Herakles! Is a new piece of music-theatre drawing on an eclectic range of influences from contemporary classical music, concrete poetry, slapstick comedy, free improvisation, Kabuki theatre and Broadway showstoppers, filtered through the highly idiosyncratic and avant-garde texts of Richard Foreman.

A surreal and absurdist take on the Herculean labours, this premiere performance from some of London’s most adventurous musicians will delight, baffle and enlighten in equal measure.

ARCO are:

Neil Luck — Voice and Objects
Adam de la Cour — Guitar and Voice
Chihiro Ono — Violin
Benedict Taylor — Viola
Sam Rice — Doublebass
Tom Jackson and Ivan Solano — Clarinets
Satoko Doi — Organ
Takahiro Tomatsu — The spirit of Hercules
+ special guests

Federico Reuben — programming & sound processing
Neil Luck — facilitateur de musique concrète 1
Adam de la Cour — facilitateur de musique concrète 2

Here are some of the results:

Collage No.1

Collage No.2

Collage No.3

Collage No.4

 

Video of setup at Hepworth Wakefield:

CURIOUS NOISES

squib-box will be layering sounds to create ear-opening audio-collages. Visitors will also be encouraged to make their own compositions using the potential of their bodies and everyday objects. FREE

Performed by Rei Nakamura

This composition is inspired by Slavoj Žižek’s book Violence, in which he categorizes violence into two main types: subjective and objective violence.

Subjective violence is clearly identifiable by an agent, for example acts of terror or crime, and it is perceived as a clear interruption of the normal state of things. On the other hand, objective violence is violence that is inherent in the social fabric and is hard to see and experience for the advantaged classes or countries.

What Žižek argues is that objective violence is inherent within social “balance” and it is objective violence which triggers acts of subjective violence. Furthermore, Žižek identifies two types of objective violence: symbolic and systematic violence. Systematic violence is manifested through our economic and political systems which, in order to give the idea of a normal smooth running of things, exert systematic violence on large groups of people. Symbolic violence is related to and included within systematic violence but is specifically expressed through language (and other symbolic systems like music). Žižek goes further to argue that the forms of symbolic violence are actually based on and manifested by the symbolic systems themselves.

On Violence attempts to explore the aesthetics of violence and reflect on the different manifestations of violence categorized by Žižek. It also addresses the potential to use technology as a tool to exert violence and as a form of establishing power relations through its capacity to store, manipulate and transfer information.

Credits:
Rei Nakamura — piano
Federico Reuben — composition, live electronics, computer programming
Recorded by Holger Steinke
Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM)
Karlsruhe
Immatronics Festival / Piano+, 22/11/2012

Electronic and score quotations/references:
Hitting Metal Samples, Screaming Samples, Hitler Speech, Distorted Electric Guitar Samples, Wagner (Parsifal, Tristan & Isolde), Buxtehude (Praeludium in G Minor, BuxWV 163), Mozart (K.467 Piano Concerto No. 21 in C 1st mov), Top 12 Singles Chart on the day of performance.

Live electronics and interactive score programmed with SuperCollider.

Part wild and unbridled, part delicate and poised, these remarkable performances capture a particularly intuitive and intimate dialogue between two active members of the free improv scene.

Something distinctly unique in the inherently prolific world of improvised music, Songs from Badly-Lit Rooms rewards repeated listening.

To listen/buy Songs from Badly-Lit Rooms click here.

They discuss Takahiro’s practice as a sound artist and performer, as well as work by other British and Japanese artists working, in some way, across the cultural, geographical and aesthetic gap between both nations

Music from Derek Bailey & Kaoru Abe, Matt Rogers, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto & Otomo Yoshihide, Adam de la Cour, and a live performance form Neil and Takahiro themselves.

Listen:

Free download here

Neil “Daley Thompson” Luck, Matthew Lee “Wang” Knowles, and Adam “Bolt” de la Cour present a series of new Olympic sports; the Balloon High Jump, Leg slapping endurance, synchronised long distance belching, competitive speed eating, human weight lifting and the artistic Beckett gymnastics. Marvel at the glorious opening and closing ceremonies as well as a special guest appearance from the one and only Paul Daniels McCartney.

Listen:

Free download here

Tickets available on the door, or book here.

Repurpose
19:30, Tuesday 1 May 2012
The Forge, 3–7 Delancey St
NW1 7NL London
United Kingdom

This two-act monodrama for voice and ensemble has been composed in collaboration with the acclaimed singer-songwriter Fiona Bevan, and is performed by her alongside the avant-garde string ensemble ARCO.

A head-on collision of the sublime and the ridiculous.…

To listen or download please follow this link

For more infor­ma­tion and to lis­ten to this release, please fol­low this link.

squib-box podcast No.6 — squib-box avant-party. Benny the Clown, Kinderfarten, the Pied Piper and other guests.
squib-box podcast No.5 — Composer/pianist Michael Finnissy.
squib-box podcast No.4 — Vis­i­ble made audible. Emma Red­ding, Mary Ann Hush­lak and Sarah Chin.
squib-box podcast No.3 — Improvisation. Mark Hanslip and Javier Carmona.

We will be releasing a podcast each week so watch this space for more new podcasts!

Performed by Mark Knoop. A mash up of the material and practices of William S. Burroughs and Percy Grainger. All musical material appears twice in some shape or form (except the very last bar).

This podcast was originally aired on September 17th 2011 as part of Black­lists and Happen­filths, a six-part series of shows for Res­o­nance 104.4 FM explor­ing the wide ranging interests and influ­ences of our squib-box artists.

Listen:

Free download here

This podcast was originally aired on September 24th 2011 as part of Black­lists and Happen­filths, a six-part series of shows for Res­o­nance 104.4 FM explor­ing the wide ranging interests and influ­ences of our squib-box artists.

Listen:

Free download here

Here’s The Pitch, the brand spanking new video from Zipperface, from the EP Gastromancy, available via squib-box!

Produced for Den Lennie’s Music Video Masterclass 2011

Director — James Tonkin
DOP — Den Lennie
steadicam operator — James Elias
production manager — Sarah Carmody
production accountant — Samantha Lennie
location manager — Trudie
lighting tech — Duncan Rice
DIT — Owen Silverwood
making of camera — John Gillan
post production — Hangman Studios
colourist — Dan Moran
VFX — Andrew Philip
sound design — Alan Witts

Students:

Franklin Cachia, Thomas Chrisohoidis, Simon Duncan, David Esp, Mark Hessel, Solve Huse-Amundsen, Adrian Mathie, Aristotelis Misopapas, Daniel Nakamura-Craig, Lars Opstad, Sergio Pizzolante, Ingo Traub

Special Thanks to:

Byron Wijayawardena
Alan Witts — The Victim
Jon Howarth — Shoot Blue
Blackmagic Design
Hangman Studios
David Enthoven

Produced by Den Lennie and James Tonkin

Executive Producer — Den Lennie

fstopacademy.com
hangmanstudios.com

This podcast was originally aired on October 1st 2011 as part of Black­lists and Happen­filths, a six-part series of shows for Res­o­nance 104.4 FM explor­ing the wide ranging inter­ests and influ­ences of our squib-box artists.

Listen:

Free download here