Tuesday 12 May 2026, 7.30pm
Suroor - Imran Perretta / Paul Purgas / Ushara Dilrukshan / Suren Seneviratne
Suroor is a South Asian improvised performance group with an evolving line-up of contributors - this iteration brings together a new collaboration between composer and filmmaker Imran Perretta, Empyset's Paul Purgas, cellist and sound artist Ushara Dilrukshan and computer music archivist and performer Suren Seneviratne. Working across guitar, synthesis, drums and strings the collective forefront their shared explorations of ritual electronics, atmospheric textures, live digital processing and hypnotic rhythms, conceived through evocations of myth, transcendence and syncretism.
Poulomi Desai is a queer musician, artist, curator and activist with South Asian roots, born in Hackney, London. Desai will give an improvised concert using a modified sitar with a range of exploratory devices such as modified cassette decks, circuit bent toys, optokinetic instruments, kitchen knives, and massage tools. Her sitar forms the basis for her sonic improvisation, and is a conscious response to the idea of »authenticity,« seeking to break the expectations of how a »sacred« instrument should be played, and the assumptions made upon the identity of the player herself. It is an allegorical antidote to the objectification of the »South Asian woman's body« in Bollywood cinema / popular culture and, in a broader sense, affirming her personal manifesto of noise as protest.
www.poulomidesai.tumblr.com | www.usurp.org.uk
Adnan Naqvi/adnzn.1198 is an artist developing systems of listening and attunement. His sonic practice works with layered electronics, voice, and sampled material, moving between dub-informed structures and processional drift. His work has taken the form of texts, moving images, forensic reports, multi-channel compositions, and audio technologies. He was previously an audio investigator at Earshot and is currently a resident at n-space, Somerset House Studios’ programme for interdisciplinary experimentation across art and technology.
