A couple of vibrantly Jewish gigs coming up in London…
* * * * * * * *
I mostly know about Jewdas thanks to them apparently being among Jeremy Corbyn’s favourite Jewish organisations, and hence having been dragged in the wretched palaver over where and how much anti-semitism might be marring British politics. A determined “radical Jewish voice for the alternative diaspora”, they could probably have done without the blowback; or perhaps they take it as a badge of pride; but they’ll wear and weather it regardless.
In Britain and elsewhere, the internet’s rotting under the feculent, polluted weight of this particular debate, and I’m not going to wrangle the point here (I’ll leave that to the single-issue soapboxers who love it so much) but it would plainly be nonsense to suggest either that Jewdas might not be deeply rooted in Jewish culture, or that they’re not deeply proud of it. If you want to know more of what they’re about (and don’t mind Jonathan Sacks being twitted a bit) you can read about that here: alternatively, you could consider their summer party show at Balabam this week. It’s Jewish to the core – bright and lively, opinionated and warm; pugnacious in intellect and politics and personal engagement; sometimes superbly vulgar; and loaded with music that weaves itself into a shawl of pain, laughter, chatter and living.
They’re hoping to offer “the best in radical Yiddish music” (trigger warning for the humph-y: they tend to favour Yiddish over Hebrew) and it’s certainly going to be left-wing, and anarchic. Headliner Geoff Berner is a Jewish-Canadian punk-klezmernik; a singer, songwriter, accordionist and sometime novelist who prides himself on “dragging klezmer kicking and screaming back to the bars where it belongs. For the past fifteen years or so, he’s travelled the world, garnering a sizable, passionate following of odd, bookish people who like to drink. Clever and literate, Berner’s songs can make you want to weep, laugh, grind your teeth, or kick out a window – often all at the same time. His writing can be overtly political, overtly left wing, leaning towards anarchy, but free of easy slogans or cliches.“ I couldn’t talk him up any better than that, so here he is in action in concert and on video:
I’m better acquainted with one of the other acts on the bill – Fran & Flora – the once-seen, immediately-loved cello-and-violin duo of Francesca Ter-Berg and Flora Curzon, who’ve been bringing string duets from eastern European folk and improvisatory traditions to events like Marchland for a few years now, and who’ve now documented it on record with their debut album ‘Unfurl’. Presumably they’re providing the more serious and sober core to the evening, though I doubt that it’ll dominate if someone called Rokhl Merlot is also providing “Yiddish cabaret on an out-of-tune piano”. I suspect there’s a pseudonym involved and that it’s probably going to be riotously funny. As for DJs, there’s a “tuchas-shaking selection of klezmer, Jewish jazz, kosher blues and circumcised soul” from the Kosher Nostra DJs, who are presumably turning nasty gags about “Jewish mafias” on their heads before spitting them back. (Either that, or it’s a nod to the ghost of Bugsy Siegel.) I can’t track down anything on Mr or Ms. Merlot, but here’s a dose of the other two.
My own favourite Jewish joke? You didn’t ask for it, but it’s from within the community; and it’s about how if you leave a Jewish guy alone in a room for long enough, he’ll start arguing with himself. That’s how it ought to be, and I’m guessing that it’s something Jewdas are more than happy to embrace.
Postscript – I’ve just found out that Jewdas’ response to some wretched fascist pledging to take Stamford Hill (a strongly Jewish area of north-east London, and the place where my own mother worked in Jewish youth organisations on her first arrival in this country, fifty-odd years ago, as a concerned and wandering New Jersey Gentile) and to liberate it from “Jewification” was to stage a ‘Jewification’ party; and to then invite everyone, including Muslims and “everyone who has ever been threatened for being different, everyone who has ever been othered and made to feel like an outsider…. We did not let them pass before (at Cable Street), and we will stop them again – this time with furious dancing.” Now that’s just treasurable.
* * * * * * * *
If this all sounds a little raucous, there’s also an upcoming chance to catch the (frankly magical) contemporary British Sephardic ensemble Sefiroth out at JW3 at the start of July.
