Wednesday 16 October 2024, 7.30pm
An event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of SN Variations also featuring work from artists on sister label Constructive. Featuring performances, from Oï Les Ox (first time at Cafe Oto), who also has a new forthcoming album on Constructive. There will also be work from a new collaboration between Tujiko Noriko, Adrian Corker and George Barton (GBSR), and violinist Aisha Orazbayeva will also perform solo and with pianist Ben Smith to play music by artists from both labels including Jack Sheen, Oliver Leith and Takuma Watanabe.
Kazakh violinist Aisha Orazbayeva is renowned for her fearless interpretations of contemporary music and radical approach to early repertoire. She has released four critically acclaimed solo albums with music ranging from her own compositions to Telemann and Sciarrino, the New Yorker describing her "Music for VIolin Alone" album as "unanimity of head, heart and hands". She has performed internationally in venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, HAU2 Berlin, Corum Montpellier for Radio France and Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe. In 2022 together with harpsichordist Prach Boondiskulchok Aisha performed all of Biber's Mystery Sonatas at the Spitalfields Festival in London.
As a composer she has written music for dance, theatre and film, including OUR SOLO a collaboration with ECCE dance company (touring in 2023 - 2024), Heartbreaking Final written with Tim Etchells and commissioned by Wiener Festwochen 2021, the piece was later performed at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Aisha is a member of ICTUS ensemble in Brussels.
Tujiko Noriko is a Japanese singer, songwriter, and filmmaker based in Paris. Since the early 2000s, she has released several albums of experimental pop, singing bittersweet melodies in Japanese and English over glitchy, downtempo electronics and electro-acoustic arrangements. Early releases such as Shojo Toshi (2001) and From Tokyo to Naiagara (2003) were highly acclaimed, attracting attention from IDM and indie pop audiences alike. She has collaborated with several experimental electronic musicians, including Peter Rehberg (as DACM), Lawrence English, and Nobukazu Takemura. After having worked on experimental short films throughout her career, she released her first full-length instrumental soundtrack, Kuro, in 2019; its score was issued by PAN. Crépuscule I & II appeared in 2023, a solo album including several lengthy ambient pieces that was released by Editions Mego and was dedicated to Rehberg, the label's late founder.
Oi Les OX Aude Van Wyller, born 1991, is a visual artist and composer from Paris. She is interested by poetry and music and its dispersion in many spaces such as stairs, amphiteaters, concert rooms, gardens… After creating multi-channel installations performing readings with actors and recordings, she worked on a single project of sound poetry and electronic music, under the moniker Oï les Ox, called ‘Crooner qui coule sous les clous’ (A crooner that sinks under nails). It has been released in 2020 on tape and reissued twice in 2021 and 2022 on vinyl via The Death of Rave (UK) and digitally by Primordial Void (US). She released another EP on K-Rut/Kraak records (BE) with ‘Terrain Transparent’ in 2020. She has been resident in 2021 at Le Botanique, Les Ateliers Claus (Brussels) and Hetbos (Antwerp). She played at Heart of Noise festival (Innsbruck, 21), at Schiev festival (Brussels, 22), at Oxi Club (Berlin, 22) and her live set has been broadcasted on the SWR2 german television and radio channel (Freiburg, 22).
Adrian Corker is a musician and composer who has written extensively to picture, having first worked with director Antonia Bird. He also co-wrote/wrote the music for both films by cinematographer/director Florian Hoffmeister, Three Degree Colder and The Have-Nots. Recent artist releases include Music for Lock Grooves in 2019 and Since it Turned Out Something Else 2021, featuring Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Ligeti Quartet and Takuma Watanabe amongst others. In 2023, he also with Watanabe, created The Impossible Balance (Transformations) a multi-channel sound piece for Mode Festival in Tokyo. He has collaborated with musicians and artists such as Chris Watson, Jack Wyllie and Richard Skelton. He set up SN Variations in 2014 and co-founded sister label Constructive in 2020. A new label Bad Info is currently rereleasing music from Corker Conboy. a post-rock project from the 00s he was a member of.
Ben Smith is a pianist and composer specialising in contemporary and experimental music. Hailed as one of “the finest new-music pianists in London” (Tempo) and a player of “extraordinary precision and insight” (The Guardian), he is in demand both as a soloist and chamber performer (An Assembly, Apartment House, Athelas Sinfonietta, Apartment House, Explore Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Riot Ensemble, Uproar Ensemble).
Recording projects include works by Nomi Epstein and Paul Newland (another timbre), Brian Ferneyhough and Alastair White (métier), and the complete piano works of Evan Johnson (all that dust)
Percussionist George Barton is “a boundless musical explorer” (Tom Service, BBC R3). His work brings a rigour and intensity to the broadest range of musical contexts, from free improvisation to film sessions. He is a member of both the Colin Currie Group and Riot Ensemble, and is busy as a freelancer with many other groups.
With pianist Siwan Rhys George forms GBSR Duo, whose repertoire ranges from Ustvolskaya to Harold Budd via Michael Pisaro and Barbara Monk Feldman, and whose collaborators range from the LA Philharmonic and 12 Ensemble to leading improvisers and experimental pop artists like Angharad Davies and CHAINES. Recent premieres include major works by Oliver Leith, Tim Parkinson, Eva-Maria Houben, Laurence Osborn and Lisa Illean. Their recordings include a critically acclaimed binaural recording of Stockhausen's KONTAKTE (Album of the Week The Guardian, “the best spatial audio purchase I’ve made this year” - Seth Colter Walls The New York Times).
