Friday 19 January 2024, 7.30pm
DeForrest Brown, Jr. is an Alabama-raised, Ex-American rhythmanalyst, writer and was the representative of the 'Make Techno Black Again' campaign. As Speaker Music, he channels the African American modernist tradition of rhythm and soul music as an intellectual site and sound of techno-vernacular expression. He has released two albums on Planet Mu; 'Of Desire, Longing' (2019) and 'Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry' (2020) and will release his third album 'Techxodus' on Planet Mu in 2023. With a background writing for a decade in the music press, his written work explores the links between the Black experience in industrialized labor systems and Black innovation in electronic music, and has appeared in Artforum, Triple Canopy, NPR, CTM Festival, Mixmag, among many others. He has performed and presented work at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Paris+ par Art Basel, Paris; Camden Arts Centre, London; Unsound Festival, Krakow; Sónar, Barcelona; Roulette Intermedium, New York; and elsewhere. He has also taught courses on the history and new media uses of Afrofuturism in music at Parsons School of Design at New School and Princeton University. Brown's debut book 'Assembling a Black Counter Culture' was released on Primary Information in 2022.
Hannan Jones is an artist of Algerian and Welsh origin raised on Binjareb Noongar Boodja, Western Australia. Research-led and practicing at the intersections of moving-image, sculpture and sound Hannan deep dives into concepts of hybridity, language, and rhythms that are associated with cultural and social migration, and psychogeography. Sonically, Hannan explores through improvisation, electronics, music concrete, and analogue recordings. Using samples and layering of audio material to create alternate possibilities, reclaims parallel histories, and reimagine connections between them.
Previous presentations include David Dale Gallery x Clyde Build Radio; CCA Annex; Edinburgh Art Festival; New Radicalisms, Rotterdam; Tate Lates, London and REWIRE, The Hague and La Chunky, Glasgow. Under the ongoing project 'Re-Imagining in Conversation,' in collaboration with frequent partner Shamica Ruddock, performances have been held at Oscillation Q‑O2, Counterflows, Future Soundscapes in Berlin, Archive Sites at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, and Cafe Oto in London. Hannan is a 2023 Oram Award winner and also a 2024-25 Wysing Arts Centre Resident.
Shamica Ruddock is an artist working with sound and moving image. Previous presentations include festivals Margate Now (UK), Abandon Normal Devices (UK); group shows with the Barbican (UK), Durham Gallery (CA) and live performances at Silent Green (DE) and Madeira Dig (PT) alongside long time collaborator Hannan Jones. Solo shows also include Treasure Hill Artist Village (2019, TW) and South London Gallery (2022, UK). Shamica has held residencies with QO2 (BE), and was previously an Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow at the British Library researching Maroon sound cultures.
Dr. Hannah Catherine Jones (aka Foxy Moron) is a London-based artist, scholar, multi-instrumentalist, broadcaster and DJ (BBC Radio/TV, NTS - The Opera Show), composer, conductor, founder of Peckham Chamber Orchestra – a community project established in 2013 and founder of Chiron Choir - a queer diasporic choir established in 2022.
Jones completed her AHRC DPhil scholarship at Oxford University for which the ongoing body of work The Oweds was presented as a series of live and recorded, broadcast, audio-visual episode-compositions, using disruptive sound as a methodology of institutional decolonisation and was awarded with no corrections in 2021.
Jones was a recipient of the BBC Radiophonic Oram Award for innovation in music (2018) and was nominated for the Paul Hamlyn Award composer award (2014).
Dr. Jones has lectured/performed/exhibited widely, internationally, including NIRIN - 22nd Biennial of Sydney (2020) and produced and Owed to Chiron (The Wounded Healer) in London (2022). @foxymoron87 theoweds.com
Pat Thomas studied classical piano from aged 8 and started playing Jazz from the age of 16. He has since gone on to develop an utterly unique style - embracing improvisation, jazz and new music. He has played with Derek Bailey in Company Week (1990/91) and in the trio AND (with Noble) – with Tony Oxley’s Quartet and Celebration Orchestra and in Duo with Lol Coxhill.
"Sartorially shabby as Thomas may be, and on first impression even rather stolid, he has a somewhat imperious charisma that’s immediately amplified when he starts to play. Unlike other pianists whose virtuosity seems to be racing ahead of their thought processes Thomas always seems supremely in command of his gift, and his playing, no matter how free and ready to tangle with abstraction, always carries a charge of authoritative exactitude." - The Jazzmann
