David Tagg - Waist Deep Seas of Milk (review) New York musician, David Tagg, has seen The Future of Modern Guitar. And this sonic seer’s astral projections are sumptuously spread across the ambient expanses of Waist Deep Seas of Milk, though all trace of twang, pluck and strum is dissolved in FX haze and spun out in endless echo returns. Review by Alan Lockett.

Favourite Places (review) Everyone has a favourite place, whether cosy internal retreat or cherished patch of Great Outdoors. Forest, bathtub, museum and alley find common cause on this audio-document from Audiobulb, compiling ten pieces representing selected artists’ Favourite Places. Captured field recordings blend with musical treatments to make mementos enfolding inspiring source within inspired composition. Review by Alan Lockett.

Hectic Tenuous - Chic Nerve (review) Starting with flanged, panned scratching (ala fingernails, not decks), this solo CDR from The Caution Curves laptop lady Rebecca Mills, is an eleven track melange of textures, echoes, drones, processed field recordings and even the occasional bit of singing! Review by Mark Francombe.

La Ciutat Ets Tu - Tomasz Krakowiak (review) La Ciutat Et Tu surrounds the listener with evolving percussive transformations in timbre. The compositions have a circular unwinding quality, never abrasive and utterly hypnotic. Tomasz Krakowiak is a Polish-born percussionist now living in Toronto, Canada. Having collaborated with the likes of Kaffe Matthews, John Oswald, Phil Minton, Otomo Yoshihide, Gert-Jan Prins among other. Review by Derek Morton.

Love City by Dsic (review) Dsic, also known as Greg Godwin, is a Bristol-based noise artist that employs a wide range of influences and sound sources. Love City and the miniDsic EP, both released through Lf Records, weave their way through noise, drone, glitch, ambient and microsound. Review by Alex Young.

Nelson Foltz and Tom Lynn - Still Life (series) (review) The internally themed Rothko-esque cover art of the Still Life series could stand as a semiotic of Nelson Foltz and Tom Lynn’s sound, with its slow-shifting tones that spread across a spartan canvas - ostensibly static swathes that reveal micro-variativity on deeper insertion. Review by Alan Lockett.

Of Memory & Dreams - Bill Thompson (review) There is a trajectory that many improvised electro acoustic performances reach, which although unique in every given context, often manage to take you to a zen like point where you become one with the signal and phase in and out of listening to the development of structure or dynamic of the work. Review by Roger Mills.

Three Rooms - Steve Peters (review) Sound artist Steve Peters’ recent CD, Three Rooms documents three of his site-specific installations. The three pieces succeed without reference to the installations for which the pieces were originally composed, capturing the quiet reflection of the original locations. Review by Caleb Deupree.

On June 13 2008, Open Ear will host a free one night only event of experimental work in the ATRiuM Theatre at the University of Glamorgan’s newly built ATRiuM, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries, Cardiff, Wales. Curated by Garrett Lynch the event will present a series of interdisciplinary performances and projections by various artists. Sound and visual artists / groups working across the areas of art, music, media and new technologies within live performance / projected contexts are invited to contribute to this event under an open theme.

What does this mean?

There is no imposed theme instead we want to present a selection of time-based work by artists based on their themes, their continuing research, as an event which will explore the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of audio-visual arts. Proposed performances / projected works can be new or pre-existing works, improvised, dynamically generated (such as software art) or pre-composed, abstract or figurative, individual or collaborative, experimental, site specific and much, much more. All proposals are required to be:

1. time-based (remember this is a audience based event in a theatre)
2. and either audio-visual, audio only or visual only work (selection preference will be given to works which are audio-visual)

Works should aim to be a maximum of 30 minutes each however this is flexible.

As the event is free we are unable to offer individual payment to artists however we will provide access to reasonable requests for equipment (please include a list of requirements in your proposal and we will attempt to cater for this) at the venue and of course the opportunity to present work in one of Cardiff’s newest cutting edge venues.

Proposals should take the form of a word / pdf / rtf / txt document (two pages maximum) with:

1. A description of the work (500 words maximum).
2. Images to give us an idea of the proposed work.
3. A full list of required equipment (please note that the event will host several performers so complex configurations involving lengthy set-up times will not be catered for).
4. Urls to previous examples of work online (videos or sound files online are particularly useful).
5. A short bio (200 words maximum).
6. Artist(s) / group / performer(s) name and full contact details.

Please email proposals as compressed attachments (.zip / .dmg / .sit / .sitx / tar.gz / .tgz) to Garrett Lynch (garrett [at] asquare dot org) no later than 12pm (GMT), Friday 16/05/08.

To get an idea of the type of events we organise please see our website (http://openear.wordpress.com/) for full details of all past events and our YouTube account for videos of pasts events.

