We’re pleased to announce that we are being supported by Sound and Music for two years as one of the artists in New Voices 2018:
Sound and Music is delighted to announce the 15 composers and creative artists who will be its 2018 New Voices, and the first group to go through this brand new artist development programme.
New Voices 2018 are: Alex Ho, Andy Ingamells, Bex Burch, Daniel McBride, David Austin Grey, Edmund Hunt, Eska Mtungwazi, Eunseog Lee, Gugak Sounds, Johnny Hunter, Liz Johnson, Marcus Joseph, Stuart Brown, Supriya Nagarajan and Vicki Bennett.
Congratulations to our New Voices 2018! These fifteen are creating work across a very broad range of musical genres but they share a deep commitment to critical engagement with their practice. All fifteen New Voices want to make changes to, and effect development within, their work. They are learners who cultivate their craft and we hope to be worthy of the trust they have placed in us to work alongside them.
New Voices is Sound and Music’s major Composer Development programme, lasting 18 months with an annual intake. It draws on the models from our previous Embedded, Portfolio and Pathways programmes, and on the partnerships and expertise nurtured through these schemes. Find out more here.
Under the name “People Like Us,” artist Vicki Bennett has been making work available via CD, DVD and vinyl releases, radio broadcasts, concert appearances, gallery exhibits, 360 immersive installations and online streaming and distribution since 1992. She sees collage as folk art sourced from the palette of contemporary media and technology, with all of the sharing and cross-referencing incumbent to a populist form. Embedded in her work is the premise that all is interconnected and that claiming ownership of an “original” or isolated concept is both preposterous and redundant. Using collage as a compositional tool, Vicki Bennett opens up endless opportunities to experience results that are more than the sum of the parts. Most of the People Like Us back catalogue has been available for free online since 2002. For many artists, profit and publicity is more likely through free distribution (the gift economy) than independent publishers and distributors, which often struggle with limited resources. Online self-distribution allows an artist to keep their work available, resolving a tension between label production costs and the desire of an artist for work to be available. UbuWeb generously hosts the discography and filmography of People Like Us.
As a solo artist or collaborator Vicki has published more than 40 video projects and 50 audio recordings, with works released by labels including Illegal Art, Rough Trade, Soleilmoon Recordings, Discrepant, Sonic Arts Network and Touch. Vicki’s DO or DIY show on the fiercely independent New York City-market radio station WFMU has run since 2003. Her video work has been screened at Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, BFI, Purcell Room, Barbican, ICA, V&A. Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Sonar (Barcelona), MAXXI/National Museum of XXI Century Arts (Rome), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis) and Centro de Cultura Digital (Mexico City), among other institutions. Video works have been aired on Channel 4 and radio sessions created for John Peel and Mixing It.
People Like Us has been commissioned by Arts Council England, Barbican, Attenborough Centre (ACCA), The BBC, WDR, Deutschlandradio, PRSF, a-n, Great North Run, Sound and Music, Channel 4/Animate Projects, AV Festival, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Recombinant Media Labs (RML), Sonic Arts Network, Forma, LUX and Lovebytes.
To date, Vicki has had 7 solo exhibitions and participated in at least 20 group shows at MAXXI (Rome), Venice Biennale, HMKV (Dortmund), Centro de Cultura Digital (Mexico), Hatton Gallery (Newcastle), Vitrine (London), alt.gallery (Newcastle), Greene County Council for the Arts Gallery (NY), Peacock Visual Arts (Aberdeen), Pallant House (Chichester), Engramme (Quebec), La Scatola Gallery (London), Changing Room (Stirling), Franklin Street Works (Connecticut), Usurp Gallery (London), University of Greenwich Galleries, Matthew Gallery (Dundee), Edinburgh Printmakers, Millennium Gallery (Sheffield) Leeds College of Art, Sunbeam Studios (London) and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (NY).
The work of People Like Us has been featured in many publications, including Sounds Like Silence – 4’33’’ Silence Today (Spectre Books 2012), The Journal of Writing In Creative Practice (Vol 7 Issue 1 2015), The Fundamentals of Sonic Art and Design by Tony Gibbs (Ava Publishing 2007), Cutting Across Media by Kembrew McLeod (Duke University Press 2011), Here To Go – Art, Counter-Culture and the Esoteric (Forum Nidrosiae 2014), Incredible Machines by Danny Snelson (avant 2014), Sensations of History (University of Minnesota Press 2019) and she has written for The Wire’s Collateral Damage (February 2012). Vicki has a whole chapter dedicated to her work in Duchamp Is My Lawyer The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb by Kenneth Goldsmith on Columbia University Press (2020) and a chapter in Different People – Conversations on Art, Life and the Creative Process by Carl Abrahamsson on Trapart (2021).
