Friday 1 September 2017, 7.30pm
The Edinburgh-based improvised noise duo of Malcy Duff & Ali Robertson will perform a one-off trio with multi-instrumentalist Yoni Silver, Ego Depletion is the new pairing of Fritz Welch & Adam Campbell, and a "show 'n' tell" will be held in OTO Project Space featuring Sharon Gal, Holly Pester and Ash Reid.
“A deliberate, luddite refusal to speak music’s language “properly” … the foremost exponents of contemporary post-punk improvisation in the UK... By favouring the sounds other musicians might ignore or avoid – placing a beer bottle on a table, the clicking of a pedal’s pot-switch, the resonant clang of a dropped coin – Usurper, paradoxically, go right through “lo-fi” and come out the other side. It’s this transformative process of enticed attentiveness that produces a genuinely collaborative environment in which focus on the incremental allows us to appreciate the delicacy and subtlety of sound-worlds we normally ignore or take for granted” – Foxy Digitalis on Usurper.
“We have a punchline at the end of each set which equals one joke every three weeks: "I'm not laughing at him. I'm laughing with him. No, i'm not laughing at him. I'm laughing with him."
Combined comprehensive educations of Fife and Edinburgh failed to curb luddite tendencies or discourage low forms of wit: Ali Robertson got remedial as Giant Tank head-honker. Malcy Duff draw.
Meanwhile: A lack of understanding proved that if you leave something broken long enough it'll start working again and Usurper got born.
Minusculist practical pranks and barely there puns for sound keep us chortling like never since John Candy jammed with his dashboard.”
Sharon Gal is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, vocalist and composer, specialising in free improvisation, experimental music and collaborative, participatory large group compositions. She works with voice, electronics, extended techniques, field recordings, found audio, video and collage; exploring presence, listening, embodiment, and the relationship between people, sound and space. Sharon performs solo and in collaborations with: David Toop, John Butcher, John Edwards, Sue Lynch, Andie Brown, Yoni Silver, Steve Beresford, Phil Minton, Charles Hayward, Anat Ben David and Lina Lapelyte.
Since 2007 she has directed a series of site specific, large group compositions, inviting musicians and non-musicians to take part. She curated music concerts, including the series Sound Matter, at Café OTO, and concerts at Iklectik arts lab. Her music was released by many labels, including five solo albums and various collaborations.
Past performances include The V&A, ICA, The Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Modern & Tate Britain, MACBA, and Colour Out Of Space, Borealis, Supernormal, Supersonic, TUSK and Tectonics festivals.
Etudes by Sharon Gal, a collection of text & colour scores, presented as a deck of 78 cards, was supported by Sound and Music and published in 2021. Her project, Healing Choir, ran @ the Kilburn Tin Tabernacle between August-October 2024.
https://www.sharon-gal.com/
https://sharongal.bandcamp.com
Holly Pester is a poet, writer and academic. She has worked in sound art and performance, with BBC Radio, Women’s Art Library and Wellcome Collection. Her collection of experimental fiction, Go to reception and ask for Sara in red felt tip, is out with Book Works (2015), her album of collaborative sound poetry and lullabies, Common Rest, is out with Prototype (2016) and her book of poetry, Comic Timing is out with Granta (2021). Pester's debut novel, The Lodgers, is out in 2024.
Ash Reid is a performer and sometime writer, avid texter, current bar tender and former thought owner
EGO DEPLETION is a system of recycled movements designed to break a hole through invisible or undetectable barriers. It goes for the mind, ear, leg, heart, hand and scalp. Its first impulse is subtracted from the overall net of intentions. For example, sound is produced for the sole purpose of abseiling clogged and crystalized hierarchies and putting it all to rest. Speakers and surfaces are thoroughly interrogated yielding a steady diet of perpetual come-down. EGO DEPLETION is a Glasgow based duo made up of members Adam Campbell and Fritz Welch.
Bass-clarinetist and multi-instrumentalist Yoni Silver’s activities include hyper-spectral adventures with Iancu Dumitrescu's Hyperion Ensemble; a bass clarinet and percussion duo with Steve Noble; a bass clarinet/violin and possessed vocals duo with Sharon Gal; Denis D’or with Grundik Kasyansky and Tom Wheatley; bass clarinet and drums duo with Crystabel Riley, and solo performances on amplified bass clarinet.
He has appeared on labels such as Creative Sources, Confront Recordings, Wasted Capital, Chocolate Monk and Edition Modern.
