Vancouver New Music Festival 2022

Stefan Smulovitz by Diane Smithers.

Multitopes 1&2 

Inspired by the way octopus communicate with each other by changing the colour and texture of their bodies I developed the Mad Scientist Machine – a LED light system controlled by custom software that allows for the transmission of musical ideas via light. Multitope 1 uses a spacialized orchestra to further explore the glissando of Xenakis’s Metastasis. Multitope 2 features Smulovitz’ Kenaxis laptop music system soloing with the orchestra. Xenakis and his ideas have been a major inspiration in the creation of all of Smulovitz’s computer systems and thinking about space, music and form.

Plastic Acid Orchestra (PAO) is a modern full symphony orchestra that creates an exciting new musical experience by combining original Plastic Acid compositions, bold compositions from some of the most accomplished young Canadian composers and modern symphonic arrangements of popular music. Founded by Music Director, Bryan Deans, PAO brings a symphonic sound with a modern edge that tears down both genres and generations.

Since its first concert series in 2006, PAO has kept its repertoire open to collaborations with new Canadian composers to include exciting and innovative pieces such as Martin Reisle’s (Maria in the Shower) Train of Pounding Hours, Jason Nett’s (former resident composer Vancouver Island Symphony) Sol, Tungsten and Heavy Metals as well as arrangements of Plastic Acid originals such as Epic and Resources. In addition to this, PAO has performed arrangements of Soundgarden, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson as well as Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir which was arranged and vocally performed by Mike Bell (The Living). Bryan hopes to take audiences on a musical experience that encompasses truly classical works such as Beethoven, Shostakovich and Dvořák while showcasing new, modern composers and revisiting contemporary hit songs. Deans’ sometimes unorthodox programmes tear down genres, pushing audiences from innovative new classical to contemporary pieces full of guilty pleasures.                      

plasticacid.com

Stefan Smulovitz is a true innovator known for his creative use of technology and mastery of sound manipulation. His craft has been honed creating nearly 100 live film scores, innumerable dance and theatre scores, and hundreds of live performances with some of the top improvising musicians in the world. Stefan’s roots as an improviser allow him to skillfully use viola, electronics, and his game-changing software Kenaxis, to create vast sonic worlds. Always open to exploring new ideas he has collaborated with film, dance, theatre, poets, writers, visual artists, theoretical particle physicists, buffoon, circus, and now most excitingly crows!

He lives in Roberts Creek, BC where he is working on his most ambitious project yet…

stefansmulovitz.ca & kenaxis.com

Jacob Audrey Taves by Lauren Ray.

The Remaining Functionality of Abandoned States

Systems of organization chug along as they pass their functionality, usefulness or are proven ineffective at achieving their aims. They leave behind broken bits of data, of infrastructure and of human beings while operating on automatic by people who have never met their bosses, as an algorithm or as an abandoned construct running on fumes. Unable to ever balance such fluid and complex equations as those that govern life, every system has its left behinds: the man who tunes every radio to the classic rock station; the quaint believer in the free market. In more serious terms the left behinds rot away and die, unable to access this or that because of paperwork or negotiations here or there, because of cracks in the functionality of systems that can never achieve balance. Some are left behind in the negative space between where systems of organization should meet, but don’t.

Channeling the detritus of malignant policy and organization by pushing the fractured limits of hardware and software as a metaphoric exploratory process, The Remaining Functionality of Abandoned States does not necessarily make a political statement nor raise any questions in and of itself. It builds structures from debris and chewed up, half used bits and makes itself at home in negative space. Utilizing the three dimensional and architectural qualities of sound, The Remaining Functionality of Abandoned States gives life to the metaphor by creating audible constructions from left behind errors which interpret the emotional response of being a part of many failed systems while creating a unique new and living form.

