28–30 August 2025
The Berlin-based, aesthetically agnostic record label and loose collective, Sacred Realism, celebrate 14 years of activity and present three nights of music as long running collective projects, new collaborations, and interpretations of works from their international circle of friends, inspirations, and influences. It wasn’t long after the life/music paths of Catherine Lamb, Bryan Eubanks, and Andrew Lafkas intersected that a collective was formed. It started as a place to publish recordings of their work but grew into other things as well. Connecting threads being support and encouragement to investigate different interests. Often with recognisable aesthetic and conceptual overlap but certainly not always. The upcoming concerts at Cafe Oto embody this supportive collective dynamic as well as some of the differences. The collective has grown to include more people, both officially (Rebecca Lane and Xavier Lopez) and unofficially (Clara de Asís, Todd Capp, Joe Foster, Jordan T. Paul, Peter Cusack, Laura Steenberge, and others who will not be a part of these concerts). Support and encouragement are still primary elements.
www.sacredrealism.org
Please see individual day listings above for full programme.
With support from
Catherine Lamb is an active composer exploring the interaction of tone, summations of shapes and shadows, phenomenological expansions, states between outside/inside, empathy, and the long introduction form. She currently resides in Berlin where she composes, teaches, and collaborates within the community (including Singing By Numbers and the co-initiated Harmonic Space Orchestra).
https://www.sacredrealism.org/artists/catherine-lamb/
Bryan Eubanks develops his music through solo work and collaboration. Since 1999 he has participated in many short and long term projects, and regularly presents his work internationally. Continually active in a variety of contexts: improvisation; composing electronic and acoustic works for small ensembles, solo instruments, computers, and electronics; organizing and curating concerts for other artists; building electronic instruments. He currently lives in Berlin.
https://www.sacredrealism.org/artists/bryan-eubanks/
Andrew Lafkas is a bass player committed to group experience. Over the last 25 years he has played in groups led by others (Milo Fine, Bill Dixon, Catherine Lamb, Tony Conrad), bands (Brown Rainbow, Oceans Roar 1000 Drums, 75 Dollar Bill, Double Rainbow), in collaborations with others (Davu Seru, Marcia Bassett, Mazen Kerbaj, Barry Weisblat, Andrea Ermke, +++ ) and has organised ensembles focused on group intuition (in Minneapolis, NYC, Berlin, and now Murudalen).
Rebecca Lane is a musician who explores intonation as a social and perceptual practice, focusing on just/rational intonation and the relational aspects of sounding/activating this material with others. Her practice is informed by ongoing relationships with composers (such as Catherine Lamb), collaborations (like distances bending with Clara de Asís) and within various duos and ensembles (including Harmonic Space Orchestra), utilizing various flutes (in particular, Kingma System quarter-tone flutes).
https://www.sacredrealism.org/artists/rebecca-lane/
Xavier Lopez is a synthesist and pianist working in the fields of improvisation and new music. His first contact with music occurred as a child, coming from a musical family. After studying classical and jazz music at Amsterdam's conservatory, his interest shifted to experimental music, performing internationally since over a decade. He is currently based in Berlin.
https://www.sacredrealism.org/artists/xavier-lopez/
Todd Capp began playing drums in South Side Chicago basements in the late 1960’s, where jazz met psychedelia and the avant-garde learned the blues. He currently resides in his native New York City, where he continues to explore the shapes of swing - sonic textures and tangents of the space-time continuum and the human heart - through improvised music.
https://www.toddcappmusic.com/index.html
Clara de Asís is an artist and experimental composer engaged with the correlations of acoustics, temporality and the praxis of attention. Her work addresses questions regarding sound perception and how it is shaped by specific social and material contexts. She uses electronics and sound synthesis along with idiosyncratic combinations of found objects and traditional instrumentation; and creates works of different formats encompassing performance, audio pieces and installations.
https://www.claradeasis.com/
Jordan Topiel Paul's mostly improvised solos highlight the textures and tonalities of the snare drum, bouncing between rhythmic and arrhythmic. Born 1985, New York City and began studying percussion in 1992. Practices Kung Fu since since 2011 in the Dachengdao School. Cigarette life from 2012. Lived mostly in Mexico City from 2014-2021. Became Arborist in 2022 apprenticing with Alex Baxt.
https://www.topiel.info/
Audio link: https://www.topiel.info/longrolls.html
Joe Foster was born in California in the fall of 1972 and has lived in Seoul since 2002. He has participated in groups like Super Unity, English, The Mighty Cloud, and Stateside and has played a lot of music with JP Jenkins, Bryan Eubanks, Kevin Parks, Bonnie Jones, Ryu Hankil, Choi Joonyong, Hong Chulki, and Jin Sangtae, pretty nearly always improvised. In recent years he has turned his attention to the music and missives of Don Brown and Dan Reynolds and the Spatialization Cues of Tim Bradley. He plans to continue playing until death.
https://jestorfoe.bandcamp.com/
Angharad Davies is a violin player who’s work exists between the thresholds of improvisation, composition and experimental music.
Her approach to sound involves attentive listening and exploring beyond the sonic confines of her instrument and performance expectation. Being an intrepid collaborator has seen her work with the likes of Tony Conrad, Elaine Radigue, Tarek Atoui, Gwenno, Lina Lapelyte, Richard Dawson, JG Thirlwell and Annea Lockwood.
As a composer she has been commissioned by Counterflows, LCMF, Tŷ Cerdd, Nawr, Explore Ensemble, GBSR duo, + AndPLAY and her music is often played on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show.
angharaddavies.com
Instagram : @angharaddavie
Peter Cusack is a field recordist, sound artist, and musician with a long interest in the environment. He initiated the Favourite Sounds Project to discover what people find positive about soundscapes where they live and Sounds From Dangerous Places (sonic journalism) to investigate major environmental damage in areas such as the Chernobyl exclusion zone, the Azerbaijan oil fields, brown coal mining in Germany and the Czech Republic and the Bialowieza Forest in Poland.
He produced Vermilion Sounds - the environmental sound programme - for ResonanceFM Radio, and was DAAD artist-in-residence in Berlin 2011/12, starting Berlin Sonic Places that explores relationships between soundscape and urban development.
He is currently working on Aral Sea Stories, about the destruction and subsequent partial restoration of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan - a much-needed positive example in today’s climate change debate.
Musically he plays guitar and field recordings, improvises, writes tunes, and has worked with Alterations, Kahondo Style, Clive Bell, Nic Collins, Ute Wassermann, Viv Corringham, Michael Thieke, Blanca Regina, and others.
http://favouritesounds.org
http://sounds-from-dangerous-places.org/
