Saturday 5 July 2008 - For the Voice
Sunday 6 July 2008 - Imaginary landscape
Sarah Kenchington
Sarah Kenchington makes interactive mechanical music contraptions. Her approach to music is as a sculptor, her instruments are constantly evolving, with the ongoing tinkering and adjustment process spilling over into the performance. She often plays too many, barely controllable, machines at once, creating a complex and dishevelled mix of patterns and sound. It is not so much about the craft of music or instrument making, but a means of gatecrashing the worlds of music and science, in order to obtain a new perspective on human limitations. Sarah Kenchington also performs with experimental folk band The Book of Beasts, with Daniel Padden (Volcano the Bear, The One Ensemble) and Shane Connolly (Tattie Toes).
Tony Swain
Artist and musician Tony Swain was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland and lives and works in Glasgow. Swain studied at Liverpool Art School and Glasgow School of Art, and in recent years has attracted critical acclaim for his atmospheric paintings, rendered on pages of The Guardian newspaper. The pages of newsprint are painted over with considered delicacy, distorting perspectives and entwining abstract motifs with the landscapes and figures of the original print, creating surreal landscapes or a depiction of an intimate, but unrecognizable object. Swain is one third of the critically acclaimed band, Hassle Hound, who recently released their second LP on Staubgold Records. Since 2005, Swain has also played in Dreghorn with his former Cylinder collaborator Chris Wallace and Torsten Lauschmann (Slender Whiteman). For Three Blows, Swain will perform a set of new acoustic material.
www.myspace.com/hhoundwww.themoderninstitute.com/artists/t_swain/
Rude Pravo
Experimental Glasgow band Rude Pravo was formed by Stevie Jones and Luke Fowler in 1998. Occasional Rude Pravo collaborators have included the Belgian artist and singer Lucile Desamory and Parsonage creator Janis Murray. Jones is well-known as the bass guitarist of post-rock bands including Maxton Grainger and Peel-favourites El Hombre Trajeado. He is a prolific collaborator, who currently plays guitar with Jer Reid and Shane Connolly, also playing guitar, piano and double bass with Malcolm Middleton, Sophia, Bill Wells, Norman Blake and Aidan Moffat among others. Luke Fowler is an artist, filmmaker and musician, acclaimed for his experimental documentaries on enigmatic radical figures such as R.D. Laing, Homosexuals frontman Xentos Jones and the English composer Cornelius Cardew. Fowler has also released a number of projects on his SHADAZZ label, including Evil Eye Is Source (2001), a VHS compilation of music videos for local bands made by Glasgow artists. Rude Pravo’s debut release, The Dust is Flying (2004) was released on SHADAZZ, as was Gold (2004), the debut 7” single by Correcto’s Danny Saunders. For Three Blows, Jones and Fowler will play an all-new set of acoustic material.
www.themoderninstitute.com/artists/l_fowler/index.phpKeith Rowe
The English free improvisation guitarist and painter Keith Rowe was a founding member of AMM in the mid-1960s and a founding member of M.I.M.E.O., and is often described as a godfather of electroacoustic improvisation. He began his career playing jazz in the early 1960's - notably with Mike Westbrook and Lou Gare. He gradually expanded into free jazz and free improvisation, experimenting with methods such as ceasing to tune his guitar. This change in his approach, Rowe recalls, was partly inspired by a painting tutor who told him, ‘Rowe, you cannot paint a Caravaggio. Only Caravaggio can paint Caravaggio.’
Rowe subsequently developed various prepared guitar techniques: placing the guitar flat on a table and manipulating the strings, body and pickups in unorthodox ways. He has been known to employ objects such as a library card, rubber eraser, springs, hand-held electric fans, alligator clips, and common office supplies in playing the guitar. Rowe sometimes incorporates live radio broadcasts into his performances, including shortwave radio and number stations. He has worked with numerous composers and musicians, including Cornelius Cardew, Christian Wolff, Howard Skempton, Jeffrey Morgan, Taku Sugimoto, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Oren Ambarchi, Christian Fennesz, Toshimaru Nakamura and Peter Rehberg. He lives and works in Pays de la Loire, France.
For Three Blows, Keith Rowe plans to trace a line of development of the transient aspects of landscape, from J.M.W. Turner to Agnes Martin, using high pitched sounds, extremely low volume and materials and instruments including hand-held battery operated fans, thick paper and guitar.
http://www.erstwhilerecords.com/index.htmlhttp://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/