ROOM40 presents Tony Conrad, master of minimalism alongside Lawrence English's new Lonely Women's Club project (where he explores the tonal shimmer of late night organ smoke) and the hand-forged rhythms, resonating strings and concréte constructions of Milano's Nicola Ratti.
TONY CONRAD
Tony Conrad is one of minimalism's true originals. Famed for producing some of the key recordings in the genre his contemporary live performances for solo violin and electronics elicit incredible psychoactive tonal colours that need to be heard in person.
"Tony Conrad has significantly influenced cultural developments from minimalism to underground film, "concept art," postmodern appropriation, and the most sophisticated rock and roll. Creator of the "structural" film, The Flicker, collaborator on Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, follower of Henry Flynt's radical anti-art, member of the Theatre of Eternal Music and the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and early associate of Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, and Cindy Sherman, Conrad has eluded canonic histories." Branden W. Joseph, Beyond The Dream Syndicate (Tony Conrad and the Arts After Cage)
"Tony Conrad is a pioneer, as seminal in his way to american music as Johnny Cash or Captain Beefheart or Ornette Coleman, one of those really savvy old guys whom all the kids want to emulate because their ideas, their style are electric and new and somehow indivisible." The Atlanta Journal Constitution
LAWRENCE ENGLISH : LONELY WOMEN'S CLUB
Lawrence English's Lonely Women's Club is a new series of compositions for organ. Shimmering like faint lights reflected in the ice of a cocktail, floating tones taken from the world loneliest bar-room organ and slowed 'til static. Harmony entwined in slowly uncoiling rings. Twilight serenades to a smoke hazed imaginary bar... The first LP in the series will be released by Important Records and a quardophonic mix will be presented at McNeill Street Pumping Station New Music Festival in Louisiana, USA in November 2011.
Lawrence English is media artist, composer and curator based in Australia. Working across an eclectic array of aesthetic investigations, English’s work prompts questions of field, perception and memory. English utilises a variety of approaches including live performance, installation and found sound/vision to create works that generate subtle transformation of space and ask audiences to become aware of that which exists at the edge of perception.
For over a decade, English’s audio investigations have traversed a divergent path where musical and environmental sources are granted equal focus. His work calls into question the established relationships of sound and structure – field recordings and musical materials work in unison, acting as suggestive devices. Rather than prescriptive, English’s sound work calls for the listener to construct their own narratives and impressions based on their personal histories and experiences. Published widely on respected imprints including Touch, 12K and Winds Measure, English’s work is sculpted and overwhelmingly intricate. The Wire noted his ‘use of space and silence is remarkable’, and U.S. sound journal Signal To Noise described the Ghost Towns work as ‘extraordinarily gorgeous modern music concréte’.
Nicola Ratti lives and works in Milan. The use of sound and its almost craftmanship creation pushes his own music research to get through electroacoustic compositions, melodic-rhythmic patterns and nearby an area that could be easily placed between music concrete and minimal techno with a generous use of improvisation. Today, alongside his solo career, with discs produced by Anticipate (U.S.), Preservation (AU), Megaplomb (IT), Die Schachtel (IT) and concerts in Europe and North America, he works on valuable collaborations such as the soundtrack-band Ronin where he plays guitar since 2006, the duo “Bellows” with Giuseppe Ielasi with whom he shares a radical sound research and the duo FaravelliRatti with Attila Faravelli in which the guitar loses its horizons in the colleague’s world of prepared speakers. With them he has produced several records for Italian and foreign labels.
He’s also, with Fatima Bianchi, the co-founder of FeN Bureau, an art entity for the production of video and sound installations. Nicola Ratti works as an architect in Gru Architetti, a multidisciplinary team based in Milan, he runs the art/ installation branch of the office.
