Sunday 14 December 2014, 8pm
Cranc are Nikos Veliotis (cello), Rhodri Davies (electric harp) and OTO Associate Artist Angharad Davies (violin), collaborating for this performances with artist Benedict Drew.
Cranc formed in 1999. They perform infrequently and rarely release any music. They began performing with an interactive, gestural and highly energised aesthetic, as documented on their first CD release, ‘All Angels’. Their second CD, ‘copper fields‘ in 2009 explores calm sonic landscapes. Although they mostly use acoustic instruments, they sound shamelessly electronic.
“Cranc’s improvisations have an alluring musicality, facilitating a listening experience largely unperturbed by analysis. Minutes can elapse without the listener consciously latching onto Cranc’s adroit ensemble approach, which is frequently conveyed in dovetailing whispers and murmurs…As a result, Cranc creates an unlikely deep listening experience." - Bill Shoemaker, THE WIRE, April 2001.
www.angharaddavies.com/
www.rhodridavies.com/
www.nikosveliotis.com/
Benedict Drew (b. 1977, Kyneton, Australia) lives and works in Whitstable and Margate, UK. He has made installations, video, sculpture, drawing, painting, and music. Solo exhibitions include The Trickle-Down Syndrome (Whitechapel Gallery, 2017), KAPUT (QUAD, 2015), and Heads May Roll (Matt’s Gallery, 2014). Drew has released music on labels such as Mana Records and Bloxham Tapes, he often collaborates with artists and musicians, Currently active collaborations include a duo with Arianne Churchman, who have released two LP’s on Love’s Devotee & Folklore Tapes, the art collective Plastique Fantastique and the quartet Decentred (with Tom Chant, Angharad Davies and John Edwards). Drew founded the label Thanet Tape Centre in 2020 and regularly makes works for radio. He is a lecturer at Slade School of Fine Art and is represented by Matt’s Gallery.
http://www.benedictdrew.com/
https://thanettapecentre.bandcamp.com/
Angharad Davies is a Welsh violinist based in London working with free-improvisation, compositions and performance. Her approach to sound involves attentive listening and exploring beyond the sonic confines of her instrument, her classical training and performance expectation.
angharaddavies.com
Rhodri Davies is immersed in the worlds of improvisation, musical experimentation, composition and contemporary classical performance. He plays harp, electric harp, live-electronics and builds wind, water, ice, dry ice and fire harp installations and has released six solo albums. His regular groups include: HEN OGLEDD, Cranc, Common Objects and a duo with John Butcher. He has worked with the following artists: David Sylvian, Jenny Hval, Derek Bailey, Sofia Jernberg, Lina Lapelyte, Pat Thomas, Simon H Fell and Will Gaines.
For the last ten years Davies has been closely associated with the pioneering composer Eliane Radigue performing seventeen of her pieces. She composed OCCAM I for Davies in 2011, the first in an ongoing series of solo and ensemble pieces for individual instrumentalists in which a performer’s personal performance technique and particular relationship to their instrument function as the compositional material of the piece. New pieces for solo harp have also been composed for him by: Christian Wolff, Carole Finer, Philip Corner, Phill Niblock, Ben Patterson, Alison Knowles, Mieko Shiomi and Yasunao Tone.
In 2008 he collaborated with the visual artist Gustav Metzger on ‘Self-cancellation’, a large-scale audio-visual collaboration in London and Glasgow. In 2012 he was the recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists Award, he was a Chapter Associate Artist (2016-19) and in 2017 he received a Creative Wales Award. He is a co-organiser of the NAWR concert series in Swansea.
