Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Kavus Torabi + VÄLVĒ
Saturday, January 6, 2018
2017 into 2018 action
It was a busy end to 2017 and it's a busy start to 2018 - loads of action!
December started with an experimental outing at Corsica Studios playing bassoon with effects in an improv set with Gnod (R&D), John Doran, Sam Barton, Mark Pilkington and Mark Dicker. It was psychedelic and immensely fun.
Shortly after that, I guested on soprano sax with Daniel O'Sullivan's band, Dream Lion Ensemble at Servant Jazz Quarters, filling in for an injured Alex Ward. Such beautiful music - it was a priviledge to be a part of it and I hope I did Alex justice! You can find Daniel's album here - it's super lovely... https://dosullivan.bandcamp.com/album/veld
I was also super chuffed that VÄLVĒ track, 'lights', was voted at #18 in The Quietus's top 50 tracks of the year - what an honour!
2018 starts off pretty excitingly too. First up, Knifeworld are doing a double set giant show at The Lexington on the 20th. We're rehearsing up over two and a half hours worth of material, some of which has never been performed live before. An endurance test!
Next comes a VÄLVĒ show in Tufnel Park as a trio once more, supporting Ciara Clifford. January then ends with a spot of bassoon guesting with Mally Harpaz in Kings Cross. Mally will be supporting the glorious Jack Cheshire band. It's the first of two nights I'm putting on at Westminster Kingsway College theatre, the second of which sees Charles Hayward's Data Quack with Alex Ward in support. I'm rather excited as Data Quack at The Albany in Deptford was one of the best gigs of 2017 - my tiny mind was completely blown!
Then the big comes up in February - Knifeworld are off to play Cruise To The Edge, setting sail from Florida to Belize City and Mexico Costa Maya! 3 sets. 3 countries. Potentially some dolphin sightings. Most exciting!
December started with an experimental outing at Corsica Studios playing bassoon with effects in an improv set with Gnod (R&D), John Doran, Sam Barton, Mark Pilkington and Mark Dicker. It was psychedelic and immensely fun.
Shortly after that, I guested on soprano sax with Daniel O'Sullivan's band, Dream Lion Ensemble at Servant Jazz Quarters, filling in for an injured Alex Ward. Such beautiful music - it was a priviledge to be a part of it and I hope I did Alex justice! You can find Daniel's album here - it's super lovely... https://dosullivan.bandcamp.com/album/veld
I was also super chuffed that VÄLVĒ track, 'lights', was voted at #18 in The Quietus's top 50 tracks of the year - what an honour!
2018 starts off pretty excitingly too. First up, Knifeworld are doing a double set giant show at The Lexington on the 20th. We're rehearsing up over two and a half hours worth of material, some of which has never been performed live before. An endurance test!
Next comes a VÄLVĒ show in Tufnel Park as a trio once more, supporting Ciara Clifford. January then ends with a spot of bassoon guesting with Mally Harpaz in Kings Cross. Mally will be supporting the glorious Jack Cheshire band. It's the first of two nights I'm putting on at Westminster Kingsway College theatre, the second of which sees Charles Hayward's Data Quack with Alex Ward in support. I'm rather excited as Data Quack at The Albany in Deptford was one of the best gigs of 2017 - my tiny mind was completely blown!
Then the big comes up in February - Knifeworld are off to play Cruise To The Edge, setting sail from Florida to Belize City and Mexico Costa Maya! 3 sets. 3 countries. Potentially some dolphin sightings. Most exciting!
Friday, September 29, 2017
Silent Reflux
The first V Ä L V Ē full album is now finished and at the mixing/mastering stage. Here's a snippet:
Earlier this week John Doran of The Quietus played recent release 'Lights' as guest presenter on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction - you can hear the whole show HERE. What a show - much love to John for including us and do check out his amazing selection. Some treasure there for sure.
Physical copies of EP #1 [The Theosophical Society} are now completely sold out but digital copies are available from HERE.
V Ä L V Ē action is in the pipeline; new instrument building, new songs....further new on this in due course!
Earlier this week John Doran of The Quietus played recent release 'Lights' as guest presenter on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction - you can hear the whole show HERE. What a show - much love to John for including us and do check out his amazing selection. Some treasure there for sure.
Physical copies of EP #1 [The Theosophical Society} are now completely sold out but digital copies are available from HERE.
V Ä L V Ē action is in the pipeline; new instrument building, new songs....further new on this in due course!
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Bass reeds for Necro Deathmort
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| Necro Deathmort - 'Overland' (Profound Lore Records) |
Necro Deathmort approached me a while back to arrange 'Vortex', one of their tracks, for deep wind instruments and record it for their new album. It was a fun task, particularly as Contra-Bassoonist, Thomas Stone, arrived equipped with a tube to extend his bell-end to get down to a bottom A! Baritone sax, contra-bassoon and bassoon went down and the finished result is pretty epic. It was an honour to be involved!
You can hear and pre-order the Album HERE.
Friday, August 11, 2017
EP release, Supernormal and London date.....
We finally released the VÄLVĒ EP! It's a snapshot of what we are currently performing live in advance of the actual album - which is unlikely to be performed live more than once due to the ridiculous complexity of the instrumentation! It features 4 tracks - a soundscape, a nod to Hilma af Klimt, a tarot game and a song. You can find it HERE
Next up is a london date at The Harrison (Kings Cross) on 29.08.17 with Bob Drake, Kamura Obscura and Flying Saucer. Details HERE. Smells will be happening. Obvs.
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Half The Sky to play Cafe Oto
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| L-R: Yumi Hara, Dagmar Krause, Chloe Herington, Chris Cutler, Mitsuru Nasuno, Wataru, Miwazu |
Totally delighted that Half The Sky have been confirmed to play Cafe Oto on June 22nd. Our first London show! We will be playing Lindsay Cooper's music from Henry Cow and News From Babel, premiering some tracks.
Tickets are likely to go pretty fast so speedy booking is advised. That can be done HERE!
Knifeworld at sea.....
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Me To The Future Of You
We now have another one of the live videos from our album launch at Bush Hall last year.....
Thank you so much to Chaos Engineers for making this!
