Utech Records and Stephen Kasner Collaborate on Fine Art Series:

Utech Records will invoke a connate soul next year in visual artist Stephen
Kasner to develop a second fine art series of cd releases for the label. The
series, as yet unnamed, will comprise nine volumes of 750 copies each over
the course of 2008 beginning in April. Kasner has committed the bulk of his
next year's output to painting original and exclusive canvases. His subject
matter has yet to be disclosed, but the artist has spoken in general terms
of a new direction he wants to explore in his work. A package unique to the
series has been designed to highlight Kasner's residuum and the accompanying
music.

The foundation of the series is the belief that a visual device can bind a
disparate body of music in a meaningful way. The genesis of this idea was
first explored with photographer Max Aguilera-Hellweg in 2007 and the result
was Utech Record's acclaimed Arc Series. Fruit borne from that venture has
led to this stab at further examination. Kasner immediately saw value in the
theory and agreed to help cultivate and refine it.

Artistic study aside, the guts of this series is the music and the
conviction that it alone will give rise to its life. Utech and Kasner
discussed at length the curatorial undertaking and a virulent battery of
musicians was selected. At this time the list includes:

Skullflower
The Vulture Club
Aluk Todolo
Heavensore
Fuyuki Yamakawa
Runhild Gammelsaeter

Sure to be an archetype for the music/art proposition in the coming year,
the series has been intentionally left open ended. The two have agreed to
let ideas evolve naturally and it will remain to be seen just how far things
will go. There is a lot on the table and not all of it is being revealed at
this point.



Utech Records
Stephen Kasner

Letters to Scene

Published 12:00 am PST Friday, November 9, 2007 in the Sacramento Bee
Story appeared in SCENE section, Page K3

Stephen Kasner's nocturnal 'Visions'

Re "Visions in the dark: Stephen Kasner's art (call it 'creepy-mysterious') has lots of fans, but it isn't for everyone" (Oct. 29):
Stephen Kasner receives both plaudits and pans for creating "dark, ethereal, nightmarish, dreamlike" works of art.

I have been a Kasner enthusiast for some time now and agree with those descriptions – sort of. His works are like litmus tests.
If one shuns the darkness within, suffers enchantment myopia but is enraptured by the mundane, then he may be put off by
Kasner's images. After many attempts to conceptualize what I love about his paintings, I have finally arrived at the feeling
rather than adjectival labels.

Upon waking from a nocturnal journey, the state of being can be akin to having just ridden on a roller coaster or having just seen a frightening film:
Upon exiting the coaster or emerging from the theater, we remember not only the frightful but also the balmy breeze in the park,
the smell of cotton candy, the beautiful old mansion set in a lush forest, the handsome man in a burgundy smoking jacket.

Upon awakening, we think, whew, glad that wasn't real ... and yet ... that one thing ... that exquisite mermaid in the fish tank on the midway
... if I could ... maybe ... if I close my eyes and concentrate, perhaps. ... It's a haunting refrain that taps at the window of your mind,
the sense of wonder that lingers in your memory of a time or place to which you want to return again and again.

That is how I feel about Kasner's paintings: Next time, will the birds break from their frenzy and take flight, the beautiful woman fully emerge
or the high priest turn to contemplate the offering of flowers? Or will he slash the birds, lay them upon the pale belly
of the lifeless woman and frame the scene with blossoms?

It's all sensation, where dread and joy are intertwined. Don't try to explain or understand. Just feel.

– Diane LaVey
San Francisco