FRIDAY 12th March 2010
Times : 8pm
Tickets : £7 adv. / £8 on the door
ATSUHIRO ITO
Japan’s Atsuhiro Ito performs using his device the Optron, essentially fluorescent light tubes with integrated guitar pick-ups sent through guitar amp stacks.
When the voltage applied to the tubes is altered, the lights flicker and the pick-ups harvest the electromagnetic noise perfectly synchronized with the flickering light, the intense noise creating a visual hallucination and the sounds veering from some kind of extreme techno to outright noise.
Ito also performs with the Optron in the duo Optrum, where he vies cacophonously with drummer Yoichiro Shin – they released the album Recorded on the Unknownmix label in 2006 – and he’s also previously collaborated with C. Spencer Yeh. You can find him in all three combinations on various riotous Youtube clips.
For his first UK tour though, he’ll be performing solo in a live show that straddles extreme noise and performance art to create a genuine sonic spectacle.
"Ito seems to wrangle a blend of techno and noise from simple pedals and his optron, creating blistering volumes of noise cutting in and out, dense with analog textures, while also producing repeated rhythms. The rhythmic in-and-out can be dense in the low end, and lithe in the high, creating a defacto drum kit of noise, mechanically pulsing just so atop the blistering screeches.
However, it is not just the sounds that thrill. The entire performance is compelling, not just because of the light show (exciting and disorienting though the strobe from the brilliant optron may be), but because of the manner with which Ito utilizes his instrument. Slung in a manner resembling a guitarist wielding his axe, Ito takes this novel device and produces anything but rock and roll, but it makes the viewer remember the old adage that "punk is an attitude." It is the attitude of the player that defines the instrument, and the instrument that often determines the players mood. For as rock as Ito comes off, the harsh sounds, the techno feel, give his performance, and the visuals that accompany it... a noir, futuristic, dirty look. By drawing attention to this interplay, the tug and pull of intent versus inspiration, Ito's conceptual work can blow minds and ear drums in equal measure." - www.killedincars.com
This tour is supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the Japan Foundation and AV10 Festival.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tsRq7VYeGg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qdZg9LB05M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwLYfH8PY4w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y72_6MMr5KQ&feature=related
http://www.japanimprov.com/aito/index.html
Adam Bohman & Dylan Nyoukis will be performing a set of prepared Strings & Objects, tapes and vocals.
"Dylan Nyoukis's work exists on the fringe of contemporary avant garde art and underground DIY insurrection. As a leading light in the UK's tape/CD-R scene, Nyoukis has long functioned as a rallying point for artists working to clear a space for original, non-idiomatic sound and feral performance modes. His solo vocal and tape work continues to push the envelope in terms of the expressive options offered by amplified physicality while his rejection of any kind of theoretical backdrop liberates him from servitude to any specific agenda. He remains a singular voice."- Ubuweb
“As a free improviser Adam Bohman has pretty much everything required for the job. He wields an armory of sound making devices - a disassembled violin, springs, light bulbs, a barbecue grill, a wire record rack, a wooden box with wires stretched across - and creates a post-serial slipstream of variegated events, where more detail is pressed into a split second than ought to be allowed.” - The WIRE
BLOOD STEREO/CHOCOLATE MONK etc <http://chocolatemonk.co.uk>
COLOUR OUT OF SPACE festival <http://www.colouroutofspace.org>
on UBUWEB <http://ubu.com/sound/nyoukis.html>
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