Thursday, June 4, 2026 at 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM
2220 Arts + Archives, Los Angeles
Portland's Visible Cloaks visits the 2220 theater to celebrate their new release on RVNG: *Paradessence*. Local electronic composer Ellen Phan opens the night. ∆ Since transforming from Cloaks to Visible Cloaks in 2014, Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile have mapped a complex matrix of oppositional concepts: organic and artificial, chance and deliberate, authentic and replicated. The title of their new album itself, drawn from author Alex Shakar’s satirical portmanteau of “paradoxical” and “essence,” reflects these tensions directly: the *paradessence* of consumer product is the “schismatic core” that gives rise to its desirability (in Shakar’s example, coffee is desired because it is both relaxing and stimulating simultaneously). The balancing act of *Paradessence* brings these strains into greater urgency as life in the 21st century is reordered by these same tensions. Ellen Phan works primarily in the field of computer music. Creating a distinctly psychoacoustic sound sphere, Phan’s performances aim to open the subconscious mind by employing the teachings of hypnosis. (MoCA)