Sunday 11 August 2019, 7.30pm
What's described as "a trumpet player trapped in a two dimensional universe" is in fact the unique work of Lucas Abela (also know as Justice Yeldham), a maverick musician with an unhealthy obsession with sheets of broken glass. In his now infamous show which has astonished and bemused countless people in over 45 countries, Abela ecstatically purses his lips against panes of amplified glass whilst deftly employing various vocal techniques ranging from throat singing to raspberries, to turn the discarded shards into crude musical instruments. The results are a wild array of oddly controlled cacophonous noise teetering on the edge of music. This show quite simply needs to be witnessed to be fully appreciated, let alone understood.
"Lucas is just captivating. It's incredible how he can flip the feeling of a room upside down and sonically theres just no other sound like his" - ZACH HILL - Death Grips
"the most exciting performer I have seen in the last three years – in fact, since I first saw Iggy Pop" - Bruce Russell - WIRE
magazine.
"brilliantly immediate performance, galvanising and alien and funny, and free of safe gestures and easy comparisons." - Frances Morgan - the quietus.
Formerly known as Justice Yeldham, Granpa is the new persona for maverick Australian free noise musician Lucas Abela. The difference between the two are subtle, Abela still performs on shards of broken glass turned into crude musical instruments. Played by pursing his lips against the panes and vibrating them using vocal techniques akin to throat singing crossed with raspberries, creating an erratic array of strangely controlled, while oddly musical, cacophonous noise. While Yeldham is centered on ecstatic pure improvisation often resulting in maniacal performances, Granpa is an attempt to rein in the instrument and take it in a more musical direction. Abela also hopes the change might help to dispel the negative connotations his bloody forays as Yeldham have created, the blood for some overshadowing a truly unique musical output. However this transformation is far from complete Yeldham being the Hyde to Granpa’s Jekyll, occasionally taking over his subconscious.
http://dualplover.com/yeldham/
Described by The Wire as “one of the most technically adept and creatively daring artists to use the turntable as a musical instrument,” Mariam Rezaei is a multi-award-winning composer, turntablist and performer. Working at the nexus of experimental new music, free improvisation, mutant club musics and hip-hop, Rezaei uses a digital vinyl system, allowing her to manipulate an expansive range of samples in real time. Her work has been described as “genuinely ground-breaking” (London Jazz News 2022) and “high-velocity sonic surrealism” (The Guardian 2022). Praised by The Wire, Uncut and Bandcamp Daily, her latest release FRACTURED (Heat Crimes) is one of The Quietus’s cassette releases of 2024.In November 2022, she received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation #AwardsForArtists in recognition of her contribution to music composition. She previously led experimental arts projects TOPH, TUSK FRINGE and TUSK NORTH, and is writing a book on turntablism for Repeater.
In addition to her solo work, Rezaei’s projects include a Turntable Trio with Evicshen and Maria Chávez (making their US premiere at Big Ears 2025), supergroup The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (with saxophonist Mette Rasmussen, trumpeter/electronics Gabriele Mitelli and drummer Lukas Koenig), and orchestral compositions with Matthew Shlomowitz (6 Scenes for Turntable and Orchestra). She recently performed Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music with guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe. Other collaborations include duos with Jennifer Walshe, Edward George, Farida Amadou, Valentina Magaletti, Lasse Marhaug, Evicshen, Lukas Koenig, Mette Rasmussen, Gabriele Mitelli, Okkyung Lee and Ali Robertson, Black Top with Pat Thomas, Orphy Robinson, Cleveland Watkiss and Leon Foster Thomas, and a quartet with DJ Sniff, Rex Chen and DJ SlowPitchSound at Taipei Biennial 2023.
Tom Wheatley is an artist and musician based in London. His work is patterns, rhythms and cycles, at an interface of physical and digital zones.
His projects are Tennota with Grundik Kasyansky, Vesta Payne with Sarah Hartnett and Cast-On with Ilana Blumberg. He also works closely with Daniel Blumberg and Adam Christensen.
