This i will be going to for sure.
Friday 15 December: Otomo Yoshihide’s Anode + Roel Meelkop + Tom Chant & Sharif Sehnaoui
Saturday 16 December: Bernard Parmegiani + Tim Barnes & Ishikawa Ko + Andrea Neumann + Texturizer
Sunday 17 December: Ben Patterson & Keith Rowe + Olivia Block + Tomas Korber + Chris Corsano & John Edwards
DAY PASS: £12 /£10 FESTIVAL PASS:£25
DOORS OPEN 7PM
INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS
The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
Box office: +44 (0)20 7930 3647
www.ica.org.uk
London Musicians' Collective celebrates 30 years at the vanguard with its 15th Annual Festival of Experimental Music. Two dozen of the leading figures from the world of new music world are brought together over three nights of sustained avant-garde intensity. Among them are Japanese turntablist Otomo Yoshihide, who presents the UK premiere of his ground-breaking large ensemble piece Anode; the grand master of French musique concrète, Bernard Parmegiani, showcasing a new multi-channel composition; and, making his UK debut, the legendary Fluxus composer Ben Patterson.
Previous LMC festivals have typically showcased not only Britain’s foremost experimentalists such as Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, AMM, Lol Coxhill, David Toop and the late John Stevens, but have also boasted rare (often unique) performances and special projects by the likes of Pierre Henry, Alvin Lucier, The Smith Quartet, The Scratch Orchestra, Charlemagne Palestine, Philip Corner, Pauline Oliveros, Blechtum From Blechdom, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Marshall Allen (Sun Ra Arkestra), John French (The Magic Band) and Jaki Liebeziet (Can); while LMC’s illustrious history as a promoter has also been significant in its early support of artists such as John Zorn, Jim O’Rourke, Zeena Parkins, Scanner and dozens more - it even hosted the first tentative promotions of Poptones supremo Alan McGee. LMC also produced the legendary Rock Aktion Party concerts by the German group Faust, recently released as the film Faust: Nobody Knows If It Ever Happened (also at the ICA on 1 December). With its apparently casual mix of living legends and complete unknowns, of underground noise and contemporary classical sounds, of the truly weird and the downright beautiful, the Festival has proved widely influential, spawning many imitators across the world (Le Weekend in Stirling, Install in Glasgow, Ether at London’s South Bank Centre). Meantime, rather than rest on its laurels, the Collective has expanded its base of activity in recent years, producing highly successful tours for the Contemporary Music Network (Conduction; Japanorama; Turntable Hell; Feedback: order from noise) and launching its internationally acclaimed arts radio station Resonance 104.4 FM. Now in its third decade of continuous activity, LMC provides the touchstone for indicating where music can - and just might - go.
This year, under the direction of youthful producer Benedict Drew, the Festival boasts some extraordinary coups: Otomo Yoshihide’s ensemble project, Anode, is the biggest he has presented in London since the epochal Japanorama tour of 2001. He’s joined by an all-star line-up including Sachiko M., Ichiraku Yoshimitsu, Masahiro Uemura, Tim Barnes, Mark Sanders, Andrea Neumann, Angharad Davies, Stefano Tedescu and Rhodri Davies. Presented in two versions, quiet and (very) loud, Anode shares the first night with opaque Dutch laptop composer Roel Meelkop and the duo of English saxophonist Tom Chant and Lebanese guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui.
The second night sees France’s foremost living composer Bernard Parmegiani present two multi-channel, multi-speaker works, including the UK premiere of Au gré du souffle le son s'envole; the debut of a duo comprising brilliant US percussionist Tim Barnes (Perfect Partner) and the distinguished Japanese sho-player Ishikawa Ko, along with German instrument inventor Andrea Neumann and the young Greek improvising duo Texturizer.
The final night pulls out the stops still further, kicking off with a intuitive and intense improvised dialogue Chris Corsano (drums) and John Edwards (double bass); a mind-boggling solo by Swiss electronics player Tomas Korber; the UK debut of the extraordinary Chicago-based sound artist Olivia Block; and the meeting of two titans of new music - Ben Patterson, the only African-American member of 1960s’ radical art movement Fluxus (Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik and Lamonte Young are the better known of his collaborators), joined here by the globally influential English guitarist Keith Rowe, acknowledged as an influence on everyone from Pete Townshend and Sonic Youth to the present generation of young improvisers and noise artists.
MAZEN KERBAJ