People Like Us has been reviewed in The Wire, BBC website, Bizarre Magazine, Rolling Stone, Frieze, The Independent, Record Collector, Time Out, Film Comment, The Guardian, The Scotsman, XLR8R, Baltimore City Paper, Sight and Sound, NME, Metro and San Francisco Bay Guardian, and interviewed for Found Footage Magazine (2016), The Observer (2006), Filmmaker Magazine (2015), The Wire (2014, 2011, 2008, 1999), Sight and Sound (2013), a-n Magazine (2012), Wired (2012), RadioWeb MACBA (2010), Sound and Music (2011), Sound Projector (2012, 2000), Bizarre Magazine (1999), NME (1995, 1996). On radio I’ve been interviewed on Late Junction (2016), Soundproof (ABC Radio National 2016), WDR 3 Open Sounds (WDR 2016), Cutting Up The Cut Up (BBC Radio 4 2015), North by Southwest (British Council 2012) PM (BBC Radio 3 2010), Twenty Minutes (BBC Radio 3 2009) and Mixing It (BBC Radio 3 2004). The May 2021 edition of The Wire features People Like Us – both a 30 year retrospective interview and also the cover photo.
Vicki has also curated publications and events: First Person, Fourth Wall (2020), Optimized! Expanded Radio Stream, WFMU (2016), Concert of Collage, Encounters Festival, Bristol (2015), Radio Boredcast, 744 hour radio station, AV Festival (2012), Nothing is New, Everything is Permitted event, AV Festival (2010), Sonic Arts Network CD Smiling Through My Teeth (2008) and a Humour in Music event, Purcell Room for Ether Festival (2002).
Notations, a film for live improvisers toured the UK with TUSK/Sound & Music in Autumn 2013; two films for Animate Projects/Channel 4 television, UK, broadcast as part of their Random Acts series. In 2015, Vicki created A/V performance Citation City, using techniques of Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project in relation to London-based feature films. Nothing Can Turn Into A Void – a documentary film about People Like Us has screened in cinemas and festivals since Autumn 2015, and No One Is An Island, a radio work created for WDR, broadcast in April 2016. The Expanded Radio online/virtual commission/artist residency Optimized! broadcast on WFMU in June 2016. Since 2018, Vicki has been touring her solo a/v performance The Mirror, released an album under the same name, which reached No.8 in The Wire‘s albums of the year. Vicki produced the video for the spring 2018 The The Comeback Tour, and was participant in Sound and Music’s New Voices programme, and a-n Artist Bursaries 2019 recipient. The 45 minute radio art commission I Can Fly aired on WDR in Spring 2020.
In 2021 People Like Us facilitated and toured Gone, Gone Beyond, an hour-long seamless multiscreen and multi-speakered immersive cinema installation to nyMusikk Oslo, SPILL Festival Ipswich, Attenborough Centre (ACCA) Brighton and London Barbican. Vicki also resumed her radio show DO or DIY with People Like Us on the WFMU Summer Schedule. Vicki also was the cover photo of the May 2021 edition of The Wire magazine.
2022 saw the solo exhibition “MIND MAPS: The Art of Vicki Bennett” at Sheehan Gallery, Walla Walla, USA and also Orfeó Lleidatà Lleda Spain. Gray Area San Francisco screened of Gone, Gone Beyond for three weeks in May, and “108”, a new 22 hour radio piece by People Like Us broadcast on Radio Arts Zone. People Like Us were joined by artist collaborators Gwilly Edmondez and Ergo Phizmiz to perform at The Wire Magazine’s 40th Anniversary event. Vicki created a radio commission “Changing Your Mind” for Deutschlandradio to be broadcast on 14 April 2023, and broadcast a mixtape for BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction. Rhapsody in Glue (w/ Ergo Phizmiz) was released as a lathe cut vinyl edition in November 2022.
