A new solo release available as a download from Cafe Oto’s in-house label OTOROKU. This is a single nearly-20-minute long bass clarinet solo. Originally played through a quadraphonic system, with two mics panned to the left and right of the room – sending different notes/sounds to different sides of the audience (depending on where they physically emanate from the bass clarinet), we’ve recreated this effect by panning the two mics in opposite directions in the track mix too. Recorded in January 2023 by Luciano Maggiore, mixed and mastered by James Dunn, and with cover art constructed around a drawing by my 2yo son Emanuel.
Thanks to Rory Salter for inviting me to play this solo at his album release, and to Luciano Maggiore for suggesting this as a release to the guys at Café Oto.
Liberation Through Hearing is an interactive opera based on software architecture in 2-D computer games made by Dganit Elyakim and Shahar Sarig. An audio-visual, large-scale work that combines a dramatic story, taking place in digital media, with game-like elements. For Gaudeamus Festival 2022, Elyakim and Sarig will make a live version of the opera that integrates the player with the musical performers in an audio-visual event. I’ll be playing a part of the opera called “One on 1.1”, which Dganit originally wrote for me as a standalone piece for solo bass clarinet and live electronics, and is conceived as a guided improvisation.
September 10th, 17:30, De Nijverheid – Terras, Utrecht
On Friday the 12th of August I will be performing an amplified bass clarinet solo at the barn at 18:45. And on Sunday the 14th I’ll be playing as part of Abstract Concrete at the shed at 19:30. Abstract Concrete are Charles Hayward, Otto Willberg, Agathe Max, Roberto Sassi, and myself.
Luciano Maggiore is a Palermo-born, London-based musician whose work is characterised by the use of speakers and several analogue/digital devices (samplers, CD players, walkmans, tape recorders) and addresses the performativity of the musical act, the perception of it, and the obscurity that emanates from it. His main interests include mechanisms of sound diffusion, performance, repetition, endurance, non-human animal languages, dance, folklore. With Louie Rice, he started NO-PA/PA-ON, a project that deals with performing score-based works, both acoustic and amplified.
LOUISE LE DU
Musician captivated by chaotic, untamable sound patterns. My work follows a strong desire for poetry. I am intrigued by its ability to open spaces where the imaginary invades the real, subtly changing our modes of expression and ways to experience the world. I pay particular attention to sonic environments which are not easily accessed by humans – especially at the microscopic scale – using technology as a tool to feed the imagination with natural phenomena.
LI SONG
Li Song is a London-based musician and software engineer. He performs improvised music with his computer and composes music using electronics and acoustic instruments. His collaborative project with Zhu Wenbo, No Performance, focuses on compositions using environment sounds, acoustic instruments, computer algorithms, and random sequence. He is also a member of computer network music ensemble and research group, [ _ _ _ ] (with Jia Liu and Shuoxin Tan), focusing on algorithmic collaboration.
MICHAEL SPEERS
(b.1992) a musician from Portaferry (NI) currently based in London (UK). Working with natural & synthetic sound material—using drums, computer, microphones, feedback—towards performance, installation and composition. Currently focused on the actual and notional representation of the ground drum. https://michaelspeers.net/
RORY SALTER
Rory Salter is a musician and sound artist living in London, Born in Banbury. Malvern Brume has released albums with Alter, TakuRoku, Infant Tree and Kashual Plastik. The music is formed through experimentations with electronic instruments, field recordings, amplified objects and voice; motivated by a relationship to changing and chaotic environments, objects and scores made from walking.
CONAL BLAKE
Conal Blake is a Glaswegian musician currently based in London. He is 1/4 of ‘Domestic Exile’ and runs a radio show called ‘Feedback Moves’ on Threads Radio.
REGAN BOWERING
Regan Bowering completed her MA in popular music research at Goldsmiths University of London at 2020. Her current research explores the intersections of popular music history, technologic and audiovisual culture, with a particular focus on rhythm in relation to aesthetic and affective experience. Regain is also co-editor of Sonic Scope, which was named runner up of the IAPSM Andre Goodwin Memorial Price.
Always a pleasure to play with the great Steve Noble, this time with two more wonderful musicians – Ute Kanngiesser on cello, and Alex Paxton on trombone. This will be our second performance as a quartet.
For a joint commission from the Israeli 21st Century Ensemble and the Berlin Philharmonic I wrote chamber-orchestral arrangements for six of Nico Teen’s songs. Alongside songs by Ohad Fishof with arrangements by Ophir Klemperer, this was originally supposed to have been performed in March 2020 at the Berlin Philharmonic’s chamber hall in Berlin, but then came the pandemic. More than two years later these pieces are finally going to be performed at the Barby club in tel aviv, and the Matnas at Mitzpe Ramon, with Ilan Volkov conducting.
HEME was recorded at an empty Café Oto in April 2021, just as things were beginning to open up after the long initial period of the pandemic. Because of this situation there was a real eagerness to play together. We all longed to share in – and communicate with and through – a single physical space. The session felt magical, the flow of ideas was as natural as it was surprising, and the whole session was marked by an extreme intensity. I couldn’t have asked for better partners on this journey than the double-headed sound-monster of Steve Noble and John Edwards.
Big thanks go to John Trice and Mark Davies from Shrike Records for their enthusiasm for this music and for their work to release it on their label.
Celebrating a new tape release of a live performance recorded at Café Oto in June 2020. This was for us the first show after a long Pandemic-induced hiatus, and the renewed encounter with an actual live audience was electric.
Large ensemble consisting of many incredible musicians, put together by Dominic Lash to perform a guided improvisation. Part of an evening for Lash’s label Spoonhunt.
Musicians: Douglas Benford – harmonium and percussion Steve Beresford – electronics Marjolaine Charbin – piano Chris Cundy – bass clarinet Seth Cooke – steel sink and metal detector Angharad Davies – viola Phil Durrant – modular synth Matthew Grigg – guitar/amplifier Bruno Guastalla – cello Martin Hackett – Korg MS10 Tim Hill – baritone saxophone Tina Hitchens – flute Sarah Hughes – zither Mark Langford – bass clarinet Dominic Lash – double bass Yvonna Magda – violin Hannah Marshall – cello Helen Papaioannou – baritone saxophone Yoni Silver – bass clarinet Alex Ward – clarinet/amplifier
YONI SILVER 