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.  

JULY 5TH

- Ute Wassermann (DE) - Plankton (2025, WP)

A new work developed in co-creation with voice artist and composer, Ute Wassermann, Plankton explores how water acts as an acoustic filter for field recordings and vocal/instrumental sounds aimed at engaging audiences with the elusive sonorities of water and exploring the sonic life of marine biomes.

— BREAK —

- Sivan Cohen-Elias (IL/US) - Zenthraxidine, for guitar(s) and cello (2025)

Zenthraxidine examines the energy in a restrained scream, translated sonically into complex and irregular rattling, its digital reflections and extensions multiplied and transformed into a hidden voice. Along the process, interruptions appear.

- Presentation by artistic researcher, AI artist and improviser Dr Maria Sappho

Maria Sappho shares her current work and politics from inside the AI underground, reflecting on collaborations with machines, alternative intelligences, and speculative ecologiical aessmblages. This includes live performance on her newest instrument, Parsec—a gesture-based interface for listening otherwise.

- Linda Jankowska & Jo Christman – recallfiction (2025)

recallfiction is a duo project by Linda Jankowska and Jo Christman. Using analogue and digital technology (guitar pedals, mixers, computer software), resonant surfaces (cymbal, snare drum, speaker cone) and tactile transducers, the piece focuses on listening as a form of meta and environmental sonic consciousness formation. Taking memory and sonic memories as its foundational building blocks, recallfiction looks at their almost instantaneous modulation and alteration as a result of individual perception, awareness and presence, in order to create a rich, process-oriented and durational set. Linda and Jo hope to create a sonic environment where source materials are put into question. Are they sources or is it a continuous becoming?