yoga practitioner and advocate for sustainability and plant medicine. Low Leaf ultimately seeks to be an instrument of love, in hopes of reawakening the world to their divine heritage and purpose, so that humanity can live in harmony with mother earth. Check out her work at https://www.creatordiy.com. This episode is supported by Everyseeker Festival.