Sunday 18 July 2021, 7.30pm
Unpredictable Series curates an evening of 3 performances in Cafe Oto
- ‘What Blue' by Steve Beresford & Blanca Regina with visuals by Pierre Bouvier Patron, release launch;
- a solo by Leafcutter John
- a trio improvisation with Steve Beresford, Blanca Regina and Leafcutter John.
What Blue’ is a spontaneous music work by Steve Beresford and Blanca Regina, recorded by Syd Kemp and later mixed and mastered by Dave Hunt.
The variety of sounds and noise in the record was made possible by the wide range of instruments and keyboards at the studio.
Blanca plays voice, electronics, field recordings, hang drum, vibraphone, toys, balloons and other objects.
Steve plays piano, electronics, Hohner Clavinet D6, Wurlitzer electric piano, CDX Astrosound 0632, Hammond B3, and other keyboards.
Released in March 2020, the album never had a physical presentation till now. Its presentation at Oto will be preceded by a short film by Pierre Bouvier Patron about the process of recording ‘What Blue’. He will also create visuals throughout their performance.
Leafcutter John's performance will be an exploration of a new version of his Forester software. He’ll be using field recordings and live input from his self-made amplified box, which is covered with springs and clock chimes. The original software became something of a cult classic. This update comes 15 years after the original release.
Steve Beresford has been a central figure in the British and international spontaneous music scenes for over forty years, freely improvising on the piano, electronics, and other things with people like Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink, John Zorn, and Alterations (with David Toop, Terry Day and Peter Cusack).
He has written songs, written for large and small ensembles, and scored short films, feature films, TV shows, and commercials. He was part of the editorial teams of Musics and Collusion magazines, writes about music in various contexts, and was a senior lecturer in music at the University of Westminster. With Blanca Regina, he is part of Unpredictable Series, which produces events and sound and video recordings of experimental music and art.
Steve has worked with Christian Marclay on numerous Marclay mixed media pieces. He has also worked with The Slits, Najma Akhtar, Stewart Lee, Ivor Cutler, Prince Far-I, Alan Hacker, Tania Chen, Ray Davies, Mandhira De Saram, The Flying Lizards, Zeena Parkins, The Portsmouth Sinfonia, Ilan Volkov, Rachel Musson, Vic Reeves, Lore Lixenberg and many others.
Beresford has an extensive discography as performer, arranger, free-improviser, composer and producer, and was awarded a Paul Hamlyn award for composers in 2012. In 2021, Bloomsbury published a book by Andy Hamilton: ‘Pianos, Toys, Music and Noise: Conversations with Steve Beresford’.
http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mberes.html
Blanca Regina is an interdisciplinary artist, tutor, and independent curator who works with spontaneous composition systems creating multimedia landscapes using voice, objects, electronics, and visuals. She is also looking at book arts, immersive media, and design. Between London and Madrid together with Steve Beresford, she founded the Unpredictable Series, which focused on spontaneous music and experimentation in visual arts following her first collective Mademotion founded in Madrid. She has produced three albums with Beresford, mixed and mastered by Dave Hunt in London, ‘What Blue’ (2020) Duets with Steve Beresford; ‘Duets with Blanca Regina, Spontaneous Music’ featuring duets with Leafcutter John, Jack Goldstein, John Butcher, Benedict Taylor, Matthias Kispert, Aneek Thapar, Steve Beresford, Sharon Gal, and Hyelim Kim and and ‘Art of Improvisers’ (2017) a collection album with several artists concentrating in women improvisers. With longtime collaborator and artist Leafcutter John capturing their live performances in 2017 they created ‘Miga’ a limited edition Pendrive and digital release. Other collaborations in music and audiovisual performances include duos with Matthias Kispert, Peter Cusack, Matt Black, Sr Arribas, Terry Day Sharon Gal, Adriana Camacho, and David Toop...She has produced exhibitions, performances and workshops internationally with presentations in London - Cafe Oto, Turner Contemporary, Barbican, Tate Modern - in Madrid - PhotoEspaña, La Casa Encendida, Cruce - in Mexico - Fundación Pedro Meyer, Biblioteca Henestrosa, in Berlin - HKW, Sowieso .- She has provided guest lectures and workshops in the UK and internationally including at the University of the Arts London, Goldsmiths University, Guildhall, Ravensbourne University…Her work has been supported by Arts Council England, Sound & Music, BMC, Amexcid, Photo-España, and Garage Cube.
Bradford-born, Wakefield-raised, Leafcutter John has performed and collaborated widely, including as part of mercury-nominated band Polar Bear, and solo at places like Jarvis Cocker’s meltdown and Planet Mu raves. John first found recognition twenty three years ago through Mike Paradinas’s Planet Mu record label – a gold standard for the experimental fringes of electronic music. His discography ranges from the experimentalism of The Housebound Spirit, to the folk-infused Forest and the Sea – the latter containing “Seba '' which James Acaster named in his top nine essential tracks.
John moved up to Sheffield a few years ago and quickly fell in love with climbing. In this rare London performance John will explore using actual gritstone in his performance.
