BRATTLEBORO — Saturday, Feb. 29, will mark the first time this millennium that February has contained five Saturdays.
It will also be the night Epsilon Spires hosts a leap year celebration inspired by the syncing of the calendar year with the astronomical year.
The event features three electronic music acts hailing from near and far - Starbirthed and Involution from New England, and La Création Mondiale from Le Havre, a city on the northern coast of France.
Starbirthed is the project of Maine artists Ash Brooks and Matt Lajoie, who began working together after attending a guided meditation in the back of a Portland gem shop in 2015.
Since then, Brooks and Lajoie have released more than three dozen albums under various monikers, featuring instruments ranging from electronic synthesizers and looping pedals to acoustic wooden flutes, bells, and a 10-string guitar.
Many releases have personalized touches, like hand-silkscreened covers or cassette-tape cases that contain small pieces of gemstones.
The improvisational duo La Création Mondiale uses analog electronic instruments to explore radio and light waves, transforming common objects like microphones and flashlights into tools for investigating the invisible world around us.
Involution, the solo project of classically-trained musician Dave Seidel, will kick off the evening's festivities. Although now living in New Hampshire, Seidel started his career in New York City in the 1980s, where he played with avant-garde ensembles in venues ranging from the legendary rock club CBGB to the Alice Tully Concert Hall in Lincoln Center.
With Involution, Seidel uses synthesizers to explore “microtonalities” - the notes in between those of the classic do-re-mi scale that has been the basis of Western music for centuries.
The compositions are designed to gradually evolve over the course of each performance based on the unusual tonal scale Seidel selects.