Friday 19 May 2023, 8pm
Over the past decade multi-disciplinary artist Louis Carnell’s work as Visionist delivered albums Safe (PAN 2015), Value (Big Dada, 2017), and A Call To Arms (Mute, 2021).His latter work focused on exploring in a more introspective manner whilst providing an interrogative comment on various social structures. The decision to move forward from his alias in favour of his birth name declares an exciting new pathway that looks to reaffirm and communicate the environment in which he works today. Louis’ most recent work was transitional single “Fixed Is The Day We Cast Our Lot” (Mute Records, 2021) and a collaboration piece with composer cellist Okkyung Lee (Issue Project Room, 2021).
His First live presentation is called ‘17’. A number Louis holds dear as he shares it with his Granny in terms of the day they were born on. The show consists of 17 elements, and incorporates sounds from CD’s Louis inherited after his Granny’s passing. It is also the first time where we are able to witness in person Louis’ as a vocal performer. Expect a journey between choral rituals, melancholic minimalism and thought-provoking poetics.
Ben Vince is a striking composer and performer, known for his live improvised saxophone explorations and inventive techniques in creating new rhythms, textures and moods. Through live improvisation, sonic manipulation, reprocessing and looping, whether in the studio or on the stage, his spontaneous yet intuitive approach and collaborative nature surpasses the seeming limitations of his primary instrument. Having worked for Gabriel Prokofiev's contemporary-classical label and events circuit, Nonclassical, he is now a prominent player among a new breed of experimental artists with focus on his immersive solo show, as well as having performed with improv ritual EP/64, Charles Hayward, Coby Sey, Valentina Magaletti and part of experimental post-punk band, Housewives. Vince has also notable studio collaborations with electronic producer Joy Orbison, Oscar-nominated experimental pop artist/composer Mica Levi, and many others spread across the experimental sphere including Sugai Ken, Louis Carnell (fka Visionist), Mark Sanders, Alpha Maid and Gigi Masin. Able to listen intently and be receptive to his collaborators and the energy of his performance spaces, as well as having released 5 solo albums in 3 years that have been celebrated by Pitchfork, WIRE & The Guardian, Ben is an multi-faceted artist and exemplary of a new wave of musicians rising in London.
Damsel Elysium (they/them) is the solo project of UK based multidisciplinary artist, multi-instrumentalist and composer Djenaba Davis-Eyo.
An alchemist of body, space, object and the metaphysical, Damsel is a holistic world builder using sound, video, performance and other artistic mediums whose deeply intuitive practice crosses the boundary between experimental sound art, avant-pop, performance art, contemporary classical, analog and electronics, blurring the lines of genre, discipline and expectation. Their work explores anticolonial and neurodivergent practice, paradoxes of the manmade and natural world. Working almost entirely with improvisation somatic techniques, subtle energy, ancestral knowledge and the subconscious, They are an architect of hypnagogic activation to draw attention to quantum details and initiate alternative realities. Their multi-medium approach explores site-specific non-performance spaces of history and sacredness. Inspired by contemporary and Fluxus movements, performance becomes ritual and the stage an altar. Damsel’s work has appeared in Tate Modern, Southbank centre, V&A museum and Fondation Beyeler to name a few. Their first record released on AD 93, earning them recognition across a multitude of creative spaces; music, fashion, art, design and even film scoring, they are an avant garde artist on the rise collaborating with FKA twigs, Celeste, CKTRL and working with brands and art spaces such as Gucci, IITTALA and Simone Rocha.
