Join us at Bar Laika on Wednesday, February 18 from 6pm for the twenty-seventh edition of Playback with Ka Baird.
Ka Baird is a performer, sound artist, musician and composer based in New York City. They are known for their live performances which include extended voice and microphone techniques combined with electronics and psychoacoustic interplay of flutes and other woodwinds. They create a present tense sound with a vigorous, ritualistic delivery that seeks extreme release through physical exertion and psychic extension. They have worked/collaborated with many other musicians, artists, filmmakers and choreographers, both in structured compositions and in their dedicated practice of improvisation and interdisciplinary work.
Their solo releases include Sapropelic Pycnic (Drag City 2017), Respires (RVNG Intl 2019), Brooding Exercises (Longform Editions 2021), and Vivification Exercises (RVNG Intl 2021). In March 2024, they released their most recent solo record entitled Bearings: Soundtracks for the Bardos through Brooklyn imprint RVNG Intl. Recent national and international engagements have included performances at Unsound Festival (Krakow, PL), Lampo (Chicago, IL), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL), MoMA PS1 (Queens, NY), Issue Project Room (Brooklyn, NY), The Kitchen (NYC), The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia, PA), TUSK Festival (Newcastle, UK), Incubate (Tilburg, NL), KRAAK (Brussels, BE), Le Guess Who (Utrecht, NL), and the Festival Of Endless Gratitude (Copenhagen, DK). They have been artist-in-residence at We Jazz Festival (Helsinki, FI), Sonoscopia (Porto, PT), Inkonst (Malmo, SE), Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago, IL), and Pioneer Works (Brooklyn, NY). They have been a recipient of the Foundation of Contemporary Art's Emergency Grant, a Jerome Foundation Artist-In-Residence at Roulette Intermedium, and was a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow from 2023-25.
Playback is a series of informal listening events curated by Kamran Sadeghi where record labels, musicians, composers, and producers feature recordings from their catalog, and premiere album pre-releases, archives, and other rarities.
For more information, contact laika [at] e-flux.com.
