Tuesday 11 April 2023, 8pm
Philadelphia-based artist Lucy Liyou synthesises field recordings, text-to-speech readings, poetry, and elements from Korean folk opera into sonic narratives that explore the implications of Orientalism and westernisation. Though their music reflects the work of genres such as post-industrial and musique-concrète, Liyou is influenced by audiobooks as well as music from the Impressionist period and Neoclassical period.
Combining all these disparate sonic elements into critically cohesive pieces, the musical world of Lucy Liyou alternates between beautiful serenity and unsettling entropy. Gorgeous bits of neoclassical music fragment into decaying shards, voices get warped beyond recognition, and shimmering light makes way for bitcrushed noise. This fragile equilibrium translates perfectly to the stage, where Lucy Liyou will perform as a duo, combining piano, vocals, guitar, and electronics.
James Rushford is an Australian composer-performer, whose work draws from concrète, improvised, avant-garde and collagist musical languages, staking out an idiosyncratic stylistic space that has been described as ‘electro-acoustic experimentation with a beating heart’ (Boomkat) and ‘haunted Jacobean ASMR’ (The Wire). Investigating the creases, cracks, and folds in traditions ranging from early music to new age, Rushford’s work subtly exaggerates seemingly liminal aspects such as atmosphere and the bodily presence of the performer until these take on a weight equal to musical elements such as pitch, rhythm and timbre.
In recent years, Rushford’s solo work has been guided by his theorisation of sonic images, particularly the shadow, which has inspired pieces as diverse as an hour-long companion to Federico Mompou’s Música Callada (See the Welter, for solo piano, 2016) and a sumptuous translation of the play of light across flat surfaces into synthetic sound (The Lake from the Louvers, 2020). Rushford has longstanding performance practices on piano, synthesizers and electroacoustic devices, and portative organ, bringing to all of these a delicacy of touch and a harmonic sensibility in which unorthodox tunings coexist with influences from fin de siècle Impressionism, the 20th century avant-garde, and many strains of popular music.
James has created original work for BBC Scottish Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Ensemble Neon (Oslo), Speak Percussion (Melbourne), Ensemble Vortex (Geneva), MONA FOMA, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Ultima Festival (Norway), Unsound Festival (New York), Tectonics Festival (Tel Aviv), Send and Receive Festival (Winnipeg), Adelaide Festival and Liquid Architecture (Melbourne). As well as previous projects with Klaus Lang, Annea Lockwood, David Behrman, Tashi Wada, Haroon Mirza and Dennis Cooper, he works regularly with Golden Fur (his trio with Sam Dunscombe & Judith Hamann), Joe Talia, Ora Clementi (with crys cole), Oren Ambarchi, Kassel Jaeger, Anthony Pateras, Will Guthrie, Graham Lambkin and Francis Plagne.
His music has been published by a variety of international labels including Unseen Worlds (US), Pogus (US), Penultimate Press (UK), Another Timbre (UK), Holidays (IT), Black Truffle (AUS), KYE (US) and Shelter Press (Fr).
In 2017, James completed a Doctorate from the California Institute of the Arts.
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Joe Talia is an improviser and composer who works with percussion, tape and electronics. Focusing on the use of Revox tape machine and analogue synthesizers in combination with instruments and field recordings, Talia’s electronic works patiently build up sparkling, detail-rich sound worlds of gliding tones, skittering percussion and burbling location atmospherics. In live situations, Talia often uses tape and effects to process and warp his own and others’ playing into uncanny chains of echoes and spectral smears of sound.
A virtuoso drummer, as a percussionist Talia emerges from the traditions of jazz and free improvisation and has developed a unique personal language of shifting accents, subtle virtuosity and discreet extended technique that he welds equally ably in jazz, rock, new music and improvisational contexts. Like his electronic works, his drumming often demonstrates a keen attention to long-form structures, dynamic development and group interactions.
An important member of Tokyo’s vibrant improvised music scene and internationally active as a performer, Talia performs and records regularly with Oren Ambarchi, Eiko Ishibashi, Jim O’Rourke, James Rushford and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto. In addition to these regular collaborations, he has also been involved in projects with Keiji Haino, Chris Abrahams, Tetuzi Akiyama, Akira Sakata, John Duncan, Richard Pinhas and many others. His work has been published by international labels such as Black Truffle, Bocian, Kye and Touch.
Danielle Price is a UK/Oslo based performer, improviser and composer whose work explores a range of creative outlets, mainly using tuba and voice. She enjoys a versatile career involving her own projects as well working alongside the likes of The Night With…, Blue Boar, Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, New Antonine Brass, Ashley Paul, Ali Affleck, Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat, Oxbow, Ntshuks Bonga, Red Note Ensemble, Laura Jurd and Martin Green. She is one half of tuba duo Dopey Monkey with Martin Lee Thomson. Together they are Chamber Music Scotland Ensemble in Residence 2022-2024, Denis Wick Associated Artists and current Britten Pears Young Artists alongside Swedish percussionist Adrian Ortman. Danielle regularly collaborates with Bill Wells, as the Sensory Illusions (Karaoke Kalk) and the Viaduct Tuba Trio (Bison Records). Most recently, she has ventured further into composition through improvisation with the release of her debut solo EP “After the Allotments” (OTOROKU 2022).
“Danielle Price outstanding on tuba - quite an amazing technique.” – Bebop Spoken Here
‘Danielle is one of the best musicians I’ve ever worked with. She’s extremely versatile, from playing in trad jazz bands or with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, to playing with the likes of Ashley Paul, Mats Gustaffson and Ntshuks Bonga.” – Bill Wells
“Danielle Price is a magician-musician, her dexterity, courage and playfulness on the tuba is breath-taking.” – Aby Vulliamy
Derek Baron is a composer, writer, and teacher from Chicago and New York. They have released music with Penultimate Press, Regional Bears, OtoRoku, Recital, and other labels. Collaborative projects include the amateur chamber ensemble Cop Tears and the music/writing duo Permanent Six Flags. They also operate, with Emily Martin, the "Reading Group" record label for new and archival audio.
Derek's upcoming projects and releases include a cassette of live recordings with Malvern Brume and Ecka Mordecai, a new Cop Tears release entitled Our Favorite Music, a book with Permanent Six Flags, and a solo chamber/collage album entitled Holy Restaurant, as well as several scores for dance and film. The Game of Letters is a new chamber work written for Apartment House.
Malvern Brume is Rory Salter, a musician and sound artist living in London, Born in Banbury. Malvern Brume has released albums with Alter, TakuRoku, Infant Tree and Kashual Plastik. The music is formed through experimentations with electronic instruments, field recordings, amplified objects and voice; motivated by a relationship to changing and chaotic environments, objects and scores made from walking.
