Institute of Contemporary Arts

The Experiment: June 2009

 

'As a single, unified thing there exists in us both life and death, waking and sleeping, youth and old age, because the former things having changed are now the latter, and when those latter things change, they become the former'. Heraclitus

Life happens in cycles or life is cycles?.....well most music happens in cycles unless you are as awkward or (adventurous?) as Arnold Schoenberg then in that case life is a developing variation!

And so as THE EXPERIMENT enters into its own cycle of 24 months we try to reflect on what one has accomplished - lets hope it is close to a developing variation as we can get.

In fact I was once asked is there actually enough experimental sounds out there - well - the tip of the iceberg is what I see - which somehow seems to float on the icy waters surface - what lurks beneath is an undiscovered country! - full stream ahead Captain Nemo to the ends of the infinitely curved surface - long may the search continue for new exciting frontier sounds and music.

First up - speaking of icebergs - well its sister magma mountain is contained somewhere in the sounds of Asleep Beneath Volcanoes, the gorgeously constructed - asleep beneath volcanoes is probably a good way to describe their sound - a landscape of undulating textures with spurts of hot to handle substance.

Next we have the continuing series of hot stuff from the esoteric land of Portugal and Lisbon which is coined to be the next hotbed or new European creative hub - cooking up an aural storm we have the marvelous Tropa Macaca who have a lovely take of droned out complicity and along side them we have the great Portuguese solo artist/guitarist Manual Moto who plays beautifully minimal electro-acoustic improvisation.

Reckno is up next and they are a great post-rave/noise/8-bit/jam band label from windy shores of Bournmouth - consisting of the best of local talent and the spreading it radar like a b-movie disease across the uk - Reckno in their own words - play a bit acid - a lots of slug - some more shrug and finally a sprinkle of primitivism... Chris Catlin from Reckno has supplied us with three artists.

MC CocOen the Welsh word wizard who mixes up the social rambling that would not be out of place in anyway home poses of Dylan Thomas but also MC CocOen was a unqiue ear for ubu-dub sounds mixes and sounds.

Also on supply from the Reckno stable we have Wulfback - who slot together indie-fied guitar leads with cut up 8-bit breaks - very sweet and terror cladding at the same time.

The third Reckno artist is YAAARD - great master of upbeat maddness - the sounds explode from all directions but are held together with beautifully scaled tone and melodic danceable - but under-lying this is a malevolent monster always eager to break out - and break it does!

Finally we have the wonderfully named and talented - Halloween Swim Team - hailing from L.A. and seem to be born from two mothers; from the Sliver lake noise kids and the 8-bit SF cut-up kids - mixed together and you are coming close to what H.S.T. consist off - needless to say - they are one of kind - check them!

I would like to thanks you peeps for tuning in or of course downloading the pod each month - I hope we have been entertaining your ears and toes! - and of course a big warm thank you to all our contributing artists, for making THE EXPERIMENT what it is - a ready mix/multi-coloured sound template for musical exploration - lets keep taking huge leaps!

The Experiment is a monthly podcast commissioned by the ICA and presented and produced by Kevin Quigley

www.myspace.com/manuelmota
www.myspace.com/asleepbeneathvolcanoes
www.tropamacaca.com
www.reckno.com
www.myspace.com/yaaaaaaaaaard
www.ufrecords.com
www.myspace.com/wulfback
www.myspace.com/mccocoen
www.halloweenswimteam.com

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