FON 2013 Programme

Full of Noises 2013

26th-28th July Barrow-in-Furness fonfestival.org

Barrow Park Fri 26 / Sat 27th, 13:00 - 17:00 Steve Symons - Colpersys 4 Sound Network and Simon Jones Bouncy Castle Development Platform Lauren Redhead - Vertical Features The Nines Fri 26th, 19:30 - 00:00 Ryoko Akama - Two Lions Lee Gamble - new work ORE - performance The Bohman Brothers - performance Herb Diamante - performance Howlround - performance Felix Kubin - Tape Delinquents - performance Cookes Studios Sat 27th, 11:00 - 17:00 John Dack - a talk on Pierre Schaeffer Dave Lynch & guests - Nimbus discussion Settimio Fiorenzo Palermo a talk on Hugh Davies Felix Kubin - Tape Delinquents - lecture Helen Petts - Film installation: Solo Soprano, a portrait of Lol Coxhill Ryoko Akama - Installation: Alvin Lucier’s ‘Music on a Long Thin Wire’ St James’ Church Sat 27th, 18:00 - 18:45 Grizedale Arts - The FON Meal Deal 19:00 - 22:00 Gail Brand - solo improvisations Tom James Scott - performance Lauren Redhead - Entoptic Landscape (with ORE, Gail Brand, Taneli Clarke & Alison Griffiths) Jon Hering & the a.P.A.t.T Orchestra Veil of Nightshade Laura Cannell & Andre Bosman - performance Cookes Studios Sun 28th, 11:00 - 16:00 Listening / Drawing workshop with Helen Frosi (SoundFjord) Helen Petts - Film installation: Solo Soprano Ryoko Akama - Installation: Alvin Lucier’s Music on a Long Thin Wire Dirty Electronics: Noise Shadow (15:00-15:45) The Dock Museum Sun 28th, 11:00 - 14:00 Field recording workshop with David Chapman

Programme

The third edition of Full of Noises occupies sites of architectural and acoustic interest around the post-industrial town of Barrow-in-Furness for three days of new compositions, performances, installations, talks and audio-visual works. Since launching in 2009, past festivals have featured artists such as Faust, AGF, Philip Jeck, Hildur Gudnadottir, Tetsuo Kogawa, John Wall, Mobile Radio and Richard Youngs.

This year’s programme takes a back-to-basics approach, working with analogue and acoustic sources, archaic and obscure technologies and a series of talks focusing on the mavericks and pioneers of experimental and electronic music.

The festival opens on Friday with family-friendly installations in the park. Sound Network follow up their 2011 project ‘Crazy Golf Hack’ with their sonic bouncy castle and Steve Symons creates an interactive outdoor listening space alongside a new score for the bandstand by Lauren Redhead. There’s a great night at Barrow’s Lynchian cabaret club, the Nines, with Felix Kubin performing ‘Tape Delinquents’, artist in residence Lee Gamble presenting a new work sourced from an EMS Synthi and Ryoko Akama delivering the latest manifestation of her work for long string instruments. The Bohman Brothers bring their electroacoustic junk shop aesthetic to the mix and ORE present a unique brand of amplified doom tuba.

Herb Diamante presents a set of haunting cabaret selections from his songbook of heartbreak and absurdity whilst analogue tape loop sextet Howlround complete the lineup.

Saturday evening’s programme moves to St James’ Church for a series of newly commissioned works for pipe organ, piano, voice, handbells and brass instruments. Composers / performers creating new work include Lauren Redhead, Jon Hering, Ore, Gail Brand, Tom James Scott and violinists Laura Cannell and André Bosman. Grizedale Arts present the FON Meal Deal, highlighting the more unusual end of local produce.

Cooke’s Studios will host afternoon talks from Felix Kubin on the German underground tape scene, Settimio Fiorenzo Palermo on Hugh Davies, John Dack on Pierre Schaeffer and artist/inventor Dave Lynch on his cloud projection project ‘Nimbus’. New installation work comes from artist/film-maker Helen Petts and Ryoko Akama’s re-creation of ‘Music on a Long Thin Wire’ by Alvin Lucier. The Dock Museum and Cookes Studios host workshops with SoundFjord gallery founder Helen Frosi and sound recordist David Chapman, whilst John Richards’ Dirty Electronics provides a chance to devise and perform with handmade instruments.