Communicating in a language of errors, hum, crackle, feedback and found sounds, composer and improviser Jacob Audrey Taves explores themes of alienation, post-industrial anxiety and the push and pull between macro and micro social, political and sonic frameworks. Utilizing the fragile nature of malfunctioning equipment and exposing unintentional audio artifacts, Taves’ work gives errors room to develop and to have voices of their own in an emotive, free-form structure.

After building a cult following through many no-budget tours playing blown out rhythms with a backpack full of drum machines and old mixing boards, Taves has taken the time to process the previous 16 years worth of encounters from their rigorous touring regimen. Standouts among them include playing in a queer bar in Eastern Europe days after it was fire bombed by a right-wing gang, entertaining a Roma encampment in the Swiss mountains, shaking the tattooed hand of a gangster with missing fngers who exclaimed “your music is like therapy for me”, watching soldiers get on and off trains with freshly severed limbs, eating wild boar stew while watching the sunset on the rooftop of a squatted mansion, being chased by Nazis and hiding in a grocery store. These experiences provide the emotional framework for exploring the sounds most would prefer to delete.

Taves is best known for their ongoing plunderphonic industrial project Holzkopf. They are also a member of Organs Without Bodies (with percussionist John Brennan) as well as Assault Charge (with songwriter and author Eamon McGrath). Taves was the guitar player for the short lived no-wave three piece Other Jesus. They are curator of the audio/video collage series Interior Network. Throughout their various bands and projects they have toured Europe, Canada, USA, Mexico and Japan, sharing billing with Merzbow, Keiji Haino, Venetian Snares, Freida Abtan, John Oswald, Mark Hosler (Negativland), People Like Us and others. They have performed at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival (Canada), Hamsylet (Ukraine), Body Machine Body (Estonia), ZNFI (Slovenia), Yaga Gathering (Lithuania), 4D Festival (Japan) and have been an artist in residence at Les Pixels Transversaux.

jacobaudreytaves.ca

Sara Gold.

Sara Gold specializes in an experimental audio engineering technique known as no input mixing. Utilizing 1970’s large format console touring mixers that have been routed in various ways to create full frequency feedback tones and blips. She uses line noise cycling to create a powerful sub bass experience, sidechained with an original vintage analog TR-909 drum machine. 

Sara Gold is a queer / non binary multidisciplinary artist crafting experimental hardware techno and cinematic soundscapes with a multidisciplinary approach to altering senses through sight and sound, weaving their short conceptual films, label releases and experimental improvisational live hardware performances together with analog vintage electronic equipment.

saragold.ca

Detail of still from sirens by Novi_sad and Ryoichi Kurokawa.

Sirens
Novi_sad presents Sirens live AV, a project by Novi_sad + Ryoichi Kurokawa. 

Ryoichi Kurokawa & Novi_sad collaborate to create Sirens, an impressive body of work comprising five audiovisual pieces which explore the aesthetics of data. Sirens is a collection of digitally rendered visual formations and sound compositions, whose intensity fluctuates as in relation to the unfolding of the economic downturn. Tied to the fate of the global markets, the more the economy fails (as represented by data and indexes); the more developed and complex the coupled sounds and visual sequences become. Any disintegration of financial fortunes leads directly to the emergence of a greater creative energy in an inverse ‘tug-of-war’.

Sirens elucidates the relationship between generative visualization and cinematic practices, as this computer generated video work transforms our understanding of the relationship between moving image, data and the cinematic. By immersing the spectator in an audiovisual scape and narrative, the work heightens the performativity of processes, be they ‘technological’ or ‘natural’. The title of the work is inspired by the Greek mythological creatures that seduce sailors ashore into danger, as a metaphor for market fervour leading to economic collapse.

http://novi-sad.net/projects/sirens/

Novi_sad is the guise for Thanasis Kaproulias who holds a degree from the Economic University of Piraeus. He lives and works in Ancient Olympia, Greece. Influenced by the pioneers of audio assault, he began generating sounds in 2005. Amplified environmental recordings, drone manipulations, structured ambient soundscapes, microtones vs overtones, all come together in a hyper structure of iconoclastic form. Novi_sad’s artistic output displays a high level of technical ability, as well as a sensitivity to the nuances of location.