Built up from some of the best young British jazz and folk musicians from the Sephardic Jewish community (the rundown being the Roth brothers – Alex, Simon and Nick – plus Alice Zawadzki, Olesya Zdorovetska, Ruth Goller, Shirley Smart, Alex Bonney and Francesco Turrisi) the band rearranges and revives Jewish songs and melodies from fifteenth-century Iberia where Moorish, Balkan, North African and Mediterranean ideas merged with the music brought out of Israel. The repertoire’s a mingling of ancient love songs, children’s rhymes, dances, songstories and yearning airs; bringing to mind warm winds, scintillating desert nights, homesickness, melodies hummed and murmured in kitchens and tented marketplaces… the entire musical texture of a community.
Sefiroth play all of this beautifully. Over the last few years, I’ve spent several evenings sitting spellbound at their feet as they spun these tunes out of brass, percussion, shofars, Alice and Olesya’s vocals (capturing ache, nurture, memory and desire), Alex’s slips, swells and ebbs of gorgeously understated electric guitar, and barely-perceptible laptop sound mutations. You could, too.
* * * * * * * *
Dates:
Jewdas presents:
Geoff Berner + Fran & Flora + Rokhl Merlot + The Kosher Nostra DJs Balabam, 58-60 High Road, Tottenham, London, N15 6JU, England
Saturday 22nd June 2019, 8.00pm – information here, here and here
Sefiroth JW3, 341-351 Finchley Road, West Hampstead, London, NW3 6ET, England
Thursday 4th July 2019, 7.30pm – information here and here
One of the best things about running the gig notification side of ‘Misfit City’ is uncovering unknown venues – ones which were previously unknown to me, at least. The ongoing embittering saga of London’s shuttering venues (gobbled up by flats or zoning, squeezed out by skyrocketing rents or bullying neighbours) is at least offset by news of new ones, be they dedicated performance buildings or reclaimed/improvised spaces. From what I hear, half of Peckham seems to be sprouting pop-up performance opportunities: but on this occasion, I’m taking a look at a couple of spaces nearer the river.
I can’t think why I’ve not heard of Sands Films Studios before – as institution and location, they’ve been in place for forty-two years, nearly as long as me. Based in an 18th century granary in the same corner of Rotherhithe as The Mayflower pub, they’ve made most of their money from costumery (sumptuous hand-embroidery for Merchant Ivory, ‘Wolf Hall’, ‘Doctor Who’, the film version of the Lloyd Webber ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and many more) but over the years have expanded into sound and film staging, some of it contained in a small, sofa-filled, enchanted-looking theatre space like a pocket Georgian dream. Judging the latter to be “an inspiringly intimate place to hear fabulous music”, promoters Tunedin.London have swooped on it. Since this September alone, it’s hosted Chilean flamenco from Natalia Garcia Huidobro, polyglot West African songs from Jean Paul Samputu, Galician music from Uxía, and trans-Manche Celtic songcraft from both Siobhan Wilson and Mary Ann Kennedy, with upcoming baroque and rebetiko concerts to come.
My not knowing about Poplar Union is more understandable. it really is brand new – a dedicated arts and community centre for this neglected London neighbourhood above the Isle of Dogs, adding light and colour to a tower block beside the Limehouse Cut, its name a wry nod to the area’s former Victorian workhouse. Much of what goes on there is community workshops, but they’re also getting up to speed as an interesting gig venue, having hosted a double showcase for polyfusional song outfits 1816 and Land of If, with a vibrant sets of new jazz concerts lined up for next year.
Here’s what they’re doing next…
* * * * * * * *
Tuned In London present:
Tell Tale Tusk Quartet Sands Films Studios, 82 St Marychurch Street, Rotherhithe, SE16 4HZ, London, England
Wednesday 29th November 2017, 7.45pm – information here and here
Hailed as “clever, witty and deep” by Resonance FM – and based around singing clarinettists/guitarists Fiona Fey and Laura Inskip, singing percussionist Reyhan Yusuf and fiddle player Anna Lowenstein – folk band Tell Tale Tusk Quartet have “grown and developed together over the years, emerging first as an a capella trio, before collecting a fiddle player and setting hands upon new instruments to explore and expand their palette. Their highly collaborative process informs the diverse styles and varied sounds that can be heard within their music. Spellbinding (and award-winning) vocal harmonies weave around melodious instrumentals to reimagine folktales old and give light to folktales new. Tell Tale Tusk’s take on folk is boundlessly creative: as well as being inventive interpreters of music from around the British Isles, the ensemble are prolific writers, adding their distinctive and astute voices to modern day folksong.”