Welcome to FON 2013. Enjoy yourselves and let us know what you think! Octopus #FON13 / @fullofnoises / facebook.com/fullof.noises info@fonfestival.org

Introduction

Clockwise from top left: John Wall, Hildur Gudnadottir, Faust, AGF & the Windy Ladies, Re-Dock / Swan Pedalo Broadcasts.

Barrow Park Fri 26th / Sat 27th

Steve Symons - Colpersys 4 Colpersys 4 by Steve Symons is a new system commissioned for FON 2013. Based outdoors in the enclosed Jubilee Garden in Barrow Park, the audience will be able to use their smart phone or mobile device to control audio within a 4 voice sound system. By slowing interaction and only providing simple instrumentation Colpersys 4 will be intriguing to play solo but will take on a whole new level when you work with others. stevesymons.net Sound Network and Simon Jones Bouncy Castle Development Platform Fairground Frameworks is a space for artists and creative technologists to experiment and make new work in a playful social space inspired by the fun of the fair. In this interactive piece, low-frequency feedback is channeled through the surface of the castle, so by lying or jumping on the bouncy castle, participants change the sound. When more than one person is on the castle, the changes each makes will impact on the other, allowing for interaction not just with the artwork itself, but with other participants, allowing a kind of gameplay to develop. Simon Jones’ application for the platform is called the Resonator and uses the inflated membrane to play with low frequency sound. soundnetwork.org.uk simonjonescrossdisciplinaryartist.blogspot.co.uk Lauren Redhead - Vertical Features A circle of graphic scores on the bandstand bring any instrument along and have a go.

Bring some friends! laurenredhead.eu Park works run 13:00 - 17:00 Fri / Sat, weather permitting

Dirty Electronics: Noise Shadow 27th - Piel View House, Barrow Park 10:00 - 14:00 28th - Cookes Studios, 14:00 - 15:45 Take part in building and performing with the Dirty Electronics’ Noise Shadow and Filthy Lady Bracknell. A new work for gigantic paper speakers with bamboo chassis will be created where performers stand behind the backlit speakers casting their shadows across the makeshift screens in a wayang-like performance for the twenty-first century. dirtyelectronics.org * Workshop places are limited. Please book in advance at fonfestival.org Listening / Drawing with Helen Frosi (SoundFjord) Cookes Studios, Sun 28th, 11:00 - 14:00 Experiment with how sound may be perceived and expressed through ‘synaesthetic’ response. During the workshop attendees will be asked to respond to sound through the medium of drawing*, transposing the sound, environment, surroundings and atmosphere into something visual. *Drawing should, in this instance, be considered in its widest form. The sounds themselves could be considered ‘drawings (in/with sound)’. By working on this premise, one may decide to draw with paper, charcoal, space, light. Use whatever materials are around to express what is heard!

Bring things you would like to ‘draw’ with! soundfjord.org Field Recording with David Chapman The Dock Museum Sun 28th, 11:00 - 14:00 After an introduction to David’s audio visual work with people, place and environment, including examples of his different types of microphones, David will lead a ‘listening walk’ during which sounds will be collected using a variety of methods, microphones, hydrophones etc. Returning to base we will listen back to what has been collected and explore how this material can be presented and shared as archive, art or entertainment. davidchapman.info

Workshops Sat 27th / Sun 28th

The Nines, Fri 26th July

Ryoko Akama - Two Lions Ryoko Akama is a composer/sound artist, currently undertaking the second year of her PhD at the University of Huddersfield. The composition series `Tone of Orient`, which will be presented at the FON festival, deals with the aesthetics of subtlety and delicate soundscapes of traditional instruments alongside electronics and objects.

‘The text is derived from Katsuzaburo Renjishi (Katsuzaburo Kineya / Mokuami Kawatake / 1861) a traditional Nagauta song (Japanese traditional music) that mythologises filial piety through the story of a lion and his cub.This composition critically examines what I would describe as the philosophy of austerity behind Japanese society. For this composition I use the ‘Box of Austere’, an electronic device developed from a shamisen body (Japanese lute).’ ryokoakama.com The Bohman Brothers The Bohman Brothers are the creators of a unique and impure experimental music. Traces of Fluxus japery, musique concrete, sound poetry and free improvisation can be detected, yet ultimately the whole is greater and more arcane than the sum of it’s parts. As a performing duo Adam and Jonathan Bohman have been operative since 1996 (Adam Bohman is also a member of Morphogenesis and The London Improvisors Orchestra).Their sound art oscillates between states of the absurd and (sonically) grotesque to highly articulate explorations of extra-musical sound.

image:

Image: Milan Kovac

Howlround First coming to prominence with the hugely-acclaimed LP ‘The Ghosts Of Bush’ last year, Howlround have now expanded to a sextet (four machines, two people) and create recordings and performances entirely from manipulating natural acoustic sounds on vintage reel-to-reel tape machines, with additional reverb or electronic effects strictly forbidden.

