Friday 4 July 2025, 7.30pm
To celebrate their 15th anniversary, Distractfold are hosting a two-day contemporary music festival at Cafe OTO from July 4-5, 2025. Connecting geolocation with its sonic expression, the festival is divided into three programming strands which explore the acoustic ecology of geology/rocks, marine biomes, and human-machine interactions.
The Crossroads of Evolutions, Distractfold @ 15!
In his last publication shortly before his death at 103, James Lovelock (2019), a prominent environmental scientist, explores the emergence of hyperintelligent entities in a future era known as the Novacene. Lovelock contends that AI will soon surpass human intelligence, ushering in an epoch where intelligent machines, or 'cybernetic organisms' (cyborgs), act as planetary stewards, shaping and sustaining Earth's environment. He predicts a cooperative, joint struggle for survival of cyborg life forms and humans on overheating and dying planet (Lovelock, 2019).
What does this publication have to do with experimental music?
For humans it seems hard to connect our wellbeing and existence with the wellbeing and survival of the ecosystem. Our perspective is shrouded by concepts such as anthropocentrism, individualism and the conspicuous workings of capitalism. In curating this residency’s program, I wanted to draw attention to understanding human creative expression as intrinsically linked to the evolutionary and transformative processes happening in our home, planet Earth, and the systems that determine our species’ survival: geological processes, marine biomes, and technological progress.
- Linda Jankowska (Distractfold)
PERFORMERS:
- Distractfold: Daniel Brew, Linda Jankowska, and Alice Purton
- Guest artists: Hidden Mother (Magdalena Meitzner & Ulrik Nilsson), Ute Wassermann, Maria Sappho, and Jo Christman
Curation: Linda Jankowska
Production and Fundraising: Daniel Brew
Sound: Jo Christman
PROGRAMME- JULY 4TH:
- Alexandra Solovkina-Nilsson (SE) - Öländsk Svit (2018), for amplified limestone and sandstone
Öländsk Svit, is a work comprising a setup of limestones from the Swedish island of Öland, carefully chosen for their sonic properties. The formation of the Öland limestone dates back to an estimated 480 million years ago, around the Ordovician geological period.
Performed by Hidden Mother (SE): Magdalena Meitzner & Ulrik Nilsson
— BREAK —
- Monty Adkins (UK) Aerial, multichannel electroacoustic work
Aerial was composed with recorded materials from the UK’s Peak District and Lake District – a limestone landscape with formations also dating from the same geological period as the Öland stones.
- Sarah Hughes (UK) - Mute Teachers (2025, WP)
Mute Teachers is written in response to the limestone geology of Öland. The accretion and dissolution of the stone is translated into a sonic interplay of performers as they carve out spaces for each other to play within.
UK-based ensemble, Distractfold, are a group of performers, composers and curators all acting out of shared love, passion and interest in the music and culture of our times. Coming from different backgrounds and having received a diverse education, together they create a nexus of ideas and influences which all contribute towards the ensemble’s unique voice and identity. They perform acoustic, mixed and electroacoustic music of their peers, alongside music of the more established composers with whom they have formed close collaborations and friendships.
In 2014 Distractfold became the first ever UK ensemble to be awarded the Kranichstein Prize for Interpretation at the 47th International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt. In 2016-17 concert season they focused on curating and producing the 2017 Cut and Splice Festival, which took place in Manchester for the first time since the festival's inception.
They have performed nationally and internationally and recorded for KAIROS, Another Timbre and released music on their own label dFolds.
