JG Thirlwell’s Silver Mantis
“Silver Mantis is an experience for the senses.” MIXDOWN
JG Thirwell is just one of the many monikers this Brooklyn-based, Australian performer, composer, and producer uses as a vehicle for his music. Having lived and composed all over the world, he’s worked as a songwriter, record producer, collaborator, and now primarily a composer, which has led to his most recent project – Silver Mantis. Silver Mantis is a 50-minute electro-acoustic presentation, performed with software and sampling, theremin, and prepared piano. It is an immersive multi-channel composition which allows for an elastic performance. The inspiration for Thirlwell’s Silver Mantis was to create a work incorporating live re-composition and improvisation into its structure, one which could expand and contract fluidly with flow and spontaneity from preordained building blocks of sound. Incorporating musique concrète and electronic sound along with live instrumentation, the composition is dynamic, cinematic and diverse with stylistic left-turns, creating a tension between time and anxiety. Performed with projections exclusively made for the show by acclaimed Swedish artist, Sten Backman, Silver Mantis has enraptured audiences at prestigious international venues such as Roulette Intermedia, Cafe Oto, and Elastic Arts.
