Friday 14 July 2023, 8pm
Delighted to host a very-special 70th birthday resdiency with pioneering composer, Carl Stone! Featuring avant-garde electronics, forensic sampling, and live computing unveiling a strange musical language, these will be his first London performances in five years.
Dubbed the King of Sampling by the Village Voice, and one of the pioneers of live computer music. Carl Stone started originally with tape recorders and turntables in 1972. In 1986 he adapted his performance to include live computing, which he continues to this day. In addition to solo performance, he often collaborates with other musicians in ensembles that merge and blend musical reality. Pitchfork called Stone’s music “like a dance party in a room made of funhouse mirrors” and the New York Times called it “a powerful stimulant with lingering euphoric effects”.
Now in his 70th year, Carl Stone’s plan for his Cafe OTO residency will feature his solo work, plus collaborators helping him explore acoustic resonance, media bombardment, Irony, elegance, economy and wit. Guests include Robin Rimbaud (Scanner), Vicki Bennett (People Like Us), Miki Yui (Realistic Monk), Kazuhisa Uchihashi and Silvia Kastel, plus panel discussions, interviews and DJ time!
“{Stone’s music is} a powerful stimulant, with lingering euphoric effects.” - Steve Smith, New York Times
“One of American experimental music’s most eloquent advocates” - Time Out New York
Carl Stone is one of the pioneers of live computer music, and has been hailed by the Village Voice as “the king of sampling.” and “one of the best composers living in (the USA) today.” He has used computers in live performance since 1986. Stone was born in Los Angeles and now divides his time between Los Angeles and Japan. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney and has composed electro-acoustic music almost exclusively since 1972. His works have been performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the Near East. In addition to his schedule of performance, composition and touring, he is on the faculty of the Department of Media Engineering at Chukyo University in Japan... more
A pioneering Japanese guitarist, Uchihashi is involved in a wide variety of musics, but still retains a commitment to free improvisation. Born in 1959 in Osaka, Uchihashi began to play the guitar at age 12, playing in various rock bands, though he later studied jazz music. In 1988 he joined the band the First Edition, and in 1990 formed the band Altered States. He was also a member of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground Zero from 1994 to 1997. Uchihashi also plays daxophone, and in addition to his role as a free improviser, Uchihashi has been the musical director for Osaka theatre group Ishinha, has held improvisation workshops (a project known as New Music Action) in various cities in Japan, as well as London, Oslo, and currently in Vienna also. Uchihashi has set up his own record label, Innocent Records a.k.a. Zenbei Records, had held a music festival annually since 1996 Festival BEYOND INNOCENCE.
Based in the UK, Vicki Bennett has spent decades pioneering the art of audio-visual plunderphonics. Digging deep into archival media, she cuts and pastes found audio and film into sharp, witty collages that question how we archive, own, and consume culture, cementing her status as a foundational figure in experimental sampling.
Scanner, British artist Robin Rimbaud, has been intensely active in sonic art, producing concerts, installations and recordings since the 1980s, connecting a bewilderingly diverse array of genres. His adventures are brilliantly strange – from scoring 1,000 dancers in Trafalgar Square London for the Olympics, creating permanent soundtracks in a London house, Riga Airport and a working morgue in Paris, to scoring the world’s first VR ballet with Dutch National Ballet. He doesn't drink alcohol, tea, coffee, or smoke and has kept a diary every day since he was 12 years old, never missing a daily entry.