In 2024, we have made a new album COPIA, 3 videos for The The, 2 for Soft Cell, 1 for Marc Almond, and a new wide screen AV installation “Mise en Abyme” for Museu de Aveiro/Santa Joana, Aveiro, Portugal. We are currently working on a new 360 degree work “Khroma” for RML CineChamber.
So for in 2025 we have been continuing to work on “Khroma”, we’ve made a video of “Torch” for Soft Cell’s upcoming live show, and we’re working with Kevin Hamilton from the University of Illinois on some text-based work.
ALL COMMISSION ENQUIRIES OR BOOKINGS FOR GONE, GONE BEYOND ARE TO BE MADE DIRECTLY WITH US THROUGH OUR CONTACT PAGE.
Purple Zone video for Soft Cell live show [2025] Torch video for Soft Cell live show [2025] Khroma surround av work for a new RML CineChamber module [2025] Some Days I Drink My Coffee By The Grave of William Blake video for The The, directed by Tim Pope [2024] Elusive Butterfly video for Marc Almond [2024] Linoleum Smooth video for The The, directed by Tim Pope [2024] First Hand Experience In Second Hand Love video for Soft Cell live show [2024] Cognitive Dissident video for The The, directed by Tim Pope [2024] A Man Could Get Lost video for Soft Cell live show [2024] Mise En Abyme multiscreen/multispeaker installation for Aveiro 2024, Capital Portuguesa Da Cultura [2024] PhD Studentship – Northern Bridge [2023+] Live AV performance collaboration with Ergo Phizmiz and Gwilly Edmondez, Cafe OTO / Arts Council England [2023] Artist support from Lakes of Wada [2023] Solo live AV performance “The Library of Babel“, IndieGoGo crowdfunded [2023] CuratorSpace Artist Bursary [2022] “Changing Your Mind” radio commission for Deutschlandradio [2022/2023] 108 radio commission for Radio Art Zone [2022] Mind Maps: The Art of Vicki Bennett Sheehan Gallery, Walla Walla, USA | [2022] Global Eyes video for THE THE [2022] PRSF Open Fund For Music Creators recipient [2021] Gone, Gone BeyondCommissioned by SPILL Festival of Performance, presented in partnership with Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA) and Barbican. Supported by Recombinant Media Labs (RML),DanceEast, nyMusikk, Gulbenkian, TouchDesigner, PRS Foundation’s The Open Fund and Arts Council England. Developed as part of Sound and Music’s New Voices Programme. [2021] a-n Artist Bursaries 2019 recipient [2019] I Can Fly new radio work for WDR3 [2019] Hallwalls Artist in ResidenceProject (HARP) artist [2019-2020] Sound and Music New Voices award recipient [2018-2020] New live AV performance “The Mirror” ACE Grants for the Arts [2018-2019] 8 speaker / 10 screen audiovisual installation “Gone, Gone Beyond” with Recombinant Media Labs and Cinechamber [2016++] Video editing/production for The The Comeback Special [Spring 2018] Can’t Stop What’s Coming video for THE THE [2017] Curation of radio station and artist residency (with John Kilduff) Optimized! on WFMU funded by National Endowment for the Arts [June 2016] No One Is An Island radio commission for WDR to be broadcast 9 April 2016 on WDR 3 [Summer 2015-Winter 2015] Curation of films for Concert of Collage, Watershed, Bristol [September 2015] Nothing Can Turn Into A Void, editing a feature length doc film by Carl Abrahamsson about Vicki Bennett/People Like Us [Spring 2015] Arts Council England award creating a new live AV performanceCitation Cityand new short films with artist soundtracks pdf [Spring 2014-Spring 2015] Book collaboration with Gregor Weichbrodt The Fundamental Questions[Summer 2014] Those Who Do NotT Shirt Commission [Summer 2014] Printed in a light blue and white on an electric blue T-shirt with The Wire logo and Vicki Bennett Those Who Do Not printed in light blue on the back of the neck. Limited edition of 100 shirts. Solo gallery show Shutter at Leeds College of Art pdf [Winter-Spring 2014] Touring award from Sound and Music for Notations[Autumn/Winter 2013] Two short animation films for Animate Projects/Channel 4 television, UK as part of their Random Acts Series [March 2013-July 2013] broadcast on national television in Autumn 2013 pdf Creation of online film with 7 artist soundtracksGesture Piece, commissioned by Pixel Palace at Tyneside Cinemapdf [Spring/Summer 2013] Creating a new live AV performance Consequences (One Things Leads To Another, commissioned by Arts Council England [August 2012-January 2013], supported by transmediale [January 2013] Music for live performance piece Lost and Found by Anne Juren [Summer 2012] Archiving Radio Boredcast on WFMU, commissioned by AV Festivalwfmu.org/playlists/ZZ [May-June 2012] Curating