Day Three: Saturday 9 November
TV Studio, Stockwell Street Academic Building
6-7.30pm: Concert 7 – Live
echome – echome
Our performance project takes the form of a set of several pieces, whose musical structures can vary with spontaneous phases of improvisation that can be interwoven and superimposed using live looping techniques. Resonating a modified saxophone with harmonising effects pedals, faint notes from a synthesiser, a drum machine, field recordings and vocals, we are looking for moments of polyphony that are both contemplative and uplifting. Although our approach is intended to be experimental in our creative process, we are nonetheless looking for a point of convergence between musical sub-genres that fascinate us, such as indie-jazz, melodic lofi, soundscape-based compositions, indietronica and ambient music.
echome (pronounced /e.kom/) is an aural territory shared between DESiRE LH and Mathias Arrignon, its affective lines are defined by the resonance of loops from various sources (voices, archives, instruments and field recordings). This theatre shaped by the echo unfolds stories whose narrative is often beyond the realm of words to offer an ethereal space for our inner selves.
Mathias Arrignon is a Val-de-Marne-born artist currently based in the UK, whose work seeks virtuous dialogues through listening, as a gentle way of inhabiting more-than-human worlds. His installations and sound creations have been presented at Southwark Park Galleries, Without Form Space, British Council Spark Festival, Field Kitchen Academy, Anthropos Ex, Resonance FM, Phonurgia Nova and Sonic Matter. In 2020, he won a Sound of the Year Award from the New BBC Radiophonic Workshop. He has also worked for nearly nine years as a sound recordist and sound designer, accompanying the production of listening narratives whether on the radio or through the audible strata of films.
DESiRE LH is a French multi-instrumentalist who trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where he studied jazz saxophone and piano. With a background in classical music, he was a latecomer to jazz, taking a particular interest in hard bop and the trends of the 1960s. He can also be found in a more modern aesthetic, based around his own compositions, with his Parisian quartet. In addition to his work as an instrumentalist (saxophone, flutes, keyboards, drums, vocals, etc.), he is also a composer and arranger for various projects: music for the screen, songs, experimental music and producer (rap, urban pop). He also teaches at the conservatoire in the Paris region.
Jorge Cabieses-Valdes – Destruccion y Muerte
Destruccion y Muerte (Destruction and Death) consists of a video performance that articulates two fundamental aspects of the artist’s work: on the one hand the ceramic materiality and its ornamental production, and on the other hand, mass media publications related to catastrophic events. Along with the video projection (made using photogrammetry technique), the artist performs live the flute, intervening and rearticulating the projected image.
For Destruccion y Muerte, the artist turns his attention to an event from 1985 when he was eight years old and the central area of Chile was affected by a large earthquake. The memory of the acoustic experience of multiple ceramic objects vibrating and falling to the floor of his home was fundamental to the genesis of the project. The text interpreted by the porcelain figure in the video comes from a description of a Hiroshima survivor.
The project does not seek to emulate the specificities of seismic sound, but rather to generate a sound landscape that refers to a very personal idea of fragility and destruction.
Jorge Cabieses-Valdés (1978, Chile) Visual Artist, Professor Department of Fine Arts, University of Chile, Lives and works in Santiago, Chile
Visual artist (MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London and Master in Visual Arts, University of Chile) and musician (Tobias Alcayota, Porcelanatron, among other projects). He has exhibited individually both in Chile and abroad at MAVI, Chile (2022); D21 Proyectos de Arte, Chile (2020); Museo de Artes Decorativas, Chile (2018); Beton 7 Gallery, Greece (2017); MNBA, Museo sin Muros, Chile (2016); Co Galería, Chile (2015); Sala de Arte CCU, Chile (2014); Galería XS, Chile (2014); Galería Temporal, Chile (2013); HIAP Kaapelin Galleria, Finland (2012); Galería Tajamar, Chile (2011) and Museo de la Solidaridad, Chile (2011).
His work has been exhibited collectivily in different art spaces such as Incheon Art Platform, South Korea (2013); Centro de Arte CeAC, Chile (2011); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Chile (2011); Forman´s Smokehouse Gallery, UK (2010); Galería Otro Espacio, Spain (2009); De Service Garage, Holland (2008); Wallis Gallery, UK (2008); Brussels Bienniale Side Project, Belgium (2008); Sassoon Gallery, UK (2008); Hyunghee Museum, South Korea (2007); Arti et Amicitae, Holland (2008); Warande Cultural Center, Belgium (2007); Museo de las Américas,Spain (2006); Galería Animal, Chile (2005); Galería Gabriela Mistral, Chile (2004); among others.
In 2013 he participated in the Incheon Art Platform residency program in South Korea and in 2011 in HIAP (Helsinki International Art Program) in Finland. Has obtained the FONDART funding program in 2020, 2018, 2012, 2010 and 2005, Presidente de la República Scholarship in 2006 and DIRAC in 2005.
Recently, his work in performance and sound has been presented at Underflow (2024), Athens, Greece; MNBA (2024), Chile; Sound Image 2023, University of Greenwich, London, UK (2023); Irida Visions Festival, Greece (2023); AFA Gallery, Chile (2019); Gallery Weekend, Chile (2018); Beton 7 Gallery, Greece (2017); Idryma 2.14, Greece (2017); Irida Theatre, Greece (2015); AFA BBQ Bodies That Resist, Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece (2015) and Galería Gabriela Mistral, Chile (2013).
