Sunday 29 May 2022, 8pm
Floating World Pictures - FWP - 浮世繪 launches their debut LP "The Twenty-three Views" at Café OTO with a special presentation in 2 short sets, featuring new large ensemble pieces written especially for the show. A loose London collective of artists and instrumentalists led by Chestnutt, producer & member of Snapped Ankles, and Raimund Wong, a sound artist most recognised for his graphics work with International Anthem & Church of Sound.
While the recorded output has detailed non-quantized production at its heart, the live setup is driven by improvisation and collective gestures within the framework of cassette tape loops manipulations, live signal processing and analogue synthesis provided by the duo. Alongside a shifting cast they spin a sensuous, densely populated soundscape: bird song and flowing waterfall synths, a rainforest of hisses and a thrumming hive of life while in the distance the metallic snaps of drums conjure people working. Fragments of found dialogue, melodies and environmental sounds punctures impressionistic passages, focussing the performance as a way of searching and recontextualising.
At this LP launch FWP celebrates a wider independent network with the following guests:
Akihide Monna (Bo Ningen)
Alabaster DePlume
Andy Channing (Unrest Work & Play / Lila Cita)
Cathy Eastburn (Southbank Gamelan Players)
Charles Prest (Flamingods / Noon Garden)
Clémentine March
Danalogue (The Comet is Coming)
Kamal Rasool (Flamingods)
Nick Woodmansey (Emanative)
Coma World is a collaboration between Maxwell Hallett, a.k.a. Betamax (The Comet Is Coming/Soccer96) and Pete Bennie (Speaker’s Corner Quartet) bringing together their potent chemistry to an intoxifying result. Betamax drives the duo with his signature ‘rhythmadelic' drum rapture as Pete elegantly pummels bass tones into an assortment of wonky pockets. Both layer on a blanket of electronic dark matter to create a sonic womb-like world laid out for the brave listener to explore. This is dub and jazz reduced to the raw fundamentals of experimentation, trance and spontaneity.
Inspired by a friend’s recollections of being in a coma, the duo delved through the mysteries of consciousness and return with a striking array of colourful sound artefacts. The two artists sling their dirty funk through cold clouds of darkness leaving psychedelic trails of bleeping fractal spillage. The sonic experimentation is distilled through analogue studio relics followed by a rugged 'all hands on deck’ live mix down performance from 1/4” tape.
Coma World’s debut album - a spontaneous collection of sonic debris - was released on genre defying label Byrd Out in February 2021. From Cosmic flushes that wouldn’t sound amiss on a record by Byrd Out collaborator the late, great Andrew Weatherall, through to drowsy groove meditations and explosive eruptions, the album plays by its own rules but demands attention.