This end-of-November gig celebrates the recent launch of ‘Through The Morning’, the band’s crowdfunded debut EP as a quartet, featuring “an anthropomorphized journey through the changing seasons, a pensive ode to the Moon and a bawdy tale of a (not so) lascivious sailor… just some of the characters that come vividly to life through Tell Tale Tusk’s dynamic storytelling.” In keeping with Rotherhithe’s ongoing celebrations of the three-hundred-and-ninety-seventh anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower, expect a few sea shanties too. Meanwhile, see below for the quartet’s arrangement of an old English folk song performed earlier in the year at Sofar Sounds, plus a rip through Ungrateful Wench from one of the occasions when the band goes out as a rhythm-section-bolstered sextet.
* * * * * * * *
Sefiroth Poplar Union, 2 Cotall Street, Poplar, London, E14 6TL, England
Sunday 3rd December 2017, 6.30pm – information
Via projects such as Otriad, Blue-Eyed Hawk, Future Currents and Yurodny and through collaborations with orchestras such as the London Sinfonietta, the work of multi-disciplinary guitarist Alex Roth covers jazz, improv, contemporary classical, alternative folk and electronic music; and crosses over into dance and theatre events such as the Katarzyna Witek dance project aired earlier this month.
One of the projects closest to his heart is chamber-folk ensemble Sefiroth, founded with his brothers (saxophonist and flautist Nick, drummer Simon) to “explore and reimagine traditional Sephardic (Judeo-Spanish) repertoire… Sung in Ladino, these ancient songs weave timeless stories of love, loss and yearning for home, evoking the lands in which the Sephardic diaspora settled: Iberia, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The group’s arrangements are as porous and wide-ranging as the history of the Sephardim, combining acoustic and electric instruments, contemporary harmony, improvisation and trance-inducing rhythms.”
It’s been a long time since we’ve heard anything new from Sephiroth, although various combinations of the band, drawn from a pool of mostly Anglo-Sephardic musicians – percussionist Francesco Turrisi, trumpeter Alex Bonney, cellist Shirley Smart and bassist Ruth Goller, with the vocals handled by Olesya Zdorovetska and violinist Alice Zawadzki – have regularly interacted with each other since the ensemble’s last full concert circa 2013. It now seems as if they’re all collectively refreshed and up for more. This Poplar Union show promises to be the first in a new set of dates for the band.
Meanwhile, see below for some excerpts from Sefiroth’s previous multimedia show, ‘Arvoles Lloran por Lluvia (The Trees Weep For Rain)’, which you can also pick up as a Bandcamp EP.
A quick London jazz update, in two contrasting flavours (jazz-pop in a plush Soho brasserie; wild improv and thick sound in a Lambeth art space).
Live At Zédel presents:
Alice Zawadzki & Jamie Safir Brasserie Zédel, 20 Sherwood Street, Soho, London W1F 7ED, England
Saturday 24th December 2016, 7.00pm – information
“Following a sold-out show in January, Alice Zawadzki and Jamie Safir return to their favourite venue for an evening of power-ballads and pop-songs: rearrangements of ’70s, ’80s and ’90s classics stripped bare and drastically re-imagined in this intimate jazz setting. Described by ‘The Guardian’ as “a genuine original” and by ‘MOJO’ magazine as “something of a phenomenon”, Alice truly possesses a unique musical gift on both voice and violin. Tonight she will be ably accompanied by accomplished, young pianist and arranger Jamie Safir, a regular at Zedel, and a creative and virtuosic improviser whose sensitivity and skill when accompanying vocalists has led to him work recently with Will Young, Ian Shaw, Olly Murs and Barb Jungr amongst others.”