Totaleee – Gate Dogs
“Gate Dogs” is a concert of radical and non-idiomatic electroacoustic improvisation. The performance involves Paolo Montella, Andrea Laudante, and Giuseppe Pisano, under the name Totaleee, an open and fluid composer’s society that encompasses the collective electroacoustic works produced by affiliated artists from and/or based in Naples, or who have a special connection with the city. The three sound artists use their computer devices programmed on max-MSP to create a concert of entirely spontaneous music characterized by the sonic power of electroacoustic gestures, rapid execution, and the creation of soundscapes balancing between concrete and synthetic sound. Each musician brings forth their specific skills: resonant and contemplative sound in Laudante, field recording and vocals in Montella, and spatialized and aleatory sound in Pisano. The result is always unprecedented due to their improvisational language.
In music, the term improvisation generally refers to the practice of exploring melodies, chord progressions, and rhythms within predefined structures established by specific genres, traditions, cultures, and styles. In line with the development of 20th century music, the languages of improvisation have gradually emancipated themselves from idiomatic conventions. What we refer to as non-idiomatic radical improvisation is essentially the reinvention of music from scratch, breaking free from pre-established structures and without necessarily adhering to predetermined styles.
While it’s relatively easy to trace the origins of these practices within instrumental music traditions – such as the rise of free jazz and free music, or composed improvisation in contemporary classical music – tracing them within the discourse of electroacoustic and electronic music development is still quite a challenge. In Italy, however, thanks to initiatives such as MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva), OEOAS (Orchestra Elettroacustica Officina Arti Soniche), and specific scenes associated first with Rome, with musicians such as Alvin Curran, Mike Cooper, and Elio Martusciello, and then with other cities, a robust practice of electroacoustic music improvisation has emerged.
Improvisational processes can be intended properly as “being in relation”, allowing the exploration of the interactions between material forces and cognitive modalities. In improvisation sessions, sound reveals elements of its origin, describes the path it travels, and establishes relationships with its surroundings. Through sound, musicians inevitably expose their relationship to the context around them. In essence, there is no such thing as an isolated sound, and sounds always exist as relational events.
During improvisation, participants learn about each other and the environment through a language that is codified together during performance, establishing and constantly rewriting rules and structures. Each improvisation configures a language with its own grammar, syntax, and structural functions that exists only for the time of the session. To do all this, sharp senses, high attention, and timing are crucial, and musicians are on the prowl like predators, performing silence as an active practice, ready to pounce at the right opportunity. We have identified reactive response—thus emphasizing active listening—as a key element of radical improvisation. We believe that developing the ability to respond quickly to listening can instigate clear sonic behaviors, thereby facilitating the construction of an improvisational discourse.
In most conventional instruments, the distance between action and sound production is mediated by simple interfaces. Plucking a string, pressing a key, beating a drum provide an immediate connection between thought, action, and sonic result. Electronic instruments, especially laptops, do not always have this feature, and it is difficult to find a good balance between operational simplicity and sonic complexity. Designing a software electronic instrument that meets the needs of an improviser has been at the core of our practice since the beginning.
Totaleee is an open and fluid composer’s society that encompasses the collective electroacoustic works produced by affiliated artists from and/or based in Naples, or who have a special connection with the city.
Together, they are working to develop an approach to composition that relies heavily on an ongoing dialogue about form, structure, and materials to enable a method of collaboration that is both philosophical and artistic.
Andrea Laudante is an Italian composer of electroacoustic music and multi-instrumentalist. His aesthetic is influenced by the study and practice of oriental spiritual traditions, which are strongly manifested in works such as the cycle “Perceptions of Prakṛti”.
Paolo Montella is an electroacoustic composer, multi-instrumentalist, and programmer. Field recording and radical improvisation practices are central to his aesthetic. He focused his research on the relationship between sound and source, meant as a complex phenomenal system.
Giuseppe Pisano is a composer and performer of electroacoustic music. His work is characterized by the use of field recording as a means to investigate space and as his primary compositional tool.
Tout Croche – Navigating Calmer Oceans
“Navigating Calmer Oceans” is a slow, meditative exploration of tonal materials juxtaposed with beautiful noises. The piece was composed by first improvising with a simple setup of piezo microphones and pedals. Editing the recordings was crucial in order to extract the essence of the manipulations done during the performance. Through the use of Dolby Atmos, the duet also gave a very intimate feeling to the recordings. The piece is a response to an earlier piece of the duet titled “The Wreck”, which also explored the beauty coming out of noise.
The piece was composed at the Sound/Image Research Centre in Greenwick (UK) in September 2023 and will be released on Label formes · ondes in the fall 2024.
Tout Croche is Stephen Harvey and Dominic Thibault making electronic music. A haven of post-genre sonic experimentation, music making that marvels at noise from beautiful ambience to digital distortion. Coming from different musical backgrounds, they found commonality in improvisation and noise. Since October 2011, the duo has actively been developing a live setup around the electric guitar and a rack of digital FXs routed together to create surprising sonic textures. Tout Croche enjoys playing live where their energy and intensity can be perceived by the audience. But both musicians are also fascinated by the work in studio where they have that unique opportunity to refine and sublimate their improvisations. They are now touring the UK to celebrate their most recent studio work, Super Silent, an album released in October 2013 on The Silent Howl as 180gram vinyl and high quality digital.