Musical ensemble Das Audit (Eve Essex, Dan Fox, Craig Kalpakjian) takes over KAJE’s Gowanus gallery space for six weeks to mount a series of performances over February and March.  Das Audit’s lineup will expand with each event, performing first as a trio on Sunday, February 27th; as a quartet with Kevin Kenkel on drums Sunday, March 13th; and in the closing event, Thursday, March 31st, as a quintet with Max Gordon on keyboards.

Each evening will feature a reading, and guest musical set by multi-generational New York-based experimental artists - Including musicians Kevin Kenkel, Gavilán Rayna Russom, and Peter Zummo’s Environmental Combo (with Mustafa Ahmed, Ernie Brooks, and Bill Ruyle), and authors Emmanuel Olunkwa, Early Shinada, and Arden Wohl. Multimedia artist Kit Fitzgerald produces the live video with analog and digital effects and live video painting for the live-stream.

Peter Zummo’s Environmental Combo, Das Audit Quintet, Early Shinada

Early Shinada opens with a reading. Das Audit performs as a quintet (Eve Essex, Dan Fox, Craig Kalpakjian, Kevin Kenkel, Max Gordon). Peter Zummo’s Environmental Combo performs in a quartet formation (Peter Zummo, Mustafa Ahmed, Ernie Brooks, and Bill Ruyle). Kit Fitzgerald produces the live-stream with analog and digital effects, and live video painting.

Kevin Kenkel, Das Audit Quartet, Arden Wohl

Arden Wohl opens with a reading. Das Audit performs as a quartet (Eve Essex, Dan Fox, Craig Kalpakjian, Kevin Kenkel). Kevin Kenkel presents a solo electronics set. Kit Fitzgerald produces the live-stream with analog and digital effects, and live video painting.

Gavilán Rayna Russom, Das Audit Trio, Emmanuel Olunkwa

Emmanuel Olunkwa opens with a reading. Das Audit performs as a trio (Eve Essex, Dan Fox, Craig Kalpakjian). Gavilán Rayna Russom presents a solo electronics set. Kit Fitzgerald produces the live-stream with analog and digital effects, and live video painting.

Das Audit is a musical ensemble that has performed regularly in New York City since 2014. Founding members Eve Essex (voice/woodwinds/electronics) and Craig Kalpakjian (electric guitar) were joined in 2022 by Dan Fox (bass/electronics/clarinet). The group scales in size from duo to quintet, featuring a rotating group of instrumentalists. Das Audit’s sound alternates between structured songwriting and free-form improvisation, drawing on elements of jazz, minimalism, post-punk, and prog rock. Their material stems from scores and prompts, with text, graphic, or traditional notation serving as the basis for collective interpretation and expansion. As a quartet with Sean Keenan (bass) and John Anderson (percussion) they have released two albums, Das Audit (2016) and Pioneer Works (live, 2016). Select New York appearances include Baby's All Right, Fire Over Heaven/Outpost Artist Resources, Greene Naftali, MoMA PS1 Printshop, The National Arts Club, Pioneer Works, Union Pool, and a commission for SculptureCenter's In Practice program.

Kit Fitzgerald is a video artist. She has collaborated with composers Max Roach, Peter Gordon, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Steven Bernstein; choreographers Twyla Tharp, Donald Byrd, Bill T. Jones, Yoshiko Chuma; poets Sekou Sundiata, Bob Holman, Anne Waldman; theater companies The Talking Band and Northern Netherlands Theatre. Her work spans short and long-form film and videos, live performance, installation, streaming and digital painting.  
Recently her live performance work has shown at Roulette, virtually with NowNetArts Ensemble, and under the direction of Heartbeat Opera’s Louisa Proske, in “The Mother of Us All” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the New York Philharmonic and Juilliard School. As a director, Ms. Fitzgerald directs music videos, documentaries, dance videos, motion graphics/logos, and museum and promotional videos. Her work is distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix and is in collections of major museums. She has twice been included in the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial. www.kitfitzgerald.com

Kevin Kenkel is a multi-instrumentalist based in Brooklyn, NY. His first solo album, "Will You Please Let Me Pour My Heart Out?", released in October 2021, attempts to warp human and robot use of the English language over top of swirling, clipped samples of mainstream pop music and synthesizers. His forthcoming second record, "Break All The Bones in Your Heart," abstracts this process further, exploring darker themes of anxiety and isolation in an increasingly claustrophobic technological present. He is also a drummer and percussionist, most recently playing with Basic Plumbing and Colin Self.

Emmanuel Olunkwa is a writer, editor, and designer. Olunkwa currently serves as the editor of Pin–Up Magazine and he co-founded November Magazine.

Gavilán Rayna Russom is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York City. Over the past two decades she has produced a complex and compelling body of creative output that fuses theory with expression, nightlife with academia and spirituality with everyday life. Rayna’s renowned prowess with analog and digital synthesizers as composing instruments locates itself within her larger vision of synthesis; an artistic method of weaving together highly differentiated strands of information and creative material into cogent expressive wholes. The central thread of this practice is the exploration of liminality as a healing agent, a phenomenon she has been engaged with since childhood and has researched at an astounding depth. Her work is cumulative and experiential. It requires time and attention to take in, and it powerfully rewards those who bring their time and attention to it. In March of 2020 Rayna founded Voluminous Arts, a creative network for supporting and disseminating works by boundary pushing artists.

Early Shinada is a traveling artist and activist based in the United States. Their work stages live relays of history through performance, video, sound, and text. An active wisher of bonds, they are a committed collaborator and community organizer.

Arden Wohl is a poet, artist, and designer working widely across disciplines and communities. Her work has been shared in Live Mag and in events at The Hole, No. 8, La MaMa, and Recess, among other places, and she has also organized events at 56 Henry and Tibet House in NYC. 

Peter Zummo is a composer and trombonist whose work with the contemporary trombone is genre non-conforming, and yet finds a place in any genre. His work as a creator and performer encompasses both the contemporary-classical and vernacular genres. Working in close collaboration with artists in related media, including composers, poets, bandleaders, choreographers, directors, and filmmakers, he functions both as a supporting character as well as a principal artist. Production credits include Indian Ocean’s Treehouse/School Bell, with Arthur Russell, on Sleeping Bag; HER, by Yvette Perez, on Persian Cardinal; Zummo With an X, on Loris Records, New World and Optimo Music; Experimenting With Household Chemicals, on XI; Downtown Only, on Lovely; Arthur’s Landing, on Strut; Lateral Pass, on Foom; Dress Code, on Optimo; Deep Drive and Tone Bone Kone, on Unheard Of Hope; Watermelon Sun, on Brownswood; What’s Not Enough About That, on Vula Viel; Slybersonic Tromosome, with Tom Hamilton, on Penumbra; and contributions to Wind Layers on 7K.