I couldn’t find any clips of Alice and Jamie working together (they’ve done this show before at Zédel, but no-one seems to have thought to film it). Still, to give you an idea, here’s Alice’s separate guitar/violin/bass trio cover of Nobody’s Fault But Mine, brought down to a thrumming pitch of apprehension. Not that the original’s a power ballad, but it fits the mould if you stretch the latter beyond belief (and carefully ignore the fact that the original’s actually a Blind Willie Johnson blues moan rather than a crushing Led Zeppelin behemoth), though I’m not sure whether she’ll be applying similar techniques to Hold The Line, Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now or other ‘School Disco‘/’Guilty Pleasures’ stalwarts.
At the same time, London experimental jazz organisation LUME will be throwing a two-day performance party in the shape of their own yearly LUME Festival. Drawing on the success of last year’s event, it brings a selection of old and new faces to town.
Newer to LUME are multi-layered Newcastle trio Archipelago (Christian Alderson, John Pope and Faye MacCalman, who throw piano, tapes, mbiras and handheld Monotron synths into the jazz-meets-garage-rock fusion of their bass/reeds/drums lineup) and the stormy murmuring chants of Laura Cole’s jazz-folk sextet Metamorphic, in which she’s joined by saxophonists John Martin and Chris Williams (the latter also of Led Bib), drummer Tom Greenhalgh, loop vocalist Kerry Andrew (of Juice Vocal Ensemble) and a bass chair that’s filled either by Paul Sandy of The Rude Mechanicals or by Sloth Racket’s Seth Bennett. Also in the mix are solo sets by visually-minded trumpeter and laptop wizard Alex Bonney (of Splice, Loop Collective, Leverton Fox and many others) and by electric trombonist and field recorder Tullis Rennie.
On top of this, there are some new entanglements. There’s the “brutally physical” Manchester/London teamup of David Birchall, Andrew Cheetham, Otto Willberg and Colin Webster; the Ma/ti/om percussion/bass/woodwind teaming of Matilda Rolfsson, Tim Fairhall and Tom Ward; plus whatever the random ensemble shuffle of The Hat Speaks throws up. To round off, there’s the mass blowing of the LUMEkestra as it debuts new work by Sam Andreae, Adam Fairhall, Dee Byrne and others.
Time details and daily lineups below, plus the usual wobbly stack of tunes, snippets and aural collisions to warm you up for the event.
If you’re quick on your feet between Brixton and Shoreditch this coming Saturday, you could catch the following Facemelter gig just after the hip hop show mentioned in the last post… As with said last post, I’m rushed and just regurgitating promoter blurb this time – sorry about that…
* * * * * * * *
Chaos Theory presents:
The Facemelter: Poly-Math + Theo + evillookingbird The Old Blue Last, 38 Great Eastern Street, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3ES, England
Saturday 2 April 2016, 10.30pm – free event – more information
“It’s a no-brainer really – a late-night, free entry math-rock party.
“Brighton band Poly-Math are an absolute belter of a trio, who have mastered walking the line between complex polyrhythmic math rock and head-noddingly bouncy riffs. In only few short years, they’ve independently amassed a huge following across Europe’s prog and math rock scenes with the release of a few blindingly good early singles, hugely anticipated debut EP ‘Reptiles’, and some carefully chosen gigs, including an early slot at the first ever ArcTanGent, where we discovered them by accident. With new mini-album ‘Melencolia‘ coming out soon via Superstar Destroyer Records, we can expect some new sounds from the Brighton trio.
“Theo is a one-man riff factory, known for setting up in the middle of the audience, laying down incredible math rock guitar riffs and looping them on top of each other, before sitting down at his drum kit and banging out some incredible rhythms. The fact that he manages to do this, create extraordinary dynamic changes, crescendos and down-tempo sections, while never letting the pace slack too much, explains why his name has rippled across the underground math rock scene all over Europe.
“evillookingbird are an instrumental project from Belgium, who combine classical music, post-rock, noise and psych, to end up sounding a bit like Mogwai, Chopin and Battles are all fighting over the keys. This may be their first trip out of their home country, but evillookingbird are no stranger to familiar names in the European math rock scene, having supported the likes of Alright The Captain, Bear Makes Ninja, Mannheim, Hibagon, Celestial Wolves and more, as well as having been asked to perform at one of Europe’s biggest street festivals Gentse Feesten. They’ll be heading into the studio to record some new material, which we’ll get to hear at the show, but check out their EP ‘Labyrinth’ for now.
