We're thrilled to welcome the return to cafe OTO of legendary musical autodidact Ghédalia Tazartès. This time Tazartès will present a live soundtrack to the 1922 film HAXAN - a documentary on the history of witchcraft - for a genuinely frightening audio-visual experience.
GHÉDALIA TAZARTÈS
Born in 1947 in Paris to Turkish parents, Tazartes has spent 30+ years within musical practice and experimentation, letting his musical work wander from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. Utilising magnetic tape recorders, he paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker. He traces vague landscapes where the mitre of the white clown, the plumes of the sorcerer, the helmet of a cop and Parisian an hydride collide into polyphonic ceremonies. Don’t become a black, an arab, a Tibetan monk, a jew, a woman or an animal but to feel all this stirring deep inside of you.
Tazartès defies categorization. It switches from musique concrète to – existing or invented – ethnic music, from poetry to noise, or from loops and collages to sad and extremely beautiful tunes in a second, but it constantly is in flux and coherent.
Whilst he returned to live performance in 2004, his public appearances still remain exceptional events as anyone who saw him here in April this year will surely attest.
GHÉDALIA TAZARTÈS IN CONVERSATION WITH MARK HARWOOD OF PENULTIMATE PRESS
As part of an ongoing collaboration between Electra and OTOProjects, Tazartès will speak about his work and share music and sounds that have shaped his eclectic practice. He will be joined in conversation by Mark Harwood from Penultimate Press.
This will take place at Electra at 2pm. Tickets are £4 and include brunch.
Häxan is a documentary about the history of witchcraft, told in a variety of styles, from illustrated slideshow to dramatised events of alleged real-life events, right up to the early twentieth century (when the film was made, in 1922).
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen’s legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients.
Tazartes’ shamanic voice and talent for incantation make for a unique and frightening experience.