In an age where one can create all manner of electronic music with a simple swipe of a mouse, Howlround prove not only how much fun is to be had in making things complicated again, but conversely just how little effort is sometimes needed to create a genuinely uncanny sound world: the rough underbelly of our pristine, Pro-Tools universe. soundcloud.com/robin-the-fog

The Nines, Fri 26th July

ORE are Stuart Estell and Sam Underwood.

‘We play slow music using two tubas and amplification, informed (but not limited) by our enthusiasm for drones, doom metal, improvisation and minimalism. We are heavy, but our heaviness comes from the way our bass, contrabass, and subcontrabass sounds hang in the air and relate to their surroundings – natural echoes, natural silences.’ oretubadoom.com Herb Diamante Prepare to be moved and disturbed in equal amounts whilst international lounge star Herb Diamante delivers selections from his songbook of heartbreak and absurdity. Herb’s album A Spoonful of Yeast featured collaborations with US avant-rockers Sun City Girls and Sunburned Hand of the Man, whilst May I Light Your Cigarette? channels John Barry, Weimar Cabaret and the early, predatory Bryan Ferry in an exotic, melodic and alluring exploration of the darker tactics of the mating game. On stage, Herb is a compelling presence, his sinister flamboyance is complimented by the richness and beauty of the songs and his sound.

Lee Gamble ‘For the FON residency I will be working solely with Octopus’ EMS Synthi AKS built in 1973. As my work has moved from more abstract realms, into something more akin to ‘dance music’.

I have decided to work with this instrument by feeding it repetitive or beat based rhythms I have made in my studio. This way I get to trigger parts of the synths sound engine (enabling me to route the incoming signal around the AKS), whilst retaining the original signal’s trace elements ie; it’s rhythmical structure.’ cyrk.org/leegamble Felix Kubin is one of electronic music’s most dynamic and versatile performers. A lovechild of the home recording era, his activities include futuristic pop, radio plays, electroacoustic music, and works for chamber orchestra. Apart from his music activities, Kubin has been invited to give workshops and lectures at art institutions and universities in Europe, the USA, Canada and South America. In his performance ‘Tape Delinquents’, he will investigate the characteristics of magnetic recordings, their saturations, fluctuations, strains and crosstalk effects. felixkubin.com

Image: Julie Hascoet

Cooke’s Studios: Sat 27th / Sun

Helen Petts - Solo Soprano A portrait of Lol Coxhill Helen Petts is an artist / film-maker who - using a small stills camera and a zoom recorder explores rhythm, texture, sound and chance events, both in the landscape and in her long standing relationship with the free improvisation music community.

Recent work includes “Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing” in which she followed in Kurt Schwitters’ footsteps through Norway and the Lake District, with accompanying improvised merz-type sounds from musicians Sylvia Hallett, Adam Bohman, Roger Turner and Phil Minton.

Petts regularly shows her films in galleries and at music festivals abroad and runs the monthly free improvisation concert Mopomoso with guitarist John Russell. She also curates the hugely popular Youtube site helentonic devoted to free improv performances and related work.

For the FON Festival, Helen will present a new film about free improvisation saxophonist, and previous musical director of Welfare State International, Lol Coxhill, who died last year.

The films draws upon Helen’s extensive archive of footage of Lol’s solo performances and a previously unseen documentary made in 1972. helenpetts.com Ryoko Akama Alvin Lucier’s ‘Music on a Long Thin Wire’ ‘The nature of listening to time, space and oneself is questioned and explored with Ma (the Japanese concept of silence) through the linkage directly from and to Rikyu`s teaching of Teaism.

The investigation of what sound is and what phenomena inhibit within sound and silence made me explore DIY electronics and objects.’