The strength of his soundscapes works in the same elaborateness for the whole creation process, starting from a basis of very strong conceptualism, the intense examination of field recordings over the actual composition work, to the point of performing back the result onto location. Every sound that occurs is treated with a sculptural integrity and his sonic power operates on a level in which the audience participates as transcendental listeners.

His approach is similar to the ‘cinema pour l’oreille’ (cinema for the ear) and in turn would like to ‘donner à voir’ (lead to seeing) by means of sound. Being immersed in his sonic environment offers an absolutely visceral and cerebral experience at once.

Novi_sad explores sound as sensation pulling apart its physical properties to reveal its relationship with human perception. Some of his projects are primarily focused in architectural acoustics and the relationship between architecture and sound, while other projects are based on various methods of audio analysis in extremely unique recordings and the use of quantitative and numerical data from different sources (NASA among others).

His vertiginous structures destruct and reconstruct architectonic, organic and sentimental abstractions with precision and hypnotic beauty, which functions as a gateway into eternity. His music has been described as ‘a complete surrendering of the senses’. Novi_sad’s albums found plenty of receptive ears, receiving glowing reviews in music media around the world. His audio works are available from esteemed labels such as raster [DE], Sedimental [U.S.A.], Touch [U.K.], Staalplaat [NL] and Sub Rosa [BE]. 

Novi_sad’s projects have been presented in various forms in cinemas, industrial spaces, theatres, concert halls, churches, museums, auditoriums, squats, galleries, in festivals like Venice Biennale Film Festival [Venice], MUTEK [Montreal/Mexico City], Lunchmeat [Prague], Eletronika [Belo Horizonte], FIMAV [Victoriaville], Transient [Paris], Gray Area [San Francisco], L.E.V. [Gijon], PRECTXE [Seoul], Stimul [Prague] and in such spaces as: Roy O. Disney Concert Hall CalArts [Los Angeles], VPRO National Radio [Amsterdam], Cabaret Voltaire [Zurich], Itaú Cultural [São Paulo], among others.

Novi_sad has worked and collaborated with: Lars von Trier, Helge Sten [Deathprod, Supersilent], Francisco López, Mika Vainio [Pan Sonic], Ryoichi Kurokawa , BJ Nilsen, Daniel Menche, Richard Chartier, CM von Hausswolff, Jacob Kirkegaard, Beckie Foon [A Silver Mt. Zion, Set fire to flames], Scott Konzelmann, Irini Kyriakidou, Karl Lemieux, Konstantina Kotzamani, Isaac Niemand and Yorgos Zois.

Thanasis Kaproulias is the General + Artistic director of Hertz Festival.

novi-sad.net

Ryoichi Kurokawa is a Japanese artist, born in 1978. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Kurokawa’s works take on multiple forms such as installation works, recordings, and concert pieces. He composes the time sculpture with the field recordings and the digital generated structures, and reconstructs architecturally the audiovisual phenomenon. In recent years, his works are shown across the world”at international festivals and museums including TATE Modern [UK], Centre Pompidou [FR], Venice Biennale [IT] , Palais de Tokyo [FR], Barbican Centre [UK], ARS Electronica [AT], Mutek [CA/MX/JP/ES], Tretyakov Gallery [RU], Minsheng Art Museum [CN], YCAM [JP], EMPAC [US], LABoral [ES], FACT [UK], Palais des Beaux-Arts [BE], National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts [TW], National Centre for Contemporary Arts [RU], CTM/Transmediale [DE], ACC [KR], Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton [FR] and Sonar [ES/UK/JP]. In 2010, he was awarded the Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica in the Digital Musics & Sound Art category.

ryoichikurokawa.com

Kuniko Kato by Michiyuki Ohba.

