personnel:
kyle bruckmann oboe/english horn,/suona
todd a. carter; cds/waves/synthesis
michael colligan; dry ice/tubes/clarinet
john corbett; acoustic lap steel
guillermo gregorio; clarinet/alto saxophone
brent gutzeit; the fisher/tone generator/craptop
michael hartman; laptop
terri kapsalis; violin
ernst karel; trumpet/analog electronics
fred lonberg-holm; lightbox operator
matt long; piano/synth
shannon morrow; drums/percussion
liz payne; string bass
julie pomerleau; electric violin
uncle woody sulllender; banjo/electronics
ben vida; electric guitar/cornet
michael zerang; whistles/zither/snare drum/tamborine/bells/vibrator

review: In an interview last year with the Web zine Perfect Sound Forever,
        Chicago composer and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm characterized
        himself as a "basic research kind of guy"--he's as excited by
        the process of working with musicians as he is by the results.
        That philosophy is especially evident in his Lightbox Orchestra,
        where he conducts mostly ad hoc groups of improvisers with a box
        of colored lights coded to tell different players when to start or
        stop. He also uses a set of cue cards with directions that are
        sometimes concrete (high, low, loud, soft) and sometimes designed
        to provoke free association (a drawing of a chicken). The music on
        the second side of last year's vinyl-only Two Lightboxes (Locust),
        culled from a 2000 Munich performance, moves with unassailable
        logic between tumultuous, agitated passages and dignified, bluesy
        ones. On one track from the group's first studio release, Instant
        Landscape, rustling strings lapse into several minutes of tense
        silence--the session must have been one hell of a staring contest. 

        -- Bill Meyer
           Chicago Reader
           January 7, 2005