Thursday 14 March 2024, 7.30pm
Unpredictable Series presents a special evening of music and unique performances with a solo by Leafcutter John, a solo with Elaine Mitchener, and an audiovisual duo with Leafcutter John and Blanca Regina.
Bradford-born, Wakefield-raised, Leafcutter John has performed and collaborated widely, including as part of mercury-nominated band Polar Bear, and solo at places like Jarvis Cocker’s meltdown and Planet Mu raves. John first found recognition twenty three years ago through Mike Paradinas’s Planet Mu record label – a gold standard for the experimental fringes of electronic music. His discography ranges from the experimentalism of The Housebound Spirit, to the folk-infused Forest and the Sea – the latter containing “Seba '' which James Acaster named in his top nine essential tracks.
John moved up to Sheffield a few years ago and quickly fell in love with climbing. In this rare London performance John will explore using actual gritstone in his performance.
Elaine Mitchener is a veteran of vocal expression in the global Black Avant Garde, traversing free improvisation, cross-disciplinary music theatre and contemporary composition with clarity and joy.
Her debut album SOLO THROAT released in May 2024 under Café Oto’s OTOROKU label has been described as “An uncompromisingly imaginative approach to text that does credit to the power of the human voice, as well as the mind that pushes it on to previously unheard paths.” (Jazzwise)
Experimental musicians and improvisers she has worked with include Moor Mother, Joelle Leandre, Hamid Drake, William Parker, Pat Thomas, Black Top, David Toop, Xhosa Cole. Elaine is founder of the collective electroacoustic unit The Rolling Calf. Composers, visual artists and poets she has worked with include: George E Lewis, Jennifer Walshe, Matana Roberts; visual artists The Otolith Group, Christian Marclay, Sonia Boyce; Jay Bernard, Roy Claire Potter, Dante Micheaux; chamber ensembles Apartment House, ICE, Ensemble MAM, Klangforum Wien, Van Huynh Co.
Spanish interdisciplinary artist, audiovisual designer and educator based in London, working across live performance, projection art, installation, sound and film. For over two decades she has developed spontaneous composition systems in which image, light and sound merge into a single field, drawing on traditions of free improvisation and expanded cinema. Her collaborators include Matt Black of Coldcut, Leafcutter John, Steve Beresford, Peter Cusack, Benedict Taylor, Mandhira de Saram and Laetitia Sadier. She is founder and Director of Unpredictable Series CIC and a member of LAC at Cruce Arte Contemporaneo in Madrid. She holds a PhD cum laude in Audiovisual Performance Art from URJC Madrid, and her work has been supported by Arts Council England, the British Council, Sound & Music and the Francis Chagrin Award.
