Spencer Clark a.k.a. Typhonian Highlife a.k.a. Fourth World Magazine a.k.a. Monopoly Child Star Searchers a.k.a. Pacific City Sound Visions label owner — has been busy, as usual, working on new potions and sounds. The latest result of such experiments is his new project, Avatar Blue, and it’s out officially on March 23. To celebrate its release, the soundvisionist will host an open event in Antwerp March 20-23 presenting laserdisc movies, culminating on the last day with a live event featuring “performances within a scenographic installation” by TMT favorites like James Ferraro, Francesco Cavliere, and Lieven Martens Moana (Dolphins Into The Future).

Full event details are below, followed by a short Q&A with Spencer Clark and an “Influencer Mix.”

Spencer Clark on Avatar Blue

Avatar Blue Event Details

Het Bos, AntwerpAnkerrui 5-7, Antwerp 2000Belgium

EVENT DATES:

MARCH 20 - 23rd 2-10pm

LASERDISC ENTERTAINMENT CINEMA

GALLERY OF AVATAR ART OBJECTS

MARCH 23, 9pm AVATAR BLUE CONCERTS:

PERFORMANCES WITHIN A SCENOGRAPHIC INSTALLATION BY JAMES FERRARO, FRANCESCO CAVALIERE, LIEVEN MARTENS MOANA, STAR SEARCHERS (SPENCER CLARK)

C & Spencer Clark Q&A

Your releases are usually upfront and direct with motifs and themes, but usually it’s the Soundvisions that absorbs listeners. What’s the deep background with Avatar Blue?

Avatar Blue is a color… James [Ferraro] and I talked about The Skaters making an alternative soundtrack to the movie Avatar before it came out, like a Skaters new album… We never quite got to it… So after World of Shells, I thought that it was time to go to that place. I remembered that Avatar 2 was coming out in 2020, so I thought that I should make an alternative soundtrack to that movie before it came out, to sort of send a speculative magical command. Like Earth to Jimmy Cameron, can you please hook it up….

I started collecting materials to go into this world. I got a few books on the beginning of the Biosphere project. The original inventor of the Biosphere project intended to basically make a space ship that would run on its own. I got a few books on the Precambrian period, an introduction to Astrobiology, and a novel called Reefsong by Carol Severance. Reefsong is really cool, a Hawaiian women who goes to a far-off planet to harvest seaweed, she loses her arms and then gets prosthetic fish/human arms. Discovers the process of harvesting the fish is a malicious government agenda, and rebels… The water on the planet is gold and the dolphins are pink.

So these books brought to a super Alternative Earth/Ocean vibe, and it sounds like that. [Avatar Blue ] has less of a story behind it than my previous records, but it’s sort of back to the Monopoly Child Star Searchers vibe, but with a new Earth Blue shine/haze. It sounds like OCEAN INSECT ACTION MUSIC…

Give is a little snippet of the Antwerp premiere you’re hosting…..

For the premiere of Avatar Blue, which is being mixed and produced by Roman Hiele, I wanted to make a scenography, like an opera background. But of the Avatar worlds juxtaposition of morphed Avatar aliens, speculative Precambrian art, and Light Puddles. I made a collage of this scene, sent it to Francesco Cavaliere, Lieven Martens Moana, and James Ferraro. I asked them to make a piece to the scenography and then come play it live in Antwerp at Club Het Bos (Club Forrest). The club offered me a week’s worth of programming. Previously I had curated something similar at The National Museum in Brussels (Bozar). There I showed movies and had performances… I had a Congolese guitar player playing over Joel Vandroogensbrooks ALIEN music, after showing HR GIGERS NECRONOMICON. I had Ernesto Gonzalez play a choreographed Ecco The Dolphin game to a woman playing New Age classical harp. It was super adventurous, exciting.

So, Boing! Avatar Blue is a night of concerts and a LASERDISC MOVIE THEATER, playing some early 90s cyber’sci-fi flicks that have really cool folie design, SFX that always inspire me to make my own adventurous samples. There is an exhibition, called STUDIOLO BLUE, that will showcase all the art/props made for the scenography. The 70s scenographies for operas in Salzburg and Munich were super outerspace Conan The Barbarian Dion de Laurentis. I always wish that there could be exhibitions of opera props or even movie props. I tried to do an exhibition of all the props from Alien Nation , but my people skills with 20th Century Fox were just not effective… Hangupsville… I wish there would be more stuff like that to see. Sometimes I don’t get enough from museums or gallery shows… I want speculative and parallel world artifacts, 24/7…

So it all comes down to me wishing for things to exist, and then figuring out Imagineer it! Like Big Walt… Avatar, was a cool event… James, Mark, and I went to the red carpet event the day before the movie came out. We saw Sigourney, Cuba, Encino Man, even Constanza… It was really special… And then the movie, it kinda didn’t come through all the way. I want to show realities that I could image being there in the sequel, before it came out. To wish it well. Flicks have a powerful impact on me, all the sprinkles on the side… The lights and colors and sounds — I want that to be in my music… And for this one, I want to grip one for Planet Earth… Hyper-Space and oceaned out!…. It opens next week, I am super excited