Tuesday 31 December 2019, 10pm
Thrilled to welcome in 2020 with a jam-packed night curated by Nkisi, whose mind-blowing, three-day 'Ngbaduma' residency here was one of our highlights of 2019.
Featuring a very special collaborative set with Dutch-based American dancer and electronic artist, Jazmon Voss aka Yung Liberaci, post-midnight sees sets from smallboydanger - aka Curtly Thomas (clubcouture), London based DJ and the co-curator of the monthly Ø event that champions emerging music and installations, Shannen SP, and French-Egyptian artist Susu Laroche, before Nkisi herself rounds off the night in style.
Nkisi is the pseudonym of Melika Ngombe Kolongo, whose activities as a producer, live musician, DJ and curator are channels for an ongoing inquiry into sound as a tool of communication beyond the purely lingual.
Musically, this manifests in a captivating cross-talk of African rhythms, uncompromising European hard dance tropes, foreboding synth melodies and a relentless, galvanising energy, as harnessed for her increasingly kinetic live performances.
"She’s making connections – between people, across time and space, in a way that is resilient, sustainable, pleasurable, powerful" – The Quietus on Nkisi
TIMES
- 10pm Nkisi warmup
- 11pm Nkisi and Yung Liberaci Live
- 12pm smallboydanger Live
- 12.30 Shannen SP
- 2.00 SuSu Laroche
- 3.30-5 Nkisi closing set DJ
Susu Laroche is a multidisciplinary artist of Egyptian/French descent whose stunning LP arrived on Bristol label Accidental Meetings as a loose homage to Ursula L Guin's Earthsea. Her film work has been screened internationally including London Short Film Festival (UK), Samawah Cinema (Iraq) and Nihilist Film Festival (USA). In Spring 2021, she released her first photobook Chaos Rule Us via Wrong Eye Books, and in December 2021 her first album ‘Paridaiza’ via Xquisite Releases. She also releases music with collaborator Oxhy as the The Fertile Crescent.
smallboydanger is one of the shifting monikers of artist curtly Thomas (clubcouture, “clubcouture”, ceremonial acts, what-the- devil its Fear and Clothing!, Unwelcome Collection).
Often playing with the limitations of the club space, Thomas experiments with how music is performed; using competing references, samples and triggers to engage the audience; this project focusses on the constructs of identity, masculinity and 'originality'; using sound play, gesture and movement. Following a performance at South London Gallery earlier this year; curtly aims to create an active space alluding to carnival traditions of ‘playing mas’ and Midnight Mass; in homage to the late DJ Arafat.
This performance will include work with longterm collaborator Adam Gallagher.
https://www.instagram.com/innercitylifeinnercitypressure/
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/clubcouture-hyperlocal-present/
Yung liberaci a - Ballerina who Co-exists as a Rapper -
Originally from Upstate New York made his way to NY city at the young age of 15 and started his international ballet career.
After moving to Europe at 17, he was exposed to a lot of House, Techno, and Post-Punk Music.
Driven by Fantasy and glamour and the female figures in his life, the artist, Yung liberaci describes himself to be the best of the two sexes. Using that blend of Male and Female energy to develop his own sound: and a stage presence heavily tapped by his dance career.
Shannen SP is a London based DJ, A&R and the co-curator, alongside Kode9, and resident of London’s mid-week monthly Hyperdub event Ø that cobines installations based around technology and ethno futurism and music. She is also an NTS Radio resident. As a DJ, her sets explore club sounds through an afro-diasporic lens, ranging from kuduro to gqom and other emerging styles coming out of the continent and it's diaspora. She focuses on layering afro-polyrhythms with political narratives for a fierce and entrancing experience. Recent stand out sets include Tresor, De School, Nyege Nyege festival and Berghain with Hyperdub Records.