an online-radio station Radio Boredcast for AV Festival 12pdf [Sept 2011-March 2012] Sound and Music commission to make AVlive performance Horror Collage for The Sound Of Fear (later changed to The Magical Misery Tour Southbank Centre, London [September 2011] The Doors of Perspection at Vitrine Gallery London [July/August 2011] Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival commission to create a new live AV performance The Keystone Cut Ups with Ergo Phizmiz [2010] Curation of Nothing is New, Everything Is Permitted. as part of AV Festival 10 at the Star and Shadow, Newcastle [2010] Edinburgh Printmakers commission to create audio and artwork for a picture disc LP “This Is Light Music”, as part of their group exhibition “Prints of Darkness” to be shown at Edinburgh Printmakers in Summer 2010 then touring venues [2010] Grants For The Arts commission to create new AV performance Genre Collage [2008-2009] Great North Run Moving Image Commission 2009 – The Great North Run Cultural Programme – to create a film using the archives of the Great North Run, Paradepdf [July 2008-October 2009] Grants For The Arts commissionto release Rhapsody In Glue with Ergo Phizmiz on bleep.com – an album created with audio collage sourced from the podcast Codpaste (May 2008) Retrospective solo exhibition of People Like Us AV work, entitled We Edit Life at alt.gallery Newcastle curated by Rebecca Shatwellpdf [May 2008] Curation of CD Smiling Through My Teeth – Sonic Arts Network [May 2008] Forma/AV Festival commission Breaking Waves to make Bluetooth audio compositions for mobile phone [January 2008] Lecturing Music and Other Media at Goldsmiths [2006-2008] Wandsworth Film Awards commission to make short digital film Skew Gardens, exploring the boundaries of urban land use – [September 2007] Lovebytes commission in association with Millennium Galleries, Sheffield to make three screen AV film Work, Rest & Play [June 2007] Grants For The Arts commission to make podcast series Codpaste on WFMU, where People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz explore the working process of creating music from scratch [September 2007] Radio session for BBC Radio 3’s Mixing It [February 2007] Artist Residency at BBC Creative Archive with “access all areas” to work with their archive – Arts Council England (Interdisciplinary Arts) with BBC, White City – [March 2006] Grants For The Arts commission to create 10″ record to be given away for free in selected international record stores Honeysuckle Boulevard [August 2006] PRS Foundation award to create a new live performance (with artist Ergo Phizmiz) using dansette players and self-pressed vinyl compositions Boots! [June 2006] Sonic Arts Network / Goldsmiths Electronic Music Studio (EMS) commission working with Daphne Oram’s sound archive [Summer 2005] Grants for the Arts commission to create new live AV performance – [April 2005] LUX commission to make digital short film sourcing the LUX archive collection Resemblage [October 2004] Residency at FACT to make radio play Molaradio in collaboration with artist Felix Kubin and Croxteth school children [January 2004] Sonic Arts Network commission to make short film and subsequent DVD release – Story Without End [June 2004] Live performance with Wobbly for radio broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Mixing It, London Spitz [May 2004] BBC Radio 1 session for John Peel [January 2003] Future Physical commission to make digital short film The Remote Controller [June 2002] Baby Zizanie (JG Thirlwell and Jim Coleman) live video for BZ performed at David Bowie’s Meltdown at QEH, London (June 2002) Lovebytes commission to make short film We Edit Life[December 2002] Curated line up for Humour in Music event, Ether Festival at Purcell Room, London [May 2002] Year of the Artist Residency, Lighthouse, Brighton with Brighton & Hove Music Library, teaching sound collage [June 2001] Year of the Artist Residency, Hull Time Based Arts, making AV collage – [January-April 2001] Live session and BBC Radio 3 broadcast for Mixing It, Dingwalls [March 2001] Work & Leisure International commission to make new AV live performance – [September 1999] Ars Electronica – The Sound of Music live collaboration with Negativland and Barbed [Summer 1998] Various radio commissions for De Avonden on VPRO, The Netherlands [early 1990s]
Vicki Bennett, Chris Cutler, Scanner, Blackest Ever Black label head Kiran Sande and The Wire‘s Tony Herrington discuss the impact of digital technology on music making and consumption.