‘Through the Octopus Residency, I became fascinated with strings. The string theory gives the understanding of physicality as math and science and Lucier uses the fact into the work of the sound installation. The oscillator-driven wire plays a mass of harmonies and self-generative frequency patterns. Having done a few constructions during the residency period, I would like to make a modification so that the work contains an interactive analogue this time.’ ryokoakama.com Both installations run between: Saturday 11:00-17:00 / Sunday 11:00-16:00

Cooke’s Studios: Saturday 27th

Felix Kubin - Tape Delinquents Since its introduction 40 years ago, the Compact Cassette quickly became the most popular medium for copying music. As a side effect, the medium produced an independent and distinctive underground music scene in the early 1980s. In his lecture, Kubin will cast a light on the history of the German underground tape scene and the Compact Cassette in this context. felixkubin.com Settimio Fiorenzo Palermo - on Hugh Davies Settimio Fiorenzo Palermo studied for a BA in Sonic Art at Middlesex University with Hugh Davies. After completing a Masters in Sonic Art, Settimio started a PhD researching the work of Hugh Davies, in particular between 1960 and 1980. Settimio has also catalogued the Hugh Davies collection at the British Library, and in September 2012 he curated the Hugh Davies room, part of the SHO-ZYG exhibition at Goldsmiths College. Most recently he has discussed the environmental aesthetics and ethics of Davies’s work at Ecomusicologies in New Orleans. shozyg.blogspot.co.uk Dave Lynch - Nimbus After almost a year of research into projecting moving images onto clouds using analogue techniques, Dave Lynch presents the laser zoopraxniscope Mk4, a remake of Edward Muybridge’s early projection device from 1800’s re-designed in collaboration with Chemical Physicists and makers. In addition to the UK’s first ground based public projection, Dave will be in conversation with two main collaborators; Chemical Physicist, Dr Mike Nix of Leeds University, about how the art and science of play forged the new experimental techniques employed in the cloud projector and Dr Vlad Strukov, cultural specialist researching the human relationship to data and how advancements in technology can drive artistic endeavour. nimbus.davelynch.net Dr John Dack on Pierre Schaeffer A talk on the work of composer Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995), drawing on his recently published translation with Christine North of “In Search of a Concrete Music” (A la recherche d’une musique concrete), long considered a classic text in electroacoustic music and sound recording. Schaeffer’s theories have had a profound influence on composers working with technology, extending beyond the confines of the studio and into many areas of contemporary musical thought.

Schaeffer has also become increasingly relevant to DJs and hip-hop producers as well as sound-based media artists.

St James’ Church Saturday 27th

Grizedale Arts present a menu of goal nets and fish nets. The FON meal deal.

Raised pie and sushi with miso soup or bovril.

A range of local produce restyled a la mode.

Seaweed and spam, hot crust and cold fish.

Hedgerow cordials by the Coniston Youth club and their soda stream.

‘Grizedale Arts is a curatorial project in a continuous state of development, based in the historic site of Lawson Park farm above the Coniston valley. The site is run as a productive small holding and working farm house, with an ongoing programme of events, projects, residencies and community activity which develop the arts in new directions, away from the romantic and contemporary mindsets that have dominated the last 200 years of art history.’ grizedale.org Jonathan Hering is a composer, performer and musical director. Based in Liverpool, he has played with numerous groups over the last decade, and currently plays with ExEaster Island Head, and directs the a.P.A.t.T. Orchestra. Jonathan has played shows throughout Europe, working with Christian Wolff, Anat Ben David, Trey Spruance and Howard Skempton. Jonathan has worked with Tate, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Bluecoat, and FACT, with recent commissions including Rhapsody for Clarinet and Wheelchair Basketball Team, with filmmaker Jack Whiteley for the Bluecoat and DaDaFest.

Veil of Nightshade features handbells and church organ performed by the composer and members of the a.P.A.t.T Orchestra. apattorchestra.co.uk Laura Cannell & André Bosman explore the spaces between ancient, improvised, traditional and contemporary music. They perform improvised experimental fiddle music with a focus on exploring the interweaving sounds and textures of their instruments. Through the use of extended techniques, distortion, feedback and space, they create a unified and untamed music of emotive otherness.