“Afterwards Chaos Theory curator Kunal will DJ post-hardcore and math rock riffs, and Chaos Theory photographer Magda will DJ classic rock, power ballads, and anything you’ll love dancing to after a few beers at 3am.”
* * * * * * * *
LUME presents:
Dave Kane Quartet + Corey Mwamba/Cath Roberts/Olie Brice The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8AZ, England
Sunday 3rd April 2016, 7.30pm – more information here and here
“The Dave Kane Quartet – Dave Kane (double bass), James Allsopp (saxophones and clarinet), Alex Bonney (trumpet) and Joost Hendrickx (drums) – will be playing music from their forthcoming album, to be released on Two Rivers Records later this year.
“Dave says ‘This music is my own personal reflection and dedication to the jazz lineage, all of the music that I have listened to and the music that has influenced me the most. Each track on the record is a dedication to a composer/person that has influenced me greatly throughout my career. There are tracks dedicated to the following people: Charles Mingus, John Zorn, Hamid Drake, Eric Dolphy and Henry Threadgill. For me “the jazz lineage” means the records that are in my collection… my own personal lineage to the tradition, and my resulting music as a composer influenced and shaped by the music. Most people think of the jazz tradition as jazz standards, etc. This is not what I do, or what I am interested in. I have always listened to more adventurous composers & musicians who always pushed the music forward. This is what I have achieved with my new record. Although this music is still on the contemporary/avant garde side of jazz… I would say it is some of the most accessible music I have ever written.’
“The improvising trio of Corey Mwamba (vibraphone), Cath Roberts (baritone saxophone) and Olie Brice (double bass) first played together in 2014, bringing together three musicians active on the UK jazz and improvised music scene. Olie Brice leads his own quartet as well as playing in numerous other collaborations including a trio with Toby Delius and Mark Sanders; BABs with Alex Bonney and James Allsopp; Nick Malcolm Quartet; Loz Speyer’s Inner Space Music; and Alex Ward Quintet/Sextet. Cath Roberts leads two groups playing her compositions, Sloth Racket and Quadraceratops, as well as writing and improvising new music with guitarist Anton Hunter as Ripsaw Catfish. She is a member of the Madwort Sax Quartet, Anton Hunter’s Article XI, the eight-piece improvising saxophone group Saxoctopus and the collaborative quartet Word Of Moth. Corey Mwamba leads his own trio, Yana, and is involved in a variety of other groups including Sonsale; duos with Rachel Musson, Orphy Robinson and Robert Mitchell; Martin Archer’s large ensemble Engine Room Favourites; and Nat Birchall’s quintet. He is recognised as a highly creative improviser and composer working across a wide range of jazz and contemporary music, as well as a programmer of forward-looking music in his home city of Derby.”
* * * * * * * *
More shortly on the upcoming Gnod weekender – or on anything else that flits across my radar.
Well, actually this is the first of the next-to-last gigs post of the year (I’ve still got to do the second round of Christmas parties). Apologies for terseness and excessive recycling of press-release blurb, but there’s a lot to pack in both here and elsewhere this month.
About half of these gigs are seriously avant-garde concerts for the London Contemporary Music Festival, with even more of a blizzard of links and odd video clips than usual. I’m also starting with a couple of full-on jazz or electronic improvising gigs.
Walthamstow’s newest (and only?) regular night of experimental/noisy/generally interesting music, returns with sets of bracing electronic experimentation from Phantom Chips and MXLX(the amazingly prolific Matt Loveridge, aka Fairhorns, Team Brick, and one third of BEAK>, among others), as well as the MNFN DJs playing ’til late.
