Wednesday 13 March 2019, 7.30pm
C.A.N.V.A.S. is hosting a live re-enaction of its first compilation LP ‘Cipher’, released on 22nd February 2019.
Cipher is a collaborative album directed by Lugh O’Neill (as C.A.N.V.A.S. co-founder) which reconsiders the representation of music through the use of codification, visual symbols - revisiting the graphic score both retrospectively and speculatively and assessing whether its use for propagating, archiving and communicating music upholds or neglects the human element of the authorship of music.
To launch the event, C.A.N.V.A.S. have invited three new live collaborations by contributors to the record. The event will be organised into four sets : a new live collaboration between Michael Speers and Flora Yin-Wong, Ashley Paul and Olan Monk performing as a duo in extension of the creative exchange which informed their individual tracks on the Cipher record, Ben Vince performing with his invited guest (and C.A.N.V.A.S. affiliate) Jacob Samuel and Lugh (as director of Cipher) performing solo as a Café Oto debut.
C.A.N.V.A.S. is an attempt at collectivising an increasingly dispersed group of artists.
Established in London in 2014 as an event series, C.A.N.V.A.S. has grown into a network of artists operating internationally in electronic music and live performance. C.A.N.V.A.S. launched as a label in 2018 with Spring/Summer releases from its co-founders Olan Monk and Lugh, establishing a statement of intent before opening the platform up to other voices.
Past performance events include collaborations with 33-33 at ACUD MACHT NEU, Berlin in November 2017 and ‘RITUAL’ - a day of environmental sound at Coroner’s Court, London in May 2017. Live collaborators include Acolytes, Ashley Paul, Auschuss, Flora Yin Wong, Infernal Butcheress, Jacob Samuel, James K, Michael Speers, Ruth Angel Edwards, Terribilis and Xao.
Label founder, artist & writer Flora Yin Wong’s upcoming releases will be a second album on Modern Love, and via INA GRM following a residency for the Parisian institute's 48-channel diffusion system. Her debut album 'Holy Palm' was released on Modern Love and has featured on labels like PAN, Archaic Vaults, and Danse Noire and is currently working on remixes for Nyege Nyege Tapes and Animistic Beliefs. She has performed live at Atonal Berlin, Unsound and Semibreve Festivals, New York’s ISSUE Project Room, MACRO Roma, MUTEK in Peru, Buenos Aires, and Montreal, Volksbühne Theatre, SOTO Kyoto, The V&A Museum, Somerset House, The Jazz Cafe, and Cafe OTO, to clubs like Berghain, Printworks, Razzmatazz, WWWB Tokyo, and guested on shows for Rinse FM, NTS, Know Wave, The Lot Radio, and Boiler Room, with a trimestrial residency on LYL Radio.
Michael Speers (b.1992) is a musician from County Down, Ireland working with natural & synthetic sound material—using drums, computer, microphones, feedback—in performance, installation and electroacoustic composition
currently a PhD student at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast.
Recordings published by Anòmia, C.A.N.V.A.S., Party Perfect!, Wasted Capital Since 2013, Takuroku, Krim Kram and Feedback Moves.
Ashley Paul is an American performer and composer based in London. She uses an array of instruments including saxophone, clarinet, voice, guitar, bells and percussion, mixing disparate elements to create a colorful palate of sound that works its way into her intuitive songs; free forming, introverted melodies. This blend manifests beautiful and simple musical forms against acoustic experimentation.
Ashley has performed or recorded with Phill Niblock, Rashad Becker, Nik Colk Void, Loren Connors, Heatsick, Aki Onda, C. Spencer Yeh, Anthony Coleman, Bass Clef, Joe Maneri, Joe Morris, Seijiro Murayama, Greg Kelley, Bill Nace and Eli Keszler appearing on such labels as Important, PAN, ESP-DISK’ and Tzadik. She received a Masters of Music from New England Conservatory in 2007.
Olan Monk is a musician, performer and writer from Connemara, Ireland. They co-founded C.A.N.V.A.S. with Lugh O’Neill as an events series and record label, established in 2018 to give collective agency to an increasingly dispersed community of artists.
Their practice involves experimental and popular songwriting, performing as a solo act and in collaboration with other musicians, including recordings and performances with Actress, Ashley Paul, Elvin Brandhi, James K, Maria Somerville and Michael Speers. Past releases include Love/Dead (2020) and Auto Life (2021) on C.A.N.V.A.S. and Dubplate 08 (2022) on AD 93.
Lugh O’Neill’s work navigates an eerie and evocative space formed by the overlap between what is recognisably tangible and familiar and the aseptic sterility of the digital - the separation of which is continuously and progressively challenged.
In recent performance and installation works, Lugh has focused on emphasising the potential of spatialisation in sound and music composition - while composition is traditionally conceived over the spectra of frequency and time, Lugh’s work focuses on space as another dimension in which sound and music composition is written.
As co-founder of C.A.N.V.A.S. — a record label and events series — Lugh has released his own works such as the Re Munus LP, directed the research based Cipher and Apocope compilation LPs, and co-produces other works released on the label.
Ben Vince is a striking composer and performer, known for his live improvised saxophone explorations and inventive techniques in creating new rhythms, textures and moods. Through live improvisation, sonic manipulation, reprocessing and looping, whether in the studio or on the stage, his spontaneous yet intuitive approach and collaborative nature surpasses the seeming limitations of his primary instrument. Having worked for Gabriel Prokofiev's contemporary-classical label and events circuit, Nonclassical, he is now a prominent player among a new breed of experimental artists with focus on his immersive solo show, as well as having performed with improv ritual EP/64, Charles Hayward, Coby Sey, Valentina Magaletti and part of experimental post-punk band, Housewives. Vince has also notable studio collaborations with electronic producer Joy Orbison, Oscar-nominated experimental pop artist/composer Mica Levi, and many others spread across the experimental sphere including Sugai Ken, Louis Carnell (fka Visionist), Mark Sanders, Alpha Maid and Gigi Masin. Able to listen intently and be receptive to his collaborators and the energy of his performance spaces, as well as having released 5 solo albums in 3 years that have been celebrated by Pitchfork, WIRE & The Guardian, Ben is an multi-faceted artist and exemplary of a new wave of musicians rising in London.
Jacob Samuel is a musician/multi-disciplinary artist whose work focuses on the formal qualities of expression, communication and identity pre and post machinic affectation. Re music: composition work ranging from live scoring the trial of Brett Kavanaugh to translating statistics of national birth, death, marriage and immigration to muzak in Minecraft.
