Monday 6 May 2019, 7.30pm
A celebration of David Toop's 70th birthday and the launch of his autobiography – Flutter Echo – published by Ecstatic Peace Library.
David Toop has been developing a practice that crosses boundaries of sound, listening, music and materials since 1970. This encompasses improvised music performance, writing, electronic sound, field recording, exhibition curating, sound art installations and opera. It includes eight acclaimed books, including Rap Attack (1984), Ocean of Sound (1995), Sinister Resonance (2010), Into the Maelstrom (2016), Flutter Echo(2019) and Inflamed Invisible: Writing On Art and Sound 1976-2018 (2019). Briefly a member of David Cunningham’s pop project The Flying Lizards in 1979, he has released fourteen solo albums, from New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments on Brian Eno’s Obscure label (1975) and Sound Body on David Sylvian’s Samadhisound label (2006) to Entities Inertias Faint Beings (2016) and Apparition Paintings (2021). His 1978 Amazonas recordings of Yanomami shamanism and ritual were released on Sub Rosa as Lost Shadows (2016). In recent years his collaborations include Rie Nakajima, Akio Suzuki, Tania Caroline Chen, John Butcher, Ken Ikeda, Elaine Mitchener, Henry Grimes, Sharon Gal, Camille Norment, Sidsel Endresen, Alasdair Roberts, Lucie Stepankova, Fred Frith, Thurston Moore, Ryuichi Sakamoto. Curator of sound art exhibitions including Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery (2000), his opera – Star-shaped Biscuit – was performed in 2012.
Tania Caroline Chen is a performance, sound artist, and free improviser. She performs internationally on piano, keyboards, digital, vintage electronics, found objects and video. She creates multidimensional sound pieces for video and live performance and has shown these works in the UK, Asia and California.
Tania has recorded with Stewart Lee, Steve Beresford, Henry Kaiser, William Winant, Wadada Leo Smith, Jon Raskin and with Bryan Day & Ben Salomen in the bands Bad Jazz and Tom Djll & Gino Robair in the trio Tender Buttons. Her solo recordings include Michael Parsons, Cornelius Cardew's Piano Sonatas and John Cage's "Music of Changes". She has recently recorded Feldman’s piano pieces “Triadic Memories” and “For Bunita Marcus” in New York and at KPFA radio in California.
www.taniachen.com
https://taniacarolinechen.bandcamp.com/music
Daniela Cascella (Italy/UK) writes through sound, literature, and art. Her work is driven by a longstanding interest in listening, reading, writing, recording. Writing in English as a second language, writing as a stranger in a language, she is drawn to unstable and uncomfortable forms of writing-as-sounding, and in the transmissions and interferences of knowledge across cultures and languages. These have informed her three books in English: Singed. Muted Voice-Transmissions, After The Fire (Equus Press, 2017), F.M.R.L. Footnotes, Mirages, Refrains and Leftovers of Writing Sound (Zer0 Books, 2015) and En Abîme: Listening, Reading, Writing. An Archival Fiction (Zer0 Books, 2012).
www.danielacascella.com
Yifeat Ziv is an experimental vocalist, composer and arranger, creating in between the free-improvisation, jazz, contemporary new music and sound art fields. She has worked and performed with a wide variety of artists and ensembles, including the William Parker Orchestra (US), London Experimental Ensemble (UK), Igor Krutogolov Toy Orchestra, The Revolution Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Meitar Ensemble (IL).
Her recent sound works were presented at Design Museum Holon, The Israeli Center for Digital Media, Eretz-Israel Museum and Beit Hansen Gallery (IL), and excerpts from her new solo performance VOC:COMP Fantasies, for voice and electronics, were performed in Noizemaschine London (UK) and Tmuna Theatre (IL). She is also the co-founder of jazz vocal trio The Hazelnuts and experimental vocal quartet ABRA Ensemble, together with those groups she released four albums and performed in international festivals such as the Marseille Jazz des Cinqs Continents (FR), Tri-C Jazz (US), Safaricom Jazz (KE), Filter4Voices (CH) and Red Sea Jazz (IL).
www.yifeatziv.com
Doran Edwards is a 2nd year BA Sound Arts & Design student at LCC from North East London. After the 2016 release of his final project Weird Dreams second album, Luxury Alone, he decided to step away from music to develop academically and begin to expand his art practice.
Doran primarily works in collaboration with Joseph Johnson on improvised experimental music and installation which is underpinned by their individual daily life Buddhist practices. Things-as-they-are, existence time and non-duality are explored through constant moments of becoming, feedback and uncertainty. He has also composed and designed sound for contemporary dance, photography and poetry.
Kyrin Chen lives and works in London, where she is currently studying Sound Arts at the University of the Arts London. Working with drawing, sound, and video, Kyrin isolates and recontextualizes familiar sounds, creating new meanings through recomposition. Responding to architectural spaces, Kyrin uses small objects to create quiet, delicately textured sounds. A sense of fragility is further expressed through their drawings and etchings. Kyrin was a participating artist at Arts Letters & Numbers, “Hinges Mirrors and Eclipses” Festival, NY, 2018.
Joseph Johnson is a student in his second year, studying BA Sound Arts and Design at LCC. Originally from Bristol, Joseph was exposed to Buddhism from a young age. Buddhist practice is something he has brought through into his adult life and into his artistic practice. He has a strong interest in the body and the relationship between the body, sound and improvisation. Joseph works predominantly with his collaborator, Doran Edwards. They are currently working on improvised, experimental music and installation work. Joseph also sees dance and body movement as part of his artistic practice.
Lucie Stepankova (aka Avsluta) dedicates her creative practice to object-oriented improvisation, live performance, interactive installation, curation and DJing.
Inquiry about our being in, experiencing and interacting with the world through the lens of deep ecology and new materialism are at the core of her performative and installation works. Lucie co-creates with objects and natural materials, field recordings, electronics and digital processing to embody speculative narratives via sound-making. The general aim is to encourage audiences to engage in listening as an active-creative practice, reconnect with and manifest emotions, and forge a sense of interspecies solidarity and environmental responsibility.
Lucie performed in the UK and Europe in venues and festivals including Hangar Pirelli Bicocca [IT], Lunchmeat Festival [CZ], Cafe OTO [UK], IKLECTIK [UK], Waking Life [PT], LOM Space [SK] and Construction Festival [UA] among others.
She runs Introspective Electronics, a platform exploring the vast frontiers of ambient-inspired music and featuring regular radio shows and podcast series. Together with the London-based DJ and producer Alicia, Lucie co-curates Terra Obscura, a quarterly event series inspired by the new generation of ambient-tinged UK bass. In collaboration with Christian Duka and IKLECTIK, she co-organises SONIC GARDEN, a series of experimental ambient and downtempo events at IKLECTIK's Old Paradise Yard.