* * * * * * * *
The Hat Speaks (LUME @ Hundred Years Gallery, 13 Pearson Street, Hoxton, London, E2 8JD, England, Thursday 17th December 2015, 7.30pm) – pay-what-you-want (£5.00 minimum) – information – tickets on the door
For our last gig of 2015 we return to Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton, for the second edition of our dice-and-hat improvised music night. We held the first one in July to celebrate our second birthday, and it was so much fun we decided to do it again. As before, a nebulous ensemble of UK improvisers will gather to make spontaneous music together. This time the list looks like this:
Taking inspiration from long-running Manchester night The Noise Upstairs (founded by Anton Hunter and Tullis Rennie, no less), we will put all the players’ names into a hat, throw the dice to determine how many musicians will play, and then draw out the names. The result is lots of mini- sets from often completely new combinations of people! (Some groups from last time have decided to carry on playing together too: Tom Ward and Adam Fairhall are now collaborating on a new quartet for 2016 after their hat encounter in the summer).
Do join us for this last gig of the year – it’s been a blast, so let’s see it off in style! Entry, as usual, is one Bank of England note of your choice.
* * * * * * * *
And to close, here’s that run-down through the remaining London Contemporary Music Festival concerts.
We present the world premiere of a monumental new work by sound artist and recordist Chris Watson. Drawing on extensive underwater recordings gathered by the artist from oceans around the world, ‘Okeanos’ – a multi-channel sound installation that will play in complete darkness – celebrates the songs, rhythms and music of the oceanic depths.
In an attempt to shift our perception of what opera can do and be, we present a second instalment of ‘To A New Definition of Opera’, in which performance, video art and neglected modernist opera rub shoulders. Alongside a new commission from British performance artist Sue Tompkins, the night will include composer Tim Parkinson’s apocalyptic anti-opera ‘Time With People’ (performed by the University of Huddersfield’s edges ensemble) and Los Angeles-based artist Ryan Trecartin‘s dystopian film ‘CENTER JENNY’.
The centrepiece of the evening will be the UK premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s celebrated ‘Pieta’ from ‘Dienstag aus Licht’, with the voice of Lore Lixenberg and flugelhorn of Marco Blaauw. Interlaced throughout the evening will be an extremely rare performance of excerpts from Ezra Pound’s troubadour opera about medieval ne’er-do-wells, ‘Le Testament de Villon‘, which critic Richard Taruskin called “a modernist triumph.”
Programme:
Ezra Pound – excerpts from ‘Le Testament de Villon’ 1926 version (UK premiere) – performed by Lore Lixenberg (voice), Aisha Orazbayeva (violin), Lucy Railton (cello), Ian Sankey (trombone), Serge Vuille (percussion) Christopher Stark (conductor)
Karlheinz Stockhausen – Pieta from ‘Dienstag aus Licht'(UK premiere) – performed by Marco Blaauw (flugelhorn) and Lore Lixenberg (voice)
Ryan Trecartin – CENTER JENNY
Tim Parkinson – Opus 1, 2, 3 and 4 from ‘Time With People’ – performed by edges ensemble: John Aulich, Mira Benjamin, Jorge Boehringer, Eleanor Cully, Beavan Flanagan, Stephen Harvey, Dorothy Lee, Asher Leverton, David Pocknee and James Woods
Sue Tompkins – Like Sake (world premiere, LCMF commission) – performed by Sue Tompkins
‘A Martian Sends A Postcard Home’ takes its name from a poem by Craig Raine that sought to re-see the world through bold acts of defamiliarisation. This night celebrates the Martianist turn in music, with an exploration of composers who have made the familiar fresh.
The night will include the European premiere of Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund‘s lawless chamber work ‘Untitled School/Mud Jam/Campfire Tunes’, performed by the Plus Minus Ensemble, and Andrew Hamilton‘s electrifying ‘music for people who like art’. In ‘Mezcal No. 8’ Swedish composer/performer Hanna Hartman transforms a copse of steel rods and washers into a sounding presence.
We honour two standard bearers of “making strange” in composition: Helmut Lachenmann and Dieter Schnebel. Aisha Orazbayevaperforms Lachenmann’s ‘Toccatina’ alongside a recital of Russian poems by Mayakovsky and Yesenin that live and breathe the idea of estrangement or ostranenie. Meanwhile, composer and musician Christian Kesten presents Schnebel’s celebrated ‘Maulwerke’ where vocal technique is pulled apart into its constituent parts, alongside his own ‘Zunge Lösen’ that seeks to stage the tongues of three performers.
