26 сент. 2015 г.

Michael Northam


Michael Northam's (a.k.a. mnortham) artistic trajectory has been a gradual process extending from early actionistic performances to current sound actions, field recordings and compositions. Northam explores the avenue of direct electroacoustic improvisation, solo and with a variety of collaborators. His many 'sound actions' have taken place at venues throughout Europe and North America. Since his first CD was released in 1993, he has consistently produced works that give an opportunity for the listeners to challenge and examine themselves-exploring ideas of place on "Stomach of the Sky", qualities of weather on "Coyot", and perceptions of microscopic worlds on "From Within the Solar Cave". Similar such ideas have formed the basis of his installations such as "Entering Molecular Streams' (Observatori festival, Valencia, Spain 2000) and "Circulating Phases" (Klangturm, St. Pölten, Austria 2001).




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25 сент. 2015 г.

Olivia Block



Olivia Block is a contemporary composer and sound artist who combines field recordings, scored segments for acoustic instruments, and electronically generated sound. Her recorded work seeks to introduce and ultimately reconcile nature with artifice in the realms of music and sound. In the process, "organic" sound becomes subtly process, digitized, and abstracted; "inorganic" sound becomes self-replicating and animate; and "musical" elements such as chamber instruments are defamiliarized from their traditional associations, freeing them to participate in the larger aesthetic possibilities of sound. Block works with recorded media, chamber ensembles, video, and site specific sound installations.

She has performed throughout Europe, America, and Japan in tours and festivals including Dissonanze, Archipel, Angelica, Outer Ear, and many others. She has completed residencies at Mills College of Music and The Berklee College of Music and has taught master classes at several additional universities.

Block has created sound installations for public sites and exhibition spaces including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the library at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, the Lincoln Conservatory Fern Room in Chicago, and at the "Echoes Through the Mountains" exhibit at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Block has published recordings through Sedimental, and/Oar, and Cut.

In the September 2008 she joined the sound department faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.




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22 сент. 2015 г.

Oren Ambarchi



Oren Ambarchi is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, re-routing the instrument into a zone of alien abstraction where it's no longer easily identifiable as itself. Instead, it's a laboratory for extended sonic investigation.

Ambarchi's work on harmonics and resonance has led him to define serene spaces of fluid, shifting sound that is both fragile and extremely physical. His solo releases Grapes From The Estate, Suspension and Insulation for UK label Touch, have transcended the guitar into a zone of alien beauty and sonic impossibilities to critical acclaim. In 2003 his live release Triste received an 'honourary mention' in the Prix Ars Electronica digital musics category.

In 2002 alone he has made 7 extensive international solo guitar tours.

He has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists such as Martin Ng (Australia), Sunn 0)) (USA), Christian Fennesz (Austria), Otomo Yoshihide (Japan), Pimmon (Australia), Keiji Haino (Japan), John Zorn (USA), Rizili (Greece), Voice Crack (Switzerland), Sachiko M (Japan), Keith Rowe (UK), Phill Niblock (USA), Gunter Muller (Switzerland), Evan Parker (UK), Robbie Avenaim (Australia), Toshimaru Nakamura (Japan), Dave Grohl (USA), Damo Suzuki (Japan), Chris Townend (Australia) and many more.

Ambarchi is involved in many collaborative projects including the song-based duo Sun with Chris Townend (releases on Staubgold, Preservation, Textile & Important records), Burial Chamber Trio together with Greg Anderson of Sunn 0))) & Atilla Csihar of Mayhem (with a recent LP release on Southern Lord & an upcoming 10" release) and Grave Temple with Csihar and Stephen O'Malley of Khanate & Sunn 0))). Southern Lord have recently released The Holy Down a Grave Temple live document recorded in Israel in July 06. His much loved long-running duo with Rizili the Menstruation Sisters have releases on labels such as Menlo Park, No Fun, Ecstatic Peace, Saucerlike & more. The Four Gentlemen Of The Guitar is a quartet formed by Keith Rowe of AMM in 2004 featuring Ambarchi, Christian Fennesz, Toshimaru Nakamura & Rowe. Their 2CD release Cloud was released by Erstwhile records.

For 10 years together with Robbie Avenaim, Ambarchi was the co-organiser of the What Is Music? Festival, Australia's premier annual showcase of local and international experimental music. The What Is Music? festival hosted over 200 local and international performers. Ambarchi now curates the weekly "Maximum Arousal" series at The Toff In Town in Melbourne and has recently co-produced a television series for SBS on experimental music called Subsonics.






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21 сент. 2015 г.

Secret Pyramid



Secret Pyramid is the solo project of Vancouver-based musician Amir Abbey, whose previous output includes The Silent March cassette (to be reissued on vinyl by Students of Decay in early 2014). Movements of Night finds Abbey further develop and refine the haunting, faraway sound-world that earned the aforementioned release well-due praise. “A Descent” opens the record; its title aptly portends the track’s dirge-like drones and throbbing cycles of low-end. Throughout Movements of Night, Abbey deftly navigates the properties of sleep and unconsciousness, charting a course that is equal parts harrowing and funereal, tranquil and sublime. Juxtaposing the everyday with the obscured, the half-there melodies and arcs of hazy guitar histrionics of “Closer” dissolve into “To Forget,” a track that posits a more familiar, tangible atmosphere in which radiant drones are tethered to a driving bassline, recalling perhaps a lost ’70s Popol Vuh Herzog soundtrack. “Escape” closes the album on a nostalgic note, akin to the feeling of waking from a wondrous dream which one knows one cannot revisit. With Movements of Night, Abbey casts his net into the abyss of the unconscious and returns with a potent paean to the dreamworld.




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6 сент. 2015 г.

Jimmy Billingham

by request


Jimmy Billingham is an enigmatic fellow. He has a brace of shifting musical projects that ply sound into various forms dependant on which pen-name he feels likes working under on a particular day. His discography is large and widely dispersed amongst the ‘tape scene’- a web of labels that share an ambition and DIY aesthetic – his name could be mentioned in the same breath as guys and gals like Motion Sickness of Time Travel, Hobo Cubes, Pulse Emitter or even Emeralds or Bee Mask and his is a friendly and familiar face to any who follow the community. The scene is based more centrally and commonly in America with the grand majority of music and labels based there, so it’s surprisingly rare to find a producer so deeply embedded in the culture that lives in the UK, as Billingham does.






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