Introspective Sonics is a two part event series focusing on the vital affinity between individual creativity and the collaborative aspect of free improvisation.
– Side A sounds with a solo-duo-trio performance of David Toop, Tania Caroline Chen and Lucie Stepankova.
– Something, anything, nothing or everything can happen.
Photo by Fabio Lugaro
David Toop
David Toop (born 1949) has been developing a practice that crosses boundaries of sound, listening, music and materials since 1970. This encompasses improvised music performance, writing, electronic sound, field recording, exhibition curating, sound art installations and opera. It includes seven acclaimed books, including Rap Attack (1984), Ocean of Sound (1995), Sinister Resonance (2010), Into the Maelstrom (2016), Flutter Echo, a memoir first published in Japan in 2017 (May 2019) and Inflamed Invisible: Writing On Art and Sound 1976-2018 (November 2019). Briefly a member of David Cunningham’s pop project The Flying Lizards in 1979, he has released thirteen solo albums, from New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments on Brian Eno’s Obscure label (1975) and Sound Body on David Sylvian’s Samadhisound label (2006) to Entities Inertias Faint Beings (2016). His 1978 Amazonas recordings of Yanomami shamanism and ritual were released on Sub Rosa as Lost Shadows (2016). In recent years his collaborations include Rie Nakajima, Akio Suzuki, Tania Chen, John Butcher, Ken Ikeda, Elaine Mitchener, Henry Grimes, Sharon Gal, Camille Norment, Sidsel Endresen, Alasdair Roberts, Thurston Moore, Ryuichi Sakamoto and a revived Alterations, the iconoclastic improvising quartet with Steve Beresford, Peter Cusack and Terry Day first formed in 1977.
Curator of sound art exhibitions including Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery (2000), his opera – Star-shaped Biscuit – was performed as an Aldeburgh Faster Than Sound project in 2012. He is currently Professor of Audio Culture and Improvisation at London College of Communication.
Photo by Fabio Lugaro
Tania Caroline Chen
Tania Caroline Chen is an adventurous free improviser, performing solo and collaboratively on the piano, digital and vintage electronics, and objects. She has recorded and performed regularly with Stewart Lee, Steve Beresford, Henry Kaiser, William Winant, Wadada Leo Smith, Thurston Moore, David Toop, Jon Raskin, and Joe Moffett. She plays in the band Bad Jazz using found objects and electronics with Bryan Day and Ben Salomon, and formed the Californian electronics band Tender Buttons with Gino Robair and Tom Djll. Tania’s own compositions explore material, sound, space, concept and experimental notational approaches. Her commissions include Strands, Deluxe Galaxy, Themes for a Story and Icons of Elegance, which have been performed by instrumental soloists and ensembles in London, the USA and Asia and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 & 4 and KPFA Radio, California.
http://www.soundcloud.com/taniacarolinechen
http://www.instagram.com/taniacarolinechen
Photo by Fabio Lugaro
Lucie Stepankova
Lucie Stepankova graduated in Sound Arts from the London College of Communication, works at Phonica Records and runs Introspective Electronics, a monthly radio show and event series. She currently explores electro-acoustic composition and performance (under her alias Avsluta) and free improvisation. Her work in these fields is focusing on in-depth exploration of materials and sonorities and on creating and inhabiting environments which could be actual, possible or imaginary. Drawing inspiration from Taoism and Japanese Aesthetics, as well as modern Western art movements, her performances are joining together the emotive and spiritual with the highly aestheticised and conceptual and blur the line between these two worlds. She works with analog synthesis, field recordings, personal objects, and electronics.
https://www.introspectiveelectronics.org/