In recent years, the internet and a raft of new technologies have transformed the ways in which we produce, perceive and consume music. And as the reality of music’s new digital economy starts to bite, musicians and labels are having to rethink both philosophy and practice, addressing the issue of how they create and disseminate work – while some decry the free movement of music across file sharing networks and the collapse of traditional record industry models, others look to exploit the new possibilities offered by crowd sourcing and social networking.For this panel discussion chaired by The Wire‘s Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Tony Herrington, Vicki Bennett (People Like Us), Chris Cutler (ReR Records), Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) and Kiran Sande (FACT, Blackest Ever Black) discussed possible responses to the challenges posed by music’s changing eco-system.
The Wire and Sound And Music‘s Off The Page festival took place 24–26 February at The Playhouse Theatre in Whitstable.
This is the full-length performance of the Cafe Oto leg of last year’s NOTATIONS tour, with Jaap Blonk and Philip Jeck as guest performers.
Vicki Bennett’s film-collage-as-visual-score Notations is created from hundreds of different film clips, where the content conceptually or literally portrays different kinds of instructions to be read by the improvising artists on stage as a visual score. The film/performance toured the UK in November 2013 after premiering at Ilan Volkov’s TECTONICS Festival in Reykjavik earlier in the year. This marks a return to working with improvised audio and video, both on radio and in front of an audience. Between 1996-2003, Vicki performed both solo and with Jon Leidecker (Wobbly), Matt Wand (Stock, Hausen and Walkman), Matmos, members of Negativland and Kenneth Goldsmith.
To soundtrack Notations, each show featured a different combination of artists: Bill Orcutt, Rhodri Davies, M.C. Schmidt (Matmos), Philip Jeck, Jaap Blonk, Steve Noble, Wobbly, Mark Sanders, Tomomi Adachi and Jennifer Walshe.
Vicki Bennett is an influential figure in the field of audio visual collage, through her innovative sampling, appropriating and cutting up of found footage and archives, publishing material since 1992.
Notations UK Tour was produced by Tusk and commissioned by Sound and Music as part of their Touring Programme for 2013.
Here’s an entertaining, informative (we hope) one-hour video travelogue of our recent Notations Tour.
Featuring performers Bill Orcutt, Rhodri Davies, M.C. Schmidt, Philip Jeck, Jaap Blonk, Steve Noble, Wobbly, Mark Sanders, Tomomi Adachi and Jennifer Walshe. Oh, and People Like Us. Also, tour producers Richard Whitelaw and Lee Etherington make appearances.
Here’s an edit of the final show from the Notations UK tour at Bristol with Jaap Blonk, Steve Noble and Philip Jeck. Many thanks to Tusk and Sound and Music for making this possible!
NOTATIONS – the film by Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) created for live performance by improvising artists and musicians, toured the UK in November 2013, produced by Tusk and commissioned by Sound and Music as part of their Touring Programme for 2013.
Performers: Jaap Blonk / Philip Jeck / Steve Noble
Film by Vicki Bennett
Venue: Bristol Arnolfini, 30 Nov 2013 peoplelikeus.org/2013/notations/
Thanks to those that attended Leeds NOTATIONS at Hyde Park Picture House as part of Leeds International Film Festival on 16 Nov 2013 – here are two edits with M.C. Schmidt, Tomomi Adachi and Wobbly. Thanks to Tusk and Sound & Music!
Thanks to those that attended Manchester NOTATIONS at Kraak on 14 Nov 2013 – here are two small edits from the evening with M.C. Schmidt, Jennifer Walshe and Wobbly. Thanks to Tusk and Sound & Music!
NOTATIONS – the film by Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) created for live performance by improvising artists and musicians, will tour the UK in November 2013, produced by Tusk and commissioned bySound and Musicas part of their Touring Programme for 2013.
PRESS RELEASE
Sound And Music and Tusk Music are delighted to announce this tour of Vicki Bennett’s film-collage-as-visual-score Notations, to be soundtracked by a unique combination of leading improvising artists at each event.
