Despite having known each other for many years, and having a long-held affinity for each other's work, this will be the first time Rie Nakajima and Phill Niblock have collaborated together. The results should prove to be as compelling as they are unpredictable, making this a night not be missed.

Rie will perform in response to Phill's film "T H I R" (1971-72, 43 min) and his sound collage piece “ Crick”. This will be followed by another of Phill’s videos "Meudrone" (2013-14, 48 min) with music by Phill Niblock, including the piece 'Summing II' (1982, 32 min) with David Gibson’s pre-recorded cello and Anton Lukoszevieze of Apartment House playing live. The two films/videos will be played in succession and the programme will include other sound pieces made since October 2013: 'Vlada BC’ (Nov 2103, 20 min) with recorded samples of Elisabeth Smalt on viola d’amore and 'Euph' (Nov 2103, 24 min) with recorded samples of Melvyn Poore on two belled euphonium.

Phill Niblock and Rie Nakajima in conversation on Resonance:




PHILL NIBLOCK

Phill Niblock is a New York-based minimalist composer and multi-media musician and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation born in the flames of 1968's barricade-hopping. He has been a maverick presence on the fringes of the avant garde ever since. In the history books Niblock is the forgotten Minimalist. That's as maybe: no one ever said the history books were infallible anyway.

His influence has had more impact on younger composers such as Susan Stenger, Lois V Vierk, David First, and Glenn Branca. He's even worked with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo on "Guitar two, for four" which is actually for five guitarists. This is Minimalism in the classic sense of the word, if that makes sense. Niblock constructs big 24-track digitally-processed monolithic microtonal drones. The result is sound without melody or rhythm. Movement is slow, geologically slow. Changes are almost imperceptible, and his music has a tendency of creeping up on you. The vocal pieces are like some of Ligeti's choral works, but a little more phased. And this isn't choral work. "A Y U (as yet untitled)" is sampled from just one voice, the baritone Thomas Buckner. The results are pitch shifted and processed intense drones, one live and one studio edited. Unlike Ligeti, this isn't just for voice or hurdy gurdy. Like Stockhausen's electronic pieces, Musique Concrete, or even Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting, the role of the producer/composer in "Hurdy Hurry" and "A Y U" is just as important as the role of the performer. He says: "What I am doing with my music is to produce something without rhythm or melody, by using many microtones that cause movements very, very slowly." The stills in the booklet are from slides taken in China, while Niblock was making films which are painstaking studies of manual labour, giving a poetic dignity to sheer gruelling slog of fishermen at work, rice-planters, log-splitters, water-hole dredgers and other back-breaking toilers. Since 1968 Phill has also put on over 1000 concerts in his loft space, including Ryoji Ikeda, Zbigniew Karkowski, Jim O'Rourke.

www.phillniblock.com




RIE NAKAJIMA

Rie Nakajima is an artist working with installations and performances that produce sound. Her works are most often composed in direct response to unique architectural spaces using a combination of audio materials and found objects.

The works created for the purposes of "playing" the sounds she has in mind are often placed matter-of-factly on the floor or take the form of assembled objects that serve as sound makers, 
giving rise to inorganic spaces. Listening to the works in such finely honed environments brings to the surface in a pure way people's imagination, memories, and deepest thoughts. 



Nakajima graduated from the Department of Aesthetics and Art History at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and received a BA in Sculpture at the Chelsea College of Art and Design and an MA in Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Since then Nakajima has exhibited and performed widely both in the UK and overseas.

"Perpetual motion begins, a ticking; surfaces vibrate. Rhythmic cycles pass in and out of phase as if the watchmaker has drifted into reverie. But she is attentive, observing her children, keeping them out of trouble. She pours small materials, beads maybe, into a cup, upends it onto a vibrating plate, lifts a ping-pong ball from its pulsing surface, carefully upends another cup of small materials onto this same surface. Whatever is now hidden inside – these colourful plastic grains – dances in the dark." - David Toop, review of a Rie Nakajima performance at Cafe OTO

www.rienakajima.com




ANTON LUKOSZEVIEZE

Anton Lukoszevieze is British/Lithuanian cellist, composer and improviser, and is the founder and director of contemporary music ensemble Apartment House. Apartment House was created by Lukoszevieze in 1995. Under his Direction it has become a venerable exponent of avant-garde and experimental music from around the World. Apartment House’s performances have included many UK and World premieres of music by a wide variety of composers. In the past 3 years Apartment House has been notable for its sell-out John Cage concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, as the opening concert in the International Chamber Music Series and its continual presentation of some of the most radical music of our time.

www.antonlukoszevieze.co.uk