Geared up to surprise

Nov. 25—details

—First Monday New Music Series

—8 p.m. first Monday of every month

—Teatro Paraguas, 3205 Calle Marie

—Free, $10 suggested donation encouraged

—505-402-0267, psyrecords.com

The first piece on the album Electronic Landscapes by Santa Fe musician Double Image begins simply with a droning synthesizer note, creating a sense of suspended animation until a sequencer provides some textural variety about 45 seconds in.

There are no lyrics, chorus, or clear theme, such as love or overcoming adversity. It doesn't even have a name; the 10 tracks are called, simply, "Landscape I," "Landscape II," "Landscape III," and so on.

Because of the lack of traditional structures, the album fits into the classification "experimental music," which can loosely be characterized as pushing boundaries and exploring beyond established genres. Double Image, aka Jim Goetsch, performed some of the music Nov. 7 during the second edition of the First Monday New Music Series from Sandbox, held at Teatro Paraguas. It was followed by an improvised set of experimental ambient music by Stitch Ensemble members that featured laptop computers, saxophone processed with effects to alter the sound, and processed electric bass as instruments.

The goal of the series, started by Santa Feans David Forlano and Ken Prokuski, is to feature music that uses creative and new techniques, such as electronic, new jazz, or modern classical. The series is the only offering of its kind in the city, and few visiting performers label their style of music as "experimental." In the business of music, familiarity with bands and styles drives ticket sales, and "expect the unexpected" doesn't resonate with everyone.

As such, Forlano and Prokuski, who since have been joined by Goetsch in the mission to present the new series, are catering to an audience that craves or at least appreciates the unfamiliar. December's scheduled performer is Albuquerque-based the Gral Brothers, whose music Goetsch describes as sounding "like a soundtrack for a psychedelic Western."

Sandbox, run by Forlano, bills itself as a promotional organization with a focus on avant-garde, experimental, improvisational, and new music. He says he's in the process of establishing a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to handle the First Monday series. Goetsch has run Psychosomatic Records, a label now based in Santa Fe, since 1998.

Forlano, Goetsch, and Prokuski sat in Forlano's garage on a recent Tuesday discussing their passion for experimental music and why there's a need for the First Monday New Music Series. The exchange resembled a concert of information, with three passionate soloists eagerly awaiting their turn in the spotlight.

So, why specialize in experimental music?

"It's a challenging music that challenges audiences," Forlano says. Ideally, attendees will leave shows talking about how much they enjoyed what they saw. But the goal is that they leave talking about how interesting the performance was.

Goetsch says he moved to Santa Fe about a year ago after working for decades in the Los Angeles area, and he saw firsthand how the spiraling cost of living can drain even a large city of its creative lifeblood.

"The expense of living in a city has been increasing, and people are getting driven out," he says. "You know, if you look at New York City when it was having avant-garde times in the '60s and '70s, people could get a loft for nothing and put on productions. That's all been completely driven out of Manhattan, and to a large degree, that was happening in Los Angeles.

"I actually moved out here intending to try to start my own series like this."

He joined forces with the others after meeting Forlano at a performance, and the partnership has proved fruitful beyond the development of the series.

"We've performed together as this large electro-acoustic ensemble called Stitch [Ensemble], and we all have a great time," Goetsch says. "In terms of the level, it matches some of the best stuff I heard in Los Angeles. I am just amazed to hear all the great, creative musicians that are in [Santa Fe]."

Santa Fe differs sharply from Los Angeles in a way that's especially resonant with those who work in sound: It's quiet.

"In terms of the geography, I think that does have a profound effect on musicians," Goetsch says. "It gets reflected, like, in New York in the '40s and '50s, when it was really a hustle-and-bustle place. That's where bebop came in, and it was fast and loud."

Some experimental music features snippets of random dialogue to alter the mood, perhaps from a television show that's now in the public domain or an old radio show. Some musicians blend sounds of nature with their work, and Northern New Mexico is fertile ground for field recordings. Prokuski says he used a small digital recorder to capture sounds at places such as Bandelier National Monument and the International Folk Art Market.

The Gral Brothers' most recent album, Dawson Cemetery, incorporates field recordings made at that historic site about 35 miles southwest of Raton. The cemetery that served Dawson, now a ghost town, has plenty of stories; mine explosions in 1913 and 1923 killed a combined 386 men.

Forlano grew up in eastern Pennsylvania and appreciates how the open spaces here encourage open-mindedness.

"Because this landscape goes on forever, it opens up more possibilities," he says. "When I lived in Philadelphia, all the buildings are, like, [vertical], and you have no horizon. And that's a weird, claustrophobic thing that you just get used to. So you're constantly in this box where things are just always presented kind of frontally. Here, it's like 360 [degrees]. So it feels like my attraction to what can be has widened."

The utterer of the classic quote "The earth has music for those who listen" is in some dispute, but the accuracy of the sentiment is not. Forlano says he hears it via children skipping down the street or raindrops slapping against the skylights in his home. If he happens to be playing piano when rain comes, he tries to mimic the sounds.

The Gral Brothers are an established band, releasing their first album, Volume 1, in 2017. That said, performers featured in the First Monday New Music Series need not be experts. They just need to have something to say, Goetsch says.

The trio accepts inquiries from potential performers and offers workshops that shed light on elements of the series, such as how the quadraphonic sound works and the numerous types of music-making software Prokuski has discovered. Contact Sandbox at david@sandboxmusic.org.

For audience members, the series offers a different kind of listening experience at Teatro Paraguas, where attendees are seated during performances.

"We want to offer an opportunity where you can walk into a space and just swim with the musicians and go where they're going to take you, because this kind of music sometimes really requires that kind of attentive listening and presence," Forlano says. "So the venue is important in that regard."

Shows are presented in quadraphonic sound — involving four speakers, with each emitting different sounds that together make up the music. Goetsch, in his November performance as Double Image, incorporated four processed violins, a different part emerging from each speaker.

"I remember years ago, when people were doing surround sound and electronic pieces, I thought, 'Well, that's going to be a big thing. Everybody will be doing it.' But nobody's doing anything like that, so OK, great. I'll be the guy."

The organizers stressed that the way a listener experiences music is almost as important as what they experience. Four decades ago, many homes had stereo systems, and bolstering sound quality was a key mission for the music industry, Forlano says.

"Now we have the mp3, and it has just destroyed sound," he says, referring to the compressed digital files that helped end the heyday of the compact disc as the main format for newly released music. "The industry has taken the very thing that it is and made it worse, and then served it up to the population. It's why I think live music now is really important, because you get to go into a space that maybe has a [quadraphonic] setup or just a good setup. And the sound is really gorgeous."