vancouver new music festival NomadicStreams A festival of Ambient Music OCT22-24 2015

Presented in association with 2015 FESTIVAL SCHEDULE ambience beyond private listening: poetics of engagement THURSDAY OCT 22 FRIDAY OCT 23 SATURDAY OCT 24 “Increasing numbers of musicians are constituent parts and often where gen- Nick Storring souns Rafael Anton creating works which grasp at the erative and permeable approaches (Toronto) (VANCOUVER) Irisarri transparency of water, seek to track seem to drive the formalization of (sEATTLE) the journeys of telematic nomads, sonic ideas and environments. Here, Steve Roden loscil bottle moods and atmospheres, rub in this ambience and its multiple (LA/Pasadena) (VANCOUVER) out chaos and noise pollution with zones, we find many andother kinds FLUX quiet, concentrate on sonic micro- of environments beyond private listen- Quartet cosms, absorb quotations and digital ing, and privileged ones, we resonate crys cole Marina (NYC) (WINNIPEG) snapshots of sound into themselves, with poetics of engagement. These are Rosenfeld avoid form in favour of impression, the territories and ambiences we wish (NYC) concoct synthetic wildnernesses in ur- to listen to, move through and think DJ Olive FLUX Quartet ban laboratories, explore a restricted about during this year’s festival. (NYC) Lawrence & Guests sound range or single technological process over long durations, seek to Keeping alive a high level of curiosity English effect physiological change rather and attention seems an appropriate (BRISBANE) than pursue intellectual rigour, or thing to do in these times. With such a depict impossible, imaginary environ- stimulating and rich selection of artists ments of beauty or terror” (David and musicians, sound thinking gives DOORS @ 8pm / Show @ 9PM each night Toop, Ocean of Sound). us the great opportunity to explore a particular kind of beauty which is not Twenty years ago, David Toop wan- an object or established rhetoric, but VIVO Media Arts dered in the ever-expanding territories a beauty that arises instead within 2625 Kaslo Street of sound explorations. While evading intense and committed sound-making one block northwest of Renfrew Skytrain Station categorizations, he attempted to that aspires to be listened to for what grasp the sense and the complexity of it really is: unsentimental creative a large sonic flux, its contextual roots energy. SINGLE Tickets Festival Pass and ever changing manifestations. $ $ $ 25 regular / 15 students 60 for all three concerts Ambient Music (a rather ambiguous “I never thought of it as music (includes taxes) Save 20% and inclusive term) can be considered as such. I thought it made a nice space to think in.” today as a polymorphic section of that Brian Eno same sonic flux, wherein the attempt TICKETS & PASSES AVAILABLE AT to avoid strict boundaries and defini- In the sonic manifestations of this brownpapertickets.com tions is supported by the labyrinthine year’s festival we’ll discover hidden, nature of ambience itself; a territory multiple and enhanced qualities of 1.800.838.3006 that can not be broken down into sonic ornaments. These ornaments are

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crys cole (Winnipeg) crys cole’s performance will play on the hypnagogic state that we experience just before falling DJ Olive (NYC) asleep—the bleary, distorted and misunderstood moments that conjure Artist and turntablist DJ Olive a unique state of aural perception. premieres his composition, 11 inbetweennoise.com Ways Of Going Through A Door. crys cole is a Canadian sound artist This new piece reveals a deep working in composition, improvised regard for all things concrete while performance and sound installation. Generating subtle and imperfect simultaneously wallowing in a nickstorring.ca Steve Roden sounds through simple gestures, neutral gooey mud hole of vintage (LA/Pasadena) she creates textural works that analog scratch and sniff tones. So continuously retune the ear. Delicately possible landscape (vancouver) far inside the sound as to be but seeking to both reveal, and obscure a moving shadow; a memory of is an improvised piece that uses, the intricacy of seemingly mundane Nick Storring among other things, analog sounds and sources. a memory of a memory of sound (Toronto) modular synthesis, cassette tapes, through a childhood door. Nick Storring presents a set of and contact microphones. In Steve cryscole.com Roden’s sound works, singular Ever since emerging from Brooklyn all-new material, incorporating with his band WE™ in the mid ‘90’s, DJ electric cello, voice, and live source materials such as objects, Olive has been dropping his distinctly computer processing, as well architectural spaces, and field unique and under the radar dance other small instruments and sound recordings are abstracted through music around the world. tampering approaches. His live humble electronic processes work tends to favour a careful to create new audio spaces, djolive.com balance of its constituent elements or possible landscapes. The sound —foregrounding both electronically works present themselves with an modified and pure instrumental aesthetic Roden has described sound, composition and as “lower case”—sound concerned improvisation, as well as textural with subtlety and the quiet activity and pitch-centric territory. of listening.

Steve Roden is a visual and sound Nick Storring is a Toronto based artist from Los Angeles, living in composer, cellist and improviser Pasadena. His work includes painting, with a wide palette of interests, drawing, sculpture, film/video, sound ranging from warped dance installation, text and performance. music to electroacoustic music, experimental pop to chamber music, and even collaborations within various “non-Western” traditions.