In 2012 as Horses Brawl they recorded the acclaimed folk/early music fusion ‘Ruminantia’ and Laura released ‘Feathered Swing of the Raven’ a collaboration with Harpist Rhodri Davies. lcab.co.uk

Lauren Redhead is a composer from the North of England. Her music has been performed by, amongst others, Ian Pace, Rhodri Davies, rarescale, and the Nieuw Ensemble, and commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Yorkshire Forward, and Making Music and the PRSF for Music. She has been an artist in residence with Octopus Collective in Barrow, and is a composer in residence with BL!NDMAN ensemble in Belgium. Entoptic Landscape is a new piece for 4 tubas, organ and trombone, featuring ORE, Gail Brand, Taneli Clarke and Alison Griffiths. laurenredhead.eu Gail Brand Described as “the most exciting trombone player for years” (The Wire), Gail has recorded and performed on the international jazz and improvising scene since the early 1990s with Billy Jenkins, Elton Dean, Evan Parker, Phil Minton, Pat Thomas, Lol Coxhill, Veryan Weston, Oren Marshall, Maggie Nicols, Georg Graewe, Martin Hathaway, Liam Noble and countless others.

Recent work includes: work with comedian Stewart Lee and appearing in ‘Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle’; a duo with US improvising vocalist Morgan Guberman; long standing duo with drummer Mark Sanders; & the Gail Brand Sextet, performing her pieces with edgy improvisation at the heart of the music. gailbrand.com Tom James Scott is an instrumentalist, composer, and improviser currently residing in Barrow-in-Furness, England.

Since 2007’s ‘Red Deer’, Scott’s solo releases to date have seen a switch between guitar, piano, and keyboard as their focal point (often with the addition of bowed objects and strings, field recording and electronics). United by a preoccupation with modern composition, traditional music, improvisation and song, Scott’s recorded work also draws inspiration from visual and literary sources, often citing a now largely archaic form of dialect particular to his home county of Cumbria. Scott has released music both solo and collaboratively on the labels Alter, Carnivals, Bo’Weavil Recordings and Night-People. skire-editions.blogspot.co.uk

3.

BIF RAIL STATION

2.

4.

1.

1.

5.

Venues 1. The Nines 5-15 Dalkeith St, LA14 1SP 2. Barrow Park Abbey Rd, LA13 9BD, UK 3. St James’ Church Blake St, LA14 5UE 4. Signal Films, Cookes Studios, 104 Abbey Road, LA14 5QR 5. The Dock Museum, North Road, LA14 2PW

TESCO EXTRA

How to find us All venues are within 15 minutes walk of the train station.

Please contact us in advance with any access requirements you may have and we will do our best to accommodate your needs.

Regular train services run from Barrow to Lancaster (for connections to London, Birmingham, Carlisle, Edinburgh, Glasgow), Manchester and local stations.

Regular bus services run from Kendal, Ulverston and Dalton-in-Furness. Visit stagecoachbus.com for journey details.

By car: From the M6 Northbound, exit at junction 36. At the roundabout, take the first exit onto the A590. Take the A590 following signs for Barrow-in-Furness. Town Centre Parking is available for all venues.

Taxis: Avon Cars 01229 471471 / Barrow Cars 01229 432432 Lost? Contact the FON office: 01229 871332 / 07907 850432

Credits Full of Noises is an Octopus project, curated by Glenn Boulter, Andrew Deakin and John Hall.

Staff & volunteers: Alan Jackson, Bob Fisher, Ness Wilson, Tom Benson, May Davies, Pete Dent, Yukihiro Akama, Sue Deakin, Chris Maxted, Shaun Blezard, Dan Fox, Simon Hanson, Mary Stark, Benedict Phillips.

FON is supported by: Arts Council England National Portfolio funding (Octopus).

Felix Kubin’s performance supported by Goethe Institut London.

Helen Petts’ commission is funded by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, with support from the Royal College of Art and Technicolour. Documentary archive footage courtesy of Mick Audsley.

Workshop programme supported by the Co-operative Membership Fund, Sir John Fisher Foundation and the Hadfield Trust.

Cookes Studios programme supported by Signal Films.

Dave Lynch’s Nimbus research residency was co-commissioned by Octopus and Abandon Normal Devices in 2012.

Octopus would like to thank: Brenda Pearce (St James Church), Mark Latimer, Andy Pollock, Bill Brown and Barrow Park offices, Paul Couchar, Signal Films, May Davies, Chris Bye, Barrow-in-Furness Dock Museum, Dalton Town Band.

Design and layout by Glenn Boulter.

facebook.com/fullof.noises twitter.com/fonfestival @fullofnoises facebook.com/fullof.noises #fon13 #fon13