Cut and Splice

[Darryl Biggs <darryl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

CUT & SPLICE
Five-week festival of electronic music and sound art.

Thursday 10 April 2003 explores the Voice Electric at the ICA, London,
20.00hrs
To be broadcast on BBC Radio 3=B9s Hear & Now, Saturday 19 April 2003 at
23.00hrs

=20
BREAKING NEWS
Sadly, after a series of catastrophic events that culminated in him lying i=
n
a hospital bed with broken front teeth, Charles Amirkhanian has been forced
to cancel his performance at tomorrows Cut & Splice: The Electric Voice.

To fill the void and to retain the spirit of American experimental music we
are pleased to announce that tomorrows Cut and Splice will now feature a
live realisation of Alvin Lucier=B9s seminal piece I am sitting in a room by
the British group [rout] co-directed by composers Sam Hayden, Paul Newland
and Paul Witty.

I am sitting in a room is a fascinating exploration of acoustical phenomena
which questions the distinctions between speech and music, it is
conceptually rich, sonically beautiful, and is achieved with an
extraordinary economy of means. The score begins: "choose a room the musica=
l
qualities of which you would like to evoke=B2, a text is then read and
recorded in that room; the recording is played back through a loudspeaker,
and the playback itself recorded; and the cycle of playback and recording i=
s
continued through a variable number of generations.

 As the text is repeated over and over into the room, the acoustic
properties of the room assert themselves. Echoes elongate and smear the
speech, and the resonances of the room enhance some of the frequencies
present, while others are eliminated. Gradually, the speech is transformed
into music: the text becomes a complex weave of pitches, based upon the
intersections of the recorded voice and the resonant frequencies of the
room.

I am sitting in a room was composed in 1970 and was first performed at the
Guggenheim Museum in New York City that same year.

Also this Thursday, maverick electro-composer Trevor Wishart gives a rare
London performance of his social and political sound work. A seminal figure
in this country=B9s music scene Trevor has been at the forefront of
experimental, community and participatory musical movements since the 1970=B9=
s
and his work remains unique and unparalleled anywhere.

Hear the stark Two Women, which transforms the voices of Margaret Thatcher
and Princess Diana in the manner of vicious political cartoons, and the
immersive Fabulous Paris, which brings that exciting yet frightening flood
of information and experience which is the modern mega-city to the space
between the ears. All through Cut and Splice=B9s specially designed 12-channe=
l
surround sound system of a like you will not hear again in the ICA.

Finally Iris Garrelfs from the Sprawl, and most recently seen in performanc=
e
with Robert Lippok of To Rococo Rot, will weave her stunning tapestry of
voice, which is used in many layers, in its natural state and as a source
sound. Iris is known for her emotive, improvised sound performances based
around electronically manipulated and digitally warped voice sounds. Her
voice is extended and transposed into new realms, dissected and recombined
into choirs, beats, noise and a host of other surprising sounds.

UK magazine Magic Feet described the effect of her project BitTonic as =B3=8A a
chaotic Tom Waits-style junkyard orchestra grid-locked into a rigid techno
matrix".

In the ICA bar from 22.30 =AD 01.00hrs the groundbreaking audio-visual label
Touch bring us Sweden=B9s Benny Nilsen [Hazard] to play soundtracks that will
electrify the organic using Chris Watson's (BBC TV=B9s Life of Mammals et al)
field recordings of insect voices, including ants, cicadas, flies, leaf
litter, and grasshoppers. Hazard reveals the similarities and explores the
possibilities of marrying the two worlds, the organic and the inorganic.
Chris Watson will be performing in Cut and Splice: Soundscapes on 1 May
2003.

Don=B9t forget to tune in to last weeks Cut and Splice concert on BBC Radio
3=B9s Hear and Now this Saturday at 23.30hrs broadcasting the performances of
Bernard Parmegiani, Christian Calon and Farmers Manual.

More information at www.sonicartsnetwork.org
<http://www.sonicartsnetwork.org/>

Tickets from the ICA on 020 7930 3647

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Darryl Biggs
Communications Officer
Sonic Arts Network
The Jerwood Space
171 Union Street
London  SE1 0LN
T: 020 7928 7337 F: 020 7928 7338
W: http://www.sonicartsnetwork.org
******************************************

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