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soundcloud.com/michaelred LAWRENCE

SOUNS marinarosenfeld.com (Vancouver) loscil.ca ENGLISH souns is an ambient music project (Brisbane) from Vancouver-based artist Lawrence English performs excerpts Michael Red. souns delivers Marina from his new album, Wilderness intuitive and improvised sonic loscil of Mirrors. It is English’s most explorations of the natural world, (Vancouver) tectonic auditory offering to outer space, and transcendence. Rosenfeld loscil creates music that is subtle (NYC) date, an unrelenting passage of but dense, tranquil but bleak colliding waves of harmony and As souns, Michael Red has released Since the mid-90’s, New York numerous musical works (Panospria, and aimlessly adrift, searching, dynamic live instrumentation. based composer and artist Marina New Kanada, Sensing Waves) and somewhat intuitively, for a union Buried throughout, like an unheard has collaborated LIVE with a varied Rosenfeld has created large- of opposing forces in his work: whisper, is a singularity that is list of performers, including Tanya scale works that take a sculptural light and dark, stasis and forward slowly reflected back upon itself in Tagaq, Mei Han, Gabriel Saloman, approach to the intersection of momentum, warmth and frigidity, a flood of compositional feedback. and Scant Intone. Red is also the performance, visuality and music founding member of Vancouver’s acoustic and digital. These fusions Erasure through auditory burial. composition. Notable works have notorious DJ collective ‘Lighta! bring a palpable tension and Sound’, oversees the ‘Low Indigo’ included series of conceptual Lawrence English is a composer, uncomfortable otherworldliness record label and community, and “orchestras” for electric guitar; media artist and curator based in juxtaposed with an untrusted state of is a recognized figure for curating choral works, often for teenaged Brisbane, Australia. Working across calm and contemplation. envelope-pushing electronic music ensembles; and a customized P.A. an array of aesthetic investigations, events around Vancouver. his work explores the politics of system that she has composed for loscil (Scott Morgan) explores the perception and prompts questions of marriage of electronic and acoustic and deployed in monumental sites field, perception and memory. instrumentation to create “stark internationally, including New landscapes that are evocative, York’s Park Avenue Armory. earthly, anything but abstract, and lawrenceenglish.com so much more than merely ‘ambient’” (The Quietus, UK).

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not just any kind of obsession with sonic gadgetry and mechanical repetition, but an intrinsic attribute of creativity. Within these gestures and figures, the origin of these ornaments is not erased but becomes infinitely relative. With fluxquartet.com invention and imagination, origi- nal sound sources disappear in a translucent realm of discontinuity. Sonic figures emerge that join the FLUX Quartet similar and dissimilar, harmoniz- (NYC) ing the oppositions in our mental irisarri.org Morton Feldman – FLUX Quartet space. String Quartet No. 1 These movements do not become Rafael Anton The FLUX Quartet performs Morton materialized in a tangible sense, Feldman’s expansive piece String & guests but instead become projections. Quartet No. 1(1979). Moving John Cage – Four They fade from the substance of Irisarri across a wide dynamic territory, form while persisting in the use- (Seattle) String Quartet No. 1 melds together crys cole, Lawrence English, Rafael lessness of their transitory immate- Predominantly associated with “winding melodic figures, and sad Anton Irisarri, loscil, DJ Olive, riality. They exist as we manifest, ambient, drone, post-minimalist, oscillations that breathe, hover and Marina Rosenfeld, and souns join the lose and embody ourselves: in and modern classical music, float; moments of quickness—almost FLUX Quartet to perform a live remix listening and playing. Rafael Anton Irisarri’s recorded of John Cage’s Four (1989). Four’s breathlessness—giving the work Giorgio Magnanensi output captures an essential vision sudden eruptions of urgency; an simple, meditative sounds are rooted of floating tones, deep pulsing exquisitely long orchestration of one in deceptively complex notation, as bass and textural electronics. note, like the spinning of multiple a quartet of musicians perform, then His use of ostinato phrases taps strands into a single thread” (Linda hand off parts to one another in a into minimalist ideals while Catlin Smith). piece that has been described as atmospheric layers of effects a work of “unique, still, lovliness” suggests a more cinematic quality Strongly influenced by the irreverent (London Times). in his productions. In all, Irisarri’s spirit and “anything-goes” philosophy compositions are deeply emotive, of the fluxus art movement, violinist Tom Chiu founded FLUX in the late epic, and evocatively symphonic. 90’s. The quartet has since cultivated an uncompromising repertoire photo credits Rafael Anton Irisarri is a that follows neither fashions Nick Storring - photo by Karol Orzechowski Seattle-based composer, multi­ nor trends, but rather combines crys cole - photo by Alisha Wang instrumentalist, electronic music yesterday’s seminal iconoclasts with souns - photo by D L Fraser producer, interdisciplinary artist Marina Rosenfeld - photo by Walter Wlodarczyk tomorrow’s new voices. Lawrence English - Photo by B. English and curator.

8 9 Vancouver Electronic OTHER Ensemble Saturday, October 17, 2015; 8PM Vancouver Community College Atrium EVENTS (1155 East Broadway - enter from Visit newmusic.org for more details East 7th Ave, SE corner of Glen Drive) about the festival and related events. Free admission VEE will perform new ambient- Steve Roden – oriented works by Mariah Mennie, Jordan Nobles, and Tim Tweedale striations that take advantage of the sonic Exhibition opening reception environment of Vancouver Community September 25, 2015; 5-7PM College’s unique, open atrium space. You’re invited to wander through the Continues M-F September 28 – space to experience the sounds shift October 23, 2015; 9-5PM as you move from place to place in Canadian Music Centre this highly resonant space. BC creative Hub (837 Davie Street) Free admission striations (6 min.) is a two-channel video made by Steve Roden with Pete Namlook artist Mary Simpson. Originally part of a larger exhibition that included Listening Room painting, drawing, and scuplture, October 22 – 24, 2015; 8PM-LATE striations takes as its inspiration an VIVO Media Arts (2625 Kaslo Street) unfinished stone sculpture made by Roden’s grandmother. York based Enjoy the work of one of the artists that brought ambient music back onto the subcultural radar in the late 80’s and 90’s via dance music. Each night of the festival—before, during, and after the main events—a large selection of Namlook’s prolific catalogue of work will be broadcast in a continuous loop for your leisurely listening enjoyment.

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