:: The Venue ::

The University of Glamorgan’s newly built ATRiuM in Cardiff, Wales opened in 2007 and houses the Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries which comprises of Art & Design, Media & Communication and Drama & Music. Situated in central Cardiff, Wales, this specially-designed building contains cutting edge technology and facilities including industry-standard studios, a theatre and cinema.

Address: ATRiuM Theatre, Adam Street, Cardiff, Wales, CF24 2FN. Detailed information on how to get here can be found on the university website.

Open Ear, audio-visual events and performances are supported by The University of Glamorgan, ATRiuM, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries, Cardiff, Wales.

The whole piece is based on field recordings from: Mamori Lake, Amazonia, Brazil; Alphios Bridge, Ancient Olympia, Greece; Vibrations from the bridge which connects Denmark with Sweden; A bottling plant in operation and hydrophone recordings from Mamori Lake. Also used were sounds and notes from a church organ. Output signals have been manipulated and electronically treated.

Dramazon is made in memory of a long rainy night in Amsterdam… In the era of 01110011000111010110, one thing remains stable and it will remain stable and non-mutated for eternity. The way people kiss, the way bodies are connected…
Listen >>

TouchRadio is internet audio broadcast streaming direct from the server. To listen you need a mp3 player app. that supports streaming such as Apple’s iTunes for Mac and PC. In the archive >>: Jana Winderen, Guðni Franzson, Lasse Marhaug, Chris Watson, Steve Roden, Leif Elggren, Scott Taylor, The Skull Defekts, Daniel Menche, Fennesz/Rehberg/Toral & Feliciano, Brandon LaBelle, Stephan Mathieu, Leif Inge, Jacob Kirkegaard, People Like Us, KK.Null, Peter Rehberg, Toshiya Tsunoda, Philip Jeck, z’ev, Christian Fennesz & Max Nagl, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, BJNilsen.

Soundwok Artiject - Call for Participants: Take part immediately in a cutting-edge “artiject” in which the aesthetic consciousness of upstream sonifiers is mapped utilizing GIS technology. If you are a Southern California based or linked sound artist, experimental musician and / or composer, you are invited to participate in the first part of a unique sound art and music research artiject and study, conducted by Dr. Chung Shih Hoh and Marco Schindelmann that will involve the mapping of the dynamic social networks and aesthetic consciousness of Southern California artists involved in sound art and/or experimental music. The results of this study will also serve as material for a sound installation for SoundWalk2008. Your participation in this project is not contingent on your submitting to or taking part in SoundWalk2008.

This is a unique (for British audiences probably the very last) opportunity to hear the music of Jon Rose and two of his own very favourite acoustic settings: The Kryonics: Jon Rose, violins (including the Stroh cello); Aleks Kolkowski, violin (including the Stroh violin); Joe Williamson, contrabass violin :: Temperament: Jon Rose, violins; Veryan Weston, resident Brindley & Foster wind organ with tracker action.

At last audiences in London can find out what this euro-star-music is all about as the wind organ at the oldest church in Britain - St. Pancras, London (founded 314 AD) - has been confirmed for a Weston-Rose concert on 11th April with Aleks Kolkowski’s Kryonics Stroh Violin project on the same bill.

Not since the gothic horror of H P Lovecraft in his ‘Music of Erich Zahn’ has the art of music offered such an evening of candlelit weirdness and intrigue. The combination of Tenor violin, half stopped organ, Stroh violin, bass violin, and bowed saw will set the spine erect and tingling. The setting? None other than London’s home of spook - St Pancras Old Church. Equipped with the notable stiffs of Johann Christian Bach, Mary Shelley, and Thomas Hardy to name but a few, the graveyard offers little comfort for those who would entertain an evening on the hard pew contemplating mortality and the ancient and modern of music. The crow awaits you at the door. Dress code: Black. Makeup: Black.

The Brown Music Department and MEME (Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments) presents… Atau Tanaka, a concert of interactive computer music and video featuring Japanese / American artist Atau Tanaka. Tanaka creates music for sensor instruments, wireless network infrastructures, and democratized digital forms; his work bridges the fields of media art, experimental music, and research. Also featuring new works by current and former MEME students.

Live: Blevin Blectum, David Toop, Sean O’hagan (High Llamas/Microdisney), Aleks Kolkowski (Recording Angels), Simon Bookish :: DJs: Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab / Monade), Janek Schaefer (Rummages The Oxfam Box as DJ Dedication), Iris Garrelfs :: Demos / Installations: Aleks Kolkowski - live CD recycling demo Dithernoise; Simon Storey - pedal-powered installation. Bring your old CDs to be recycled into vinyl records or for the Oxfam box. - Think: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

Sonic Recycler 4 is the fourth in an annual series; an event showcasing the many different strands of eclectic ideas in music, based on the idea of recycling. With performers, DJ’s, films, stalls and interactive presentations, it’s a packed evening of radical sounds in a lovely Thameside venue.

