Jazz, extreme metal collide in unique musical showcase

Both shred but each runs in a pack of their peers. Such is the plight of the guitar virtuoso in the jazz and metal genres.

But on Thursday, Dec. 3, at 8 p.m., worlds will collide when celebrated jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson meets extreme-metal slayer Colin Marston in a contrasting double-bill of solo sets at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (110 8th St., Troy). The concert will round out one of the most diverse and adventurous seasons in the venue’s history.

A composer, bandleader, and improviser, Halvorson is renown for her elastic, sometimes-fluid, sometimes-angular, wholly unique style. A student of famed improviser Anthony Braxton, she studied jazz at Wesleyan University and the New School before becoming a member of several of Braxton’s bands and a contributor to six of his recordings. Her education deepened with stints in no-wave guitarist Marc Ribot’s quartet Sun Ship and Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn’s Trio-Convulsant. Her longstanding trio has been named a “rising star” by Downbeat Magazine and critics have called her “NYC’s least-predictable improviser” and “the future of jazz guitar.” Her newest solo album Meltframe has been met with acclaim in the jazz press and beyond.

Marston is one of the most powerful figures on the New York death-metal scene, playing with groups such as Behold…The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Krallice, and Gorguts. His complex and technically demanding music weaves jagged rhythms with unrelenting energy to confront listeners with a wall of pure sonic force. Marston also runs a recording studio called Menegroth, The Thousand Caves in Queens where he records, mixes, and masters many forms of music. His prolific output includes extreme metal, progressive/experimental rock, avant-garde improvisation, free jazz, new music/modern classical, and ambient genres.

For this show, Marston will be playing a sevenstring Warr guitar, the signal from which will be run through a Disklavier piano.