Photograph: Bert Shapiro

92YTribeca; Thu 20

You don’t forget your first live encounter with multi-instrumentalist and composer Elliott Sharp’s music. Mine came at a short-lived Chelsea space called Direct Box one torrid summer in the early ’90s, when Sharp led a huge ensemble in a sprawling primal opus called Serrate. Until then I’d heard Sharp only on record: in his wiry art-punk outfit Carbon, or as a sideman with John Zorn and Bobby Previte. That was no preparation for the seismic fury of Sharp’s large-scale conceptions. The air conditioning was shut off to provide enough juice for the band, which only intensified the music’s ecstatic throes.

Thinking in elemental terms is essential to understanding Sharp’s music. He applies concepts from higher mathematics, physics, geology and genetics to conceive pieces so rigorously controlled that they seem to verge on chaos, while allowing room for his interpreters to shape the outcome. His music can be relentlessly aggressive, repetitive, even arbitrary—which is the point, since those words also describe the processes behind life on this planet.

Doing the Don’t, a new DVD assembled by director Bert Shapiro, offers a concise, welcome overview of Sharp’s recent work, with expert testimony from friends and collaborators. The disc is stuffed with invaluable live recordings, including rare video of a roiling 1987 BAM date by Orchestra Carbon, plus nearly 90 minutes of previously unreleased audio. Portions of the disc will be screened during this release celebration, which will also include solo and ensemble performances of Sharp’s music. Hear it for yourself.