Artist Tino Sehgal takes on the body, intellectual property and materiality itself. ‘Instead of allowing some thing to rise up to your face dancing bruce and dan and other things’ is his earliest “livework”. It sees performer Louise Höjer transformed into, in the words of ‘Frieze Magazine’, a “hydraulic android”.
The night ends with a visit from Cairo’s E.E.K. Under the fingers of Islam Chipsy (accompanied by drummers Khaled Mando and Islam Tata), a digital keyboard is wrenched into explosive new sonic territory, articulating the sound of post-Tahrir electro-chaabi.
Programme:
Tino Sehgal – Instead of allowing some thing to rise up to your face dancing bruce and dan and other things – performed by Louise Höjer
Selected poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Sergei Yesenin – performed by Aisha Orazbayeva (voice)
Helmut Lachenmann – Toccatina – performed by Aisha Orazbayeva (violin)
Christian Kesten – Zunge Lösen (Releasing the Tongue) – performed by Christian Kesten (voice)
Andrew Hamilton – music for people who like art – performed by Becca Carson (piccolo), Ausiàs Garrigos Mórant (bass clarinet), Ian Sankey (trombone), Sam Wilson (percussion), Jack Ross (electric guitar), Siwan Rhys (piano), Joanne Evans (voice), Eloisa Fleur-Thom (violin), Valerie Albrecht (viola), Oliver Coates (cello), Martin Ludenbach (bass guitar), James Weeks (conductor)
Dieter Schnebel – Maulwerke (2015 solo version) – performed by Christian Kesten
Hanna Hartman – Mezcal No. 8 (UK premiere) – performed by Hanna Hartman
Øyvind Torvund – Untitled School/Mud Jam/Campfire Tunes (European premiere) – performed by Plus Minus Ensemble: Mark Knoop (piano), Roderick Chadwick (piano), Serge Vuille (percussion), Elsa Bradley (percussion
Islam Chipsy & EEK – live set
Some call it post-internet art: others “the New Aesthetic”. Whatever the name, there’s no doubt that the internet has scrambled the way we think, see and listen. Yet if art has placed this new paradigm at its heart, we are only now beginning to distil what it means for musical composition.
One pioneer of musical attempts to understand how things are changing in the digital shadow is Jennifer Walshe. The final night of LCMF 2015 will see the UK premiere of her latest, major one-woman work ‘Total Mountain’. Two further UK premieres arrive from Germany. Berlin-based Neele Hülcker investigates (as does Claire Tolan) the online phenomenon of autonomous sensory meridian response – or ASMR – in her work ‘Copy!’, while Brigitta Muntendorf explores the YouTubed bedroom in ‘Public Privacy No 2’.
The flight from reality captured by this post-internet music is not new. Serialist trailblazers like Milton Babbitt got there first with works such as ‘Reflections for piano & synthesized tape’. The hyperactive, networked aesthetic of Walshe and others, meanwhile, was foreshadowed by Jacob TV in ‘Grab It! Both are performed tonight.
As an occasional collaborator with London-based collective PC Music, Felicita‘s music is one in which the tropes of pop’s most commercial statements are accelerated, amplified and brought riotously together into a language that, if satirical, is also wildly inventive in its own right.
We conclude and project into the future with the long-awaited UK return of James Ferraro, whose 2011 album ‘Far Side Virtual’ is an essential post-internet text. For his forthcoming release ‘Skid Row’, Ferraro turns his attention to contemporary Los Angeles, a kind of “hyper-America” where violent realities are obsessively mediated and reproduced.
Programme:
Milton Babbitt – Reflections – performed by Mark Knoop (piano) with original tape recording
Jacob TV – Grab It! – performed by Nick Goodwin (electric guitar)
Brigitta Muntendorf – Public Privacy #2 (UK premiere) – performed by Brigitta Muntendorf with Mark Knoop (piano)
Neele Hülcker – Copy! (UK premiere) – performed by Neele Hülcker
Jennifer Walshe – Total Mountain (UK premiere) – performed by Jennifer Walshe
Felicita – live set
James Ferraro – new work
Swoon. /swo͞on/ A verb. To be emotionally affected by someone or something that one admires; become ecstatic. Here are some people and things that make me swoon. #swoon #swoonage
Misfit City 