Marshall Trammell (b/ 1972) is a self-styled Music Research Strategist. Drawn from Participatory and Collaborative-based Research Justice practices, Trammell’s Music Research Strategies platform is a Performing Political Education vehicle amplified through the afrological cultural dynamics of Creative Improvised Music Studies and Performance vectors. Coming from the San Francisco/TransBay Creative Music Scene, Trammell is a 30+ veteran of Experimental Percussion, Conduction, Sound Art Installation and founder/leader of Insurgent Learning Workshops (ILWs).

 Before the work presented in tonight's program, Music Research Strategies latest presentation is Ruthless Compassion: A Socio-Legal Theory + Tactical Media Praxeology provides a multi-day, collaborative, experimental, anti-ethnographic research ceremony for the creation of a Critical Improvised Music composition and performance centered on generating and rendering collective analyses of “governmental power” imagineries.

Trammell’s percussion style is characterized by a rapid, microtonal, stick-in-hand attack

for the two-piece drum set, literally bending drum heads with fingers, sticks and feet and bending spectral vibrations from the hi-hat cymbals with his hands.

 In addition to an array of ILWs, which are participatory, interculturally-situated, tactical media art-making engagements designed to re-introduce tactics of the Underground Railroad into today’s political landscape, Trammell is known for such adventurous music projects as White People KIlled Them (SIGE Records) with MacArthur and Pulitzer Prize winning composer Raven Chacon and Deerhoof’s John Dieterich, In Defense of Memory featuring violinist Laura Ortman and bassist Carlos Santistevan, a string of Black Fighting Formations investigations across North American

 Trammell has flourished with support from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, the Robert Rauschenburg Foundation, East Side Arts Alliance and Pro Arts COMMONS (Oakland, CA), Bard College’s Center for Indigenous Studies, Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), the Borealis Festival of Experimental Art (Bergen, Norway), Creative Time HQ (NYC), Charlotte Street Foundation (Kansas City, MO), International Musikinstitut Darmstadt, SIGE Records, Weird Cry Records and many others.

 Trammell is currently in Antwerp pursuing interests in developing a niche in Archival Science pertaining to Migratory Improvisations, Iconic Systematicity and Microtonal Composition.