Monday 9 March 2015, 8pm
Japanese composer, vocalist, electroacoustic performer, sound artist, Haco, returns to OTO after more than five years. Tonight she performs a solo set, before a trio with sound artists Sarah Washington and Knut Aufermann, in their Mobile Radio Band guise. Washington and Aufermann will also do a set under their Tonic Train moniker, which mixes homemade circuitbent instruments and feedback to create a rich spectrum of fundamental electronic noises.
Haco is a composer, vocalist, electroacoustic performer, sound artist, and a founding member of After Dinner (1981-1991) and Hoahio. She has created numerous recordings both as a producer and engineer based in Kobe. In her live performances, she uses voice and self- programmed electronics as an organic method. With her "howling pot" performances, which make creative use of feedback, and "Stereo Bugscope," which captured oscillating sounds emitted by the circuitry of an electronic device, she had developed a new genre of art.
Haco will be bringing new songs from her seventh album Qoosui (Someone Good/Room 40). She uses voice and self-programmed electronics as an ‘organic method’ in her performance, accompanied by video images shot and edited with Mariko Tajiri. Qoosui has won critical acclaim from music and art magazines and has been played on numerous radio programs in Europe, North and South America, Oceania, and Japan.
“My view is ‘no borders’ when it comes to sounds for creating new music. I want to open my ears and find the rhythm and tone for all ofthe sounds in my life.” – Haco
Tonic Train is the longstanding experimental electronics duo of Sarah Washington and Knut Aufermann. The combination of Sarah's homemade circuitbent instruments and Knut's feedback mixer creates a rich spectrum of fundamental electronic noises. They combine two methods of electronic music production: the appropriation of electronic circuits to make components produce otherwise unwanted sounds and the improper use of audio equipment to make it feed back. This includes a specific interest in radio technology, and micro transmission is an important part of the sound field they create. Since forming in the year 2000, Tonic Train has been incorporated into a range of diverse musical projects including a feedback ensemble with Otomo Yoshihide, Toshimaru Nakamura, Nic Collins and Xentos 'Fray' Bentos, trios with Munich Philharmonic violist Gunter Pretzel, Viennese video artist Billy Roisz, Japanese sound artist Haco, and groups such as the Resonance Radio Orchestra.
http://tonictrain.klingt.org
http://mobile-radio.net
Mobile Radio Band is the trio of Haco, Sarah Washington and Knut Aufermann. It was created during the first FON festival in Cumbria and premiered at Cafo Oto in London on 28th October 2009. Haco's field recordings and electromangnetic induction sounds fit perfectly into Sarah and Knut's sound world of circuit bending and feedback and create a radiophonic atmosphere. A Mobile Radio Band performance at the 30th São Paulo Biennial became the base layer for the radio art commission 'City of Drizzle' for Austrian state radio ORF which was subsequently issued on CD by Swedish publisher OEI.
Sarah Washington is an artist and activist working with experimental radio and music. Her activities involve creating temporary radio art stations and installations, composing experimental radio dramas, giving live radio art performances, curating radio art events and festivals, and performing experimental improvised music on homemade electronic instruments. She is a founder member of the radio station Resonance 104.4fm in London and the international radio art network Radia. Notable commissions include a radio art series for the Tate Modern in 2007, and a 100-day radio station for the 30th São Paulo Bienal in 2012. She often works together with her partner Knut Aufermann in the joint radio art project they began in 2005 under the name Mobile Radio.