Performances and informal discussions with Kabir Carter (MoogerFooger and Moog pedals and synthesizers), David Galbraith (self-built electronics), James Fei (Arp 2600 synthesizer), Kato Hideki (Octave “Cat” synthesizer, bass), Michael J Schumacher (Steiner-Parker Synthacon synthesizer), Sergei Tcherepnin (Serge modular synthesizer), Stefan Tcherepnin (Serge modular synthesizer), Ed Tomney (EMS VCS 3 “Putney” synthesizer, various).

Slought Foundation and Soundfield NFP are pleased to announce an evening of new and experimental music featuring Rome-based ensemble Ossatura and Philadelphia-based Ensemble Noamnesia. Ossatura features Elio Martusciello (electronics), Fabrizio Spera (percussion and electronics), and Luca Venitucci (accordion and electronics). They will realize graphic scores by Anthony Braxton, Franco Evangelisti, and others, in collaboration with Ensemble Noamnesia.

Improvisation represents the backbone of the music played by Ossatura. The practice of improvising is integrated by discussion, research and critical analysis, all of which contribute to the elaboration of structures, information and organizational modes. Their music is marked by a sequence of sound blocks and diversified interlocking timbres and shapes, where detailed textural work alternates with rhythmic accelerations and highly dense sound events. Standard instrumental techniques are explored, together with heterodox practices such as manipulation, treatment, electrification and amplification of various objects, assuming noise as a structural element. Their improvisational work develops through electro acoustical elaboration in real time and the use of tapes, which both expand and define the space where sound is manipulated. Ossatura tends towards a combination of non-musical languages through a creative process where music is but one of the components in a complex and extended project.

Elio Martusciello is a self-taught musician and composer and teaches electronic music and electro acoustics at the Conservatory of Cagliari, Italy.

Fabrizio Spera has actively contributed as a percussionist to the contemporary and improvised music scene since the late eighties. His current projects and groups involve “Ossatura”, “Trio” with John Butcher and John Edwards, “RARA ensemble,” and a trio with Alberto Braida and Lisle Ellis.

Luca Venitucci attended musical studies at the scuola popolare di musica in Roma and studied composition with Boris Porena. In the late eighties he began to participate in the activities of the improvised music scene in Italy and Europe, and during the next decade performed with musicians including Mike Cooper, Peter Kowald, Otomo Yoshihide, Thomas Lehn, Axel Dorner and others. From 1996 to 2002 he has been part of zeitkratzer ensemble, with whom he performed and recorded contemporary music scores by Cage, Glass, Stockhausen, La Monte Young and James Tenney. He has undertaken original projects and collaborations with several experimental musicians and composers such as Christian Marclay, Butch Morris, Francisco Lopez, Keith Rowe, Phil Niblock, Lee Renaldo, and Nicolas Collins.

Eng and Linton have been working in a similar vain exploring experimental cinema and sound in the electronic arts scene in New York. This is the first collaboration between these two artists who have spent a life dedicated to observing, manipulating, pushing the limits of vision and listening. Here at Maison Populaire, they have combined their ideas of nomadic movement (Eng) with continual optical spirals (Linton). Change in the perspective of character, window, reflection of light, scale and mirroring are subjects at hand. The sensitive observer will notice the subtleties in the connection between image and sound which affects one another. Here lies the interactivity between the substances rather than the moving hand of the passerby. Using a simple set up of a digital camera, a moving glass ball, a computer with the software by Vidvox.net, and the feedback of the projected image, the viewer witnesses a process of remaking moving light and object.

Biographies

Angie Eng is a media artist who works in video, installation and time-based performance. Her current work draws from inspiration from nomadic cultures. In 1993 she moved to New York City to pursue her career in the arts. During this time she became involved in the downtown electronic arts scene and has collaborated on numerous video performance projects. She co-founded The Poool a live video performance group with Nancy Meli Walker and Benton Bainbridge in 1996-1999. Her work has been performed and exhibited at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, Lincoln Center Video Festival, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, The Kitchen, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, Roulette Intermedium and Experimental Intermedia. Her videos have been included in digital art festivals in local and international venues in Cuba, Greece, Japan, Germany, France, Holland, Former Yugoslavia and Canada. She has received numerous grants and commissions: New Radio and Performing Arts, Harvestworks, Art In General, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation and Experimental TV Center.

With his Bicameral Research Sound & Projection System David Linton aims to make vibrational wave induced perceptual energy states manifest by deploying interconnected measures of electric sound & light in live action with hand manipulated objects in physical (live camera) space. He employs an integrated recursive audio & video feedback system of his own perversely simple design modulated by freehand intervention to deliver vigorous eye, ear, and - sometimes - body shaking realtime audio visual performances from which a kind of retro-tech animistic ritual “medicine show” emerges where subject and object blur.