Notations has been created by Vicki from hundreds of different film clips, where the content conceptually or literally portrays different kinds of ‘gestures’ or ‘instructions’ to be read by the improvising artists on stage as a visual score.
This marks a return to working with improvised audio and video, both on radio and in front of an audience. Between 1996-2003 Vicki performed both solo and with Jon Leidecker (Wobbly), Matt Wand (Stock, Hausen and Walkman), Matmos, members of Negativland and Kenneth Goldsmith.
To soundtrack Notations, Vicki and Tusk have recruited an impressive international cast of improvisers, each with radically different approaches and, as each show will feature a different combination of artists, every performance on the tour will be completely unique. So each show will feature a carefully chosen trio of live respondents to Notations from the cast of Bill Orcutt, Rhodri Davies, M.C. Schmidt (Matmos), Philip Jeck, Jaap Blonk, Steve Noble, Wobbly, Mark Sanders, Tomomi Adachi and Jennifer Walshe.
Oct 31 – NEWCASTLE BILL ORCUTT / RHODRI DAVIES / MARK SANDERS + BILL ORCUTT SOLO SET
& PEOPLE LIKE US “CONSEQUENCES (ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER)” Star & Shadow Cinema, Stepney Bank, NE1 2NP
8pm £8/10 starandshadow.org.uk =============== Nov 14 – MANCHESTER M.C. SCHMIDT / WOBBLY / JENNIFER WALSHE & PEOPLE LIKE US “CONSEQUENCES (ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER)” Kraak, 11 Stevenson Square, M1 1DB
7.30pm £8/7 kraak.co/home =============== Nov 16 – LEEDS (as part of Leeds International Film Festival) M.C. SCHMIDT / WOBBLY / TOMOMI ADACHI & PEOPLE LIKE US “CONSEQUENCES (ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER)” Hyde Park Picture House, Brudenell Road, LS6 1JD
9pm £8/£6 leedsfilm.com =============== Nov 29 – LONDON JAAP BLONK / PHILIP JECK & PEOPLE LIKE US “CONSEQUENCES (ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER)” Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, London, E8 3DL
8pm £8/10 cafeoto.co.uk =============== Nov 30 – BRISTOL JAAP BLONK / PHILIP JECK / STEVE NOBLE & PEOPLE LIKE US “CONSEQUENCES (ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER)” Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, BS1 4QA
7.30pm £8/6 arnolfini.org.uk
Each event will also begin with an audiovisual performance by People Like Us of Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another), which places similar but emerging subject matter side by side to construct the narrative, a story emerging as a sum of the preceding parts yet digressing on a tangent. All actions have consequences, and here we see them played out, to wondrous and catastrophic effect!
Vicki Bennett is an influential figure in the field of audio visual collage, through her innovative sampling, appropriating and cutting up of found footage and archives. Using collage as her main form of expression, she creates audio recordings, films and radio that communicate a humorous, dark and often surreal view on life. Vicki operates under the moniker People Like Us and promotes an open access to archives for creative use.
Bill Orcutt first came to attention as guitarist in insane Miami band Harry Pussy, famed for their frenetic and discordant performances and his then-wife Adris Hoyo’s seminally fiery primitive/spasmodic drumming. Harry Pussy imploded in the late 90s but Orcutt re-emerged in 2009 with A New Way To Pay Old Debts, a truly guttural home-recorded stream-of-consciousness via battered guitar with only 4 strings left and occasional involuntary vocalisations. Has since released records via Editions Mego as well as his own Palilalia imprint, and formed an occasional duo with Chris Corsano. palilalia.com
Our favourite Rhodri Davies story concerns his being booed off stage for destroying his instrument at a very conservative harp festival. Davies takes this traditional instrument and does very un-traditional things with it, from applying dry ice to the strings to make them squeal to constructing installations that play it with wind and water. Regular collaborators include David Toop, John Tilbury and John Butcher and such luminaries as Elian Radigue, Christian Wolff and Yasunao Tone have composed specifically for him. rhodridavies.com
M.C. Schmidt is best known as one half of Californian (now relocated to Baltimore) duo Matmos, renowned for marrying a love of electronic pop with musique concrete tactics and a penchant for unusual sound sources (liposuction surgery, amplified crayfish nerve tissue, latex fetish clothing, contact mics on human hair…). In 2001 they were invited to work with Bjork on her Vespertine album, leading to two world tours as part of her band, and have also collaborated with Zeena Parkins, Antony, David Tibet, Marina Abramovic and many others. vague-terrain.com
Philip Jeck rescues old records and turntables from junk shops and creates something beautiful from them. He won the 1993 Time Out Performance Award for his most famous work Vinyl Requiem, a performance for 180 vintage record players and has released a series of records on the renowned Touch label and collaborated with Gavin Bryars, Otomo Yoshihide and Jaki Liebezeit, amongst others. philipjeck.com
Jaap Blonk hails from the Netherlands and is a self-taught composer and poet best known for his improvised vocal performances and sound poetry. Blonk is highly regarded for his pure and uninhibited style of improvisation, his sets often given greater depth by the use of live electronics, and he has collaborated with Maja Ratkje, Mats Gustafsson, Joan La Barbara, The Ex and many others. jaapblonk.com
Steve Noble first appeared as part of pop group Rip, Rig And Panic before becoming involved for several years with Derek Bailey’s Company Weeks and becoming over the years a key figure in the UK’s improvised and free music community, playing with improvisers of all approaches including Peter Brotzmann, Stephen O’Malley, John Edwards, Ikue Mori and Keiji Haino. efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mnoble.html
Wobbly is the nom de plume of Californian plunderphonic artist Jon Leidecker who, like Vicki Bennett, uses found materials and collage as a key part of his working method, so its perhaps inevitable that they have produced several records together. He’s also released a series of records on Important, Illegal Art, Tigerbeat6 and other labels and collaborated with Matmos, Jay Lesser and many others. detritus.net/wobbly
Mark Sanders is a drummer and key part of the UK free music scene with an astounding list of collaborators from Derek Bailey to Okkyung Lee, Charles Gayle and William Parker. Mark has performed all over the world and released over 120 cds and also forms a rhythm section with bassist John Edwards in a number of groups. marksanders.me.uk
Tomomi Adachi is from Kazanawa, Japan and is a composer, sound poet and installation artist, improvising live with the use of voice, live electronics and his own instrument designs. Regarded as Japan’s only sound poet, he gave the first ever Japanese performance of Schwitters’ Ursonate and has performed the works of Cage, Cardew, Wolff and others and collaborated with countless artists including Zbigniew Karkowski, Annette Krebs and Akio Suzuki. adachitomomi.com/n/biography.html
Jennifer Walshe is a renowned vocalist and composer with so many strings to her artistic bow its hardly surprising she was so successful with her Grúpat project, where she adopted and developed 9 separate personas, each with their own individual creative outlet. The project led to exhibitions, photography, sculptures and more internationally by each of the personas. She’s perhaps best known as the composer of the opera XXX_Live_Nude_Girls!!! and is also highly regarded as a vocalist and improviser. cmc.ie/composers/composer.cfm?composerID=114
When performed, the film is provided with a “score” (ie a list of instructions to be translated into sound) which consists of some basic instructions and a synopsis listing characteristics of the 9 different sketches featured in the film. The sketches are as follows:
The film is made in 9 sketches with titles that roughly describe the content/concept/theme. The themes move and progress with many tangents, although there is continuity of concepts and the pace even and flowing. There is intermittent film sound throughout, and lots of silence. Hopefully the sound will be no more surprising than any other performer on the stage. The maximum audio volume should be set equal to each participant.
There will be no instructions to be found beyond what is in the film, no written score beyond this text. The film will be provided to the players at least 2 weeks before the performance date, and should be viewed several times well before performing. For each sketch different numbers and combinations of performers are recommended, either spontaneously or pre-determined. All players should meet to discuss this before performing, and rehearsals are at the discretion of the performers.