To celebrate the centennial anniversary of the life and the works of Iannis Xenakis world renowned percussion virtuoso Kuniko from Japan programs his signature solo pieces in percussion (Psappha & Rebonds a. b. ).

“Kuniko passes this rite triumphantly. Her effortless, glitch-free technique and ability to manipulate mallets and sticks to seemingly coax melodies from non-melodic instruments are bound to humble aspiring and established percussionists alike.”  – Gramophone

Kuniko Kato is one of the world’s leading percussion virtuosos from Japan. Her astonishing virtuosity, exquisite musical insight and expressive yet elegant performance style continues to attract not only audiences, but established conductors and composers too. She is renowned for her flawless technique when playing both keyboard and percussion instruments, which blends seamlessly with her profound musical intelligence.

After the 2011 initial release of kuniko plays reich on Linn, the concert presented at Kyoto Art Center in 2012 received the prestigious twelfth Keizo Saji Prize from the Suntory Foundation for the Arts. In 2013 her eagerly awaited second album for Linn was released, featuring the premiere percussion arrangements of four of the great Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s signature works. The album is entitled Cantus and was in the UK’s Top 10 Specialist Classical Chart. It also received the ‘Best Recording’ Award at Japan’s Music Pen Club’s twenty-sixth Music Awards.

In 2015 Kuniko released the major percussion works Pléïades and Rebonds by the great twentieth-century composer Iannis Xenakis. The album was double-nominated in the ‘Best Contemporary Music’ and ‘Best Recording’ categories at the Japan Record Academy Awards. The 2017 release Bach: Solo Works for Marimba saw Kuniko turn to the cello suites and violin sonatas of J. S. Bach. This album debuted at number 2 on Japan’s Classical Billboard Chart, received the Grand Prize at the tenth Japan’s CD Shop Awards 2018 and was Linn’s best-selling album of the year.

In 2019 Kuniko won an Excellence Award for her live performance of Steve Reich’s Drumming at Suntory Hall, Tokyo, in November 2018. The prestigious award was given by the 73rd National Arts Festival (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Her hometown, the City of Toyohashi, appointed her as its special ambassador.

Kuniko is the only Japanese artist signed exclusively to Linn Records. She is endorsed globally by Pearl and ADAMS. She currently resides in the USA.

npo-artsworks.org

Kuniko Kato’s performance is supported in part by the Japan Foundation

Hibiki-Hana-Ma

Giorgio Magnanensi will diffuse Xenakis’ Hibiki-Hana-Ma for 8-channel tape.

Hibiki-Hana-Ma was composed for the 1970 Osaka World’s Fair, and was created with the UPIC system, a graphical input device that Xenakis invented, using recordings of an orchestra, a biwa, and a snare drum.

“Hibiki-Hana-Ma” (“reverberation-flower-interval”) is just under eighteen minutes in length and was originally composed for twelve tracks, later mixed down to eight for concert diffusion. The music was recorded and assembled at the electronic music studio of Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) in Tokyo. Xenakis had access to an orchestra there, and much of the material comes from orchestral sonorities (typical textures from existing scores with emphasis on strings, particularly glissandi and natural harmonics). To this he added the Japanese plucked biwa and some percussion sounds. As in the tape part of Kraanerg, there are varying degrees of studio manipulation of the instrumental sounds, from virtually none to so much that the original sources are unrecognizable. There is a much wider range of sounds presented in “Hibiki-Hana-Ma” than in the earlier ballet, which is understandable considering that the tape is the only sound source. The possibility of deploying up to twelve channels enabled Xenakis to build up layers and complex superpositions of sonorities.

The music is put together from blocks of material spliced into the different channels, in a similar process to “Kraanerg”, extended from three or four layers to twelve. There are many sudden shifts of sonority, density, and intensity, and various layers are brusquely cut in or out. Major articulation points serve to loosely divide the piece into four sections.

– James Harley, “Xenakis, his life in music”