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1 | Duo Moment - Set 1 | 16:06 |
| 2 | Set 2 | 13:39 | |
| 3 | Set 3 | 18:22 |
Moment is a Kurdish experimental, free improvisation Duo by Khabat Abas and Hardi Kurda. The duo focuses on a moment where sounds emerge through interacting, reflecting, reacting and interrupting each other. Hardi and Khabat want to share their experience of sound making with audience, to experience a world of sounds and noises from East to West.
Across three sets recorded at an event celebrating the launch of their recent record 'Broken Resonance' at Cafe OTO in September 2021, Khabat Abas and Hardi Kurda blur the boundaries between acoustic and electronic sounds in a deeply intuitive interplay by turns restless and reflective. Set 3 introduces chance elements into the mix, inviting audience members to trigger components of Kurda's interactive radio antennas setup, which the duo then react to in turn, creating an evolving soundworld seemingly untethered to any one particular source.
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Recorded by Paul Skinner at Cafe OTO on 19.9.21
Mixed and mastered by Oliver Barrett
Cover photo by Rolf Killius
Dr. Hardi Kurda is a sound artist, improviser, and researcher with a PhD in Music from Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the founder of SPACE21, a platform for sound art and experimental music in Slemani, and Archive Khanah, an interactive sound archive project inspired by the philosophy of computer gaming, featuring coloured cassettes and recorded sounds from Kurdistan and Iraq.
Hardi's work explores radio noise and sonic traces often considered illegal, abandoned, unheard, invisible, broken, distorted, or forgotten — sounds without a place or destination. He developed the concept of “The Found Score”, which is an Urgent Listening method that navigates attention toward non-auditory senses. His listening’s approach rooted in his personal experience of migration and crisis during an illegal journey to Europe.
Khabat Abas is an experimental cellist, improviser, and composer from Iraqi Kurdistan. She moves freely between artistic discipline and possibilities. Her works are inspired by a broad collection of methods, including noise, improvisation, and narrative storytelling as individual approaches. Therefore, she searches for unheard sounds or undiscovered spaces. Khabat is probably best known for her adapted cello and improvisational work exploring extended techniques, through which she started developing pieces that respond to the objects that are surrounding her or to her childhood memories. In her practice, she raises questions about what is out of bounds, raising the possibilities of sounds that cannot be controlled – in contrast to traditional musical values.
