Ominous Cloud Ensemble
Ominous Cloud with special guest Jenna Horton performing an adaption of Brecht's "To Those Who Come After" at Vox Populi Gallery, May 15 2019. Photo by Jeff Young.
Ominous Cloud at PhilaMOCA 7/10/19. Photo by Malav Kanuga.
OCE performance at Middle of Nowhere festival, 2019. Photo by Becca Haydu, WHYY.
Ominous Cloud with special guest Jenna Horton performing an adaption of Brecht's "To Those Who Come After" at Vox Populi Gallery, May 15 2019. Photo by Jeff Young.
ERIK RUIN'S OMINOUS CLOUD ENSEMBLE is an ever-evolving, collectively-improvising large ensemble for projections and music, led by visual artist Erik Ruin, lauded by the New York Times for his "spell-binding cut-paper animations." Erik manipulates intricate paper-cuts and painted films on overhead projectors to create abstract landscapes and fragmentary scenes that are nonetheless charged with meaning, merging with music that ranges from dark atmospherics to ecstatic peaks of dissonance. Members of the ensemble include a rotating cast of Philly's finest musicians, including current and former members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Bardo Pond, Espers, Irreversible Entanglements and Chris Forsyth's Solar Motel Band.
We've shared stages with such acts as Laraaji, Lonnie Holley, the Messthetics, Father Murphy, HPrizm and Horse Lords.
Aaron Pond of Broad Street Review describes one performance- "...an unexpected climax, a loud awakening of all the players, a synthesis between the handcut illustrations and the music. Layers of patterns rumbled and turn in on themselves, creating sensations of awe and bodily transfiguration. Simply put, the visual and musical elements overrode my sense of self."