I am very pleased to announce my new work Other Meetings, created for the wonderful Documenting Sound series from Boomkat (UK). This work was slowly woven together throughout 2020. During the process of composing, i observed how the pieces became a way of travelling through significant places that i was missing, navigating memory and longing, and bridging them with sounds created out of the enforced inertia of the pandemic reality…
Other Meetings is available on cassette (my first!) and digitally through Boomkat here.
Last February (2020), before everything screeched to a halt, Oren and i were in the midst of a lovely tour in B.C. Canada and the USA. The second show of the tour took place in a lovely little performance space / record shop in Nanaimo B.C. called the Black Dot. This show was recorded and after mixing it here in Berlin with our dear friend Joe Talia it is now available as a limited edition LP on the Black Dot label. The release can be purchased through their bandcamp page (physical & digital) and will also be available in Europe very soon through us directly & through the lovely folks at Soundohm (pre-orders are already up).
Big thanks to Jack Tieleman & David Read at the Black Dot for their wonderful hospitality and for making this release possible!
In the mid-70’s artists Annea Lockwood & Alison Knowles published a magazine that sought to highlight the overlooked work of female artists working at the cusp of the visual arts, music, and performance. This magazine – Womens Work – featured text-based and instructional performance scores by 25 artists, composers, and choreographers.
>>> Fast Forward to 2021… Issue Project Room has developed an online series – With Womens Work – commissioning a wonderfully diverse group of female-identifying—and gender beyond female acknowledging trans-experience – artists to create new works inspired by scores included in Womens Work. I am honoured to have my work kick off this very special series! The piece premieres at 8PM EST and can be streamed on Issue’s website HERE.
My piece Valid ForeverrRrrRRrrr… (pt.1) was inspired by the wonderful graphic + text score by American composer Beth Anderson. Here are my notes on the work:
Valid ForeverrRrrRRrrr… (pt.1)
Trio for two large similar paper things and one 5-pin bowling ball.
Gazing over Beth Anderson’s wonderful graphic score of the letter R in various typefaces and sizes had me hearing the sound of rolling r’s in my head. In Anderson’s original score she asks the players to perform rolls (with a velvet beater) on classic instruments – piano/harp and membranophones. I took a different approach, in part out of necessity due to the limitations of my current situation – an extended lock-down in Berlin, with no studio and inhabiting a small 1-room flat that I share with my partner, but more particularly by looking at it from a conceptual angle and applying my usual methods of working with non-typical instruments. I adhered to the score’s call for the piece to be a trio. From there the work was born out of the evocative nature of her playful page of R’s – tongue twirling rrrrrr’s, rolling vibrations, rumbles and quiet purrrrs…
My 2014 piece titled ‘keeping the ball rolling’ is meant to be metaphorically rolling in perpetuity and recently it has felt stiflingly paused with the events of this very challenging past year. While pondering Anderson’s score, an auspicious feeling struck me that set this piece back in motion. The feeling (and sounds) of movement and momentum conjured by this meeting feels somehow reassuring at this moment in time.
Valid ForeverrRrrRRrrr… launches the series this week, and on Saturday, February 6 at 4PM (EST) I will be part of an online conversation with Annea Lockwoodand Irene Revell as a special members event. Details here.
I was invited by the wonderful folks in the Observatory band from Singapore to create a new work for their ambitious BlackKaji Radio series. This project was instigated as a way to generate activity and support artists in place of their usual live series in Singapore which has been inactive due to the Covid pandemic. The Radio series kicked off at the beginning of January 2021. My short piece ‘silently overlapping each other‘ premiered on episode 3 of their online radio series, more details and online listening can be reached here. My piece appears third on the Part 1 of this episode. I recommend checking out the whole series as it’s filled with very diverse collaborations, new works and interviews with some wonderful artists primarily based in East and South East Asia.
Full episode access can be found through their Soundcloud channel.
I am thrilled to be performing this Friday night in Lausanne Switzerland as part of the wonderful LUFF festival! On this occasion I will present my composition ‘a piece of work‘. It feels surreal and wonderful to be able to share live music with an audience once again & i hope that we can find a way to safely keep this going!
I am thrilled to be heading to Riga, Latvia for a duo performance with Oren Ambarchi on Friday, October 10 as part of the Skaņu Mežs’ Festival for Adventurous Music and Related Arts. This will be my first concert since the lockdown back in March and also my first time performing in Latvia. Very much looking forward!
I am very pleased to have contributed a piece to the wonderful Amplify 2020: Quarantine series created by Jon Abbey / Erstwhile Records(US). The fantatic series was begun at the beginning of the lock-in (March 2020) and continues on to this day with contribution of pieces created by an incredible array of artists during these very strange times. I highly recommend taking the time to visit & listen to the growing list of thoughtful, rich and diverse sound work. Check the page here.
My piece ‘cezve rock‘ is an 8 1/2 minute piece made in Berlin – a slow murky meditation on vibrations. The piece is free to listen and download, but any donations of support are also very welcome.
In addition to this piece & several of my other albums i now have physical copies of my two solo LP’s – sand/layna (2015 Black Truffle) and Beside Myself (2020 Students of Decay) available directly from me. You can access my whole discography here.
Bandcamp is the most direct way to support artists and with their generous Bandcamp Fridays – a project instigated by Bandcamp on the first Friday of each month where they waive their fees and therefore flow 100% of sales directly to artists (minus PayPal fees) –this is a great opportunity to support artists during these very difficult times. The next Bandcamp Friday is tomorrow, August 7!
I recently did an interview with David Perron at Free Form Freakout, primarily about my new solo record Beside Myself, while also touching on the state of things at this current moment in time…
My second solo LP – Beside Myself – is officially out in the world today courtesy of US based label, Students of Decay. I am so grateful for the support of SOD / Alex Cobb for taking this project on and for the ongoing support of the folks at Morr Music. I am also extremely grateful to my dear friends and collaborators whose support I am indebted to for this record (and much more!); James Rushford, Joerg Hiller, JoeTalia, FrancisPlagne and my partner OrenAmbarchi.
The beautiful cover for this release is a painting titled ‘lace‘ by Manitoba, Canada based painter Melanie Rocan. This painting and much more of Melanie’s work can be seen on her website here. Huge thanks to Melanie for letting me use this wonderful and evocative painting, which matched the atmosphere of this album so well.
The album is available on LP / digital through Forced Exposure (US), Anost (EU), Boomkat (UK) and many more distros and shops worldwide.
A digital version of the LP is available on my Bandcamp here.