Ultimately, whatever the film content suggests is what all should react to. – Vicki Bennett, May 2013
1. A Nod to Previous Players. Majority of footage sourced from old avant-garde and comedy films featuring people playing cards and chess, also doing things at tables. Very little sound added to the film soundtrack. 2. From A-B. Transport, trains, cars, carriages and things that move fast. Some typewriting and conducting too. This one is fast and also noisy in places! 3. Spin. Lots of spinning, vertigo, circles and targets. Zooming into eyes. Camera shutters. Not too much incidental sound on the film apart from towards the end with a piano. 4. At Home. Mainly footage shot in domestic environments – pans through people’s rooms, people eating and chopping food, ringing doorbells, broken appliances and acts of domestic destruction. Reel to reel tape recorders and record players. Fairly quiet, some incidental sounds with a few louder bursts at the end when woman finds a monster in her fridge. 5. Several Directions at Once. Part 1 A conductor conducts traffic lights and traffic. Incidental sound from traffic, but not conductor’s music. Radio dial turns. Hands waving, pointing and conjuring. Quiet to start with then bursts of sound around the time of the radio dial being turned.
Part 2 Lots of punching, slapping and violence with incidental sound, cut in with a little conducting and hand gestures, bending and stretching. Quite noisy. Ends with car crash and bowing conjuror. 6. Dark. Hand movements signifying quiet/listening. Record player and film leaders flicker black and white. People in the dark with candles, thunder and lightning, lights on and off. Disconnection of power, suspense and fear. Incidental sound of storm. People walking on wooden steps in the dark. Radio tuner and typewriters/printing machines. Quiet incidental sound apart from necessary bursts of weather/explosions. 7. Ups and Downs. Record players, panning through people’s living rooms. Leisure – card playing and knitting. More panning and record playing. Walking legs/feet through many films. Very quiet. Desert scene, people run down hill making a noise, there follow many scenes from westerns, woman stops train, buzzers pressed, men with bells, all incidental sounds for this section. More walking, people waiting behind doors, quiet, suspense, just footsteps and door handles. Door lock gets shot (very loud) and then follows a lot of scenes of people struggling in train/horse carriages, to the sound of a carriage then train stopping. Ends with car sinking into mud. 8. The Suspense is Killing Me. Predator/victims leaning over/backing away or trapped. Retaliation, shooting. Walking. Snooker and more predators. Opening of doors to different scary people, hiding. Child making horrible noise with a pencil on chalkboard. Doors and wall banging intercut with silence and suspense, listening at walls. More doors opening and suspense, hiding and running. Screaming and fear, silhouettes with bright lights. Power cuts, darkness intercut with conductor and man stuck in phone booth. More power cuts and screaming, general misery. Sleeping woman, man walks up the stairs away from her, looks around, she looks up. He walks away. 9. Nothing Happens. Man walks down wooden stairs to men playing cards at a table. Intercut with other people staring at the screen or each other, no one does anything, they are just looking. Walking around wooden flooring, woman slams door, sits in silence, kicks floor and three people faint. LP rolls across floor, car runs over accordion. Birds fly up and down, mixed with dancing swimmers. Man sits and writes at a table, silently turning blank pages from different movies. Lots of panning over paper and big tables, mainly silent, man screams at faceless man. Lots more staring at one another, suspense, waiting. Nothing happens. Door opens to man in fez, everyone screams. More staring and suspense. Still nothing happens. Gust of wind, Harpo plays flute through window and scares all the ladies. More predators with weapons, people run away, roll credits.
(The 30-minute version of the film excludes parts 7 & 9)
20 April 2013 (with the working title of Gesture Piece*)Tectonics Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland
Performers: Skúli Sverrisson, Davíð Þór Jónsson, Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir, Hlynur Aðils. 8 June 2013 (with the working title of Gesture Piece*)Tectonics Festival, Tel Aviv
Performers: Alex Drool, Assif Tsahar, Robbie Avenaim, Christoph Heemann, Eyvind Kang and Jessika Kenney. 10 June 2013 (with the working title of Gesture Piece*)Uganda, Jerusalem
Performers: Eyvind Kang, Jessika Kenney, Robbie Avenaim, Christoph Heemann and special guests November 2013Tusk/Sound and Music UK tour – Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, London, Bristol
Performers: Bill Orcutt, Rhodri Davies, Mark Sanders, M.C. Schmidt, Wobbly, Jennifer Walshe, Tomomi Adachi, Jaap Blonk, Philip Jeck, Steve Noble
* Please note – Gesture Piece is now a separate project, an online film with 7 artist soundtracks. We needed to change the name as the project split into two parts.
Thanks to all who came to Newcastle NOTATIONS on Halloween, here’s a small excerpt of the evening performed by Rhodri Davies, Mark Sanders & Bill Orcutt. Thanks to Tusk Music and Sound & Music!
