Tuesday 21 November 2023, 7.30pm
Maria Chavez and Jordi Wheeler have been performing as a duo since 2015. Generating results from active listening with a configuration of instruments (multiple turntables, piano, guitar, electronics, field recordings) Chavez and Wheeler’s performances, recordings and installations speak to their history with improvisation, allowing the present to dictate each work. Their installation works focus on creative field recording practices in conjunction with lathe cutting techniques to further enhance their specific interests in electroacoustic sound works. They also present workshops that function as both a skill share about audio engineering and creative performance practice. Their 1st EP, The Kitchen Sessions: 1-5 was released in 2021 via the venue Cafe OTO's label Takuroku, recorded as part of an Artist Residency during the pandemic with the Kitchen, NYC in the fall of 2020.
Their duo work has been presented by Cruces Espacio de Arte in Madrid, Spain, as part of the Abasement Series at Max Fish, NYC, Bemis Center- Omaha, Instants Chavires in Paris among other venues. Their latest interactive installation, a listening station containing video and sound from the duo's various performances alongside Maria's white Carrara Marble sculpture, was on view at Columbia University's Wallach Gallery from June 20, 2023 through Sept. 17, 2023. They will be Artist in Residence with the University of Virginia in October, 2023 and will perform at Cafe Oto for the Thames Submarine Radio show in Nov. 2023.
TheThamesSubmarine is an online platform featuring work and artists that use sound as a key or evocative element, exploring practice, performance and the personal through curated events and interviews.
Oram Award winner and artist Lia Mice’s live performances incorporate beat-driven experimental pop, live vocal harmonies and Lia’s self-designed oversized musical instruments. The inventor-producer-performer has performed her large instruments at the ICA, the V&A, Deliaphonic Festival and Islington Assembly Hall. At Cafe Oto, Lia will perform material sample-heavy experimental-pop tracks from her latest album Sweat Like Caramel (Objects Ltd), joined onstage by percussionist Andrew Booker who will perform Lia's latest large instrument - a new eco-friendly development that builds on her design for Guthman-award finalist instrument Chaos Bells.
www.liamice.com
www.liamice.bandcamp.com
Valentina Magaletti, drummer-composer and multi-instrumentalist, returns to the stage for A Colourful Storm, following La Tempesta Colorata (2023), a compilation appearance on Soon I'll Run Out of Air (2024) and a multitude of solo and collaborative releases.
Magaletti's versatile technique, which can incorporate anything from vibes and marimba to contact microphones and found objects, results in a style that is forever evolving. Feeling just as comfortable performing behind a delicate ceramic kit as she does hammering out motorik rhythms, her creative take on percussion has resulted in an extremely diverse discography.
As a drummer, Magaletti moves effortlessly between the seemingly disparate worlds of alternative and mainstream music. She has played with artists such as Jandek, Pat Thomas, Deb Googe, Malcolm Mooney, Thurston Moore, Steve Beresford, Steve Shelley, Lafawndah, Mica Levi, Sampha, Kamasi Washington, and Nicolas Jaar to name a few. In addition to collaborating with the gamelan Ensemble Nist-Nah and drummers Malcom Catto, Julian Sartorius and Charles Hayward, she has played with stalwarts of the experimental underground scene like Gnod’s Marlene Ribeiro, Wire’s Graham Lewis, and Thighpaulsandra (Coil). In 2017, Valentina participated in The Can Project, standing in for the late Jaki Liebezeit, at London’s Barbican Centre.
Magaletti’s compositional credits are just as elaborate: with Tom Relleen, she was one half of Tomaga; with Al Wootton, she creates irresistible claustrophobic dub as Holy Tongue; with Pino Montecalvo, under the Avvitagalli alias, Valentina improvises intricate sonic collages; alongside percussionist João Pais Filipe, as CZN, she constructs hallucinatory rhythmic worlds, which are as fragile as they are eternal; with Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead, she plays as Moin.
