SOUND CHECK ’86 was a concert from Chris Cochrane, the composer for THEM, an intensely visceral interdisciplinary collaboration with Dennis Cooper (text) and director/choreographer Ishmael Houston-Jones. The piece was originally presented at Performance Space 122 in 1986 and was revisited by Houston-Jones over the course of an extended rehearsal process at the New Museum. Presented as part of RE:NEW RE:PLAY Performance Residency Series, the rehearsals at the New Museum culminated in a series of programs collectively titled THEM AND NOW, exploring the artistic impulses that propelled the creation of this “aggressive and vital” (Village Voice) performance work and its reconstruction twenty-five years later. Immediately following the New Museum residency, THEM received its 2010 premiere at Performance Space 122, October 21–30, 2010. The production was included on several “Best Of” lists in dance press, including The New York Times.

Chris Cochrane is a guitarist who has been composing and playing music in NYC for 28 years. Cochrane has played with Eszter Balint, Zeena Parkins, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, and many others and has composed music for John Jasperse, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Jennifer Monson, Circus Amok, and others. Sparked by an invitation to form the experimental rock band No Safety, Cochrane began to write songs and music for dance in the mid-1980s. Cochrane’s music, both improvised and composed, has been described as “musical art brut, with its seams showing and its rough spots out in the open” (New York Times).

For SOUND CHECK ’86, presented as part of the collective program THEM AND NOW, Cochrane performed songs from the ’80s with his new trio featuring Hana Fox and Mike Duclos. The concert was joined by special guests Jim Pugliese, Eszter Balint, Zeena Parkins, JD Foster, Eddie Gormley, and Richard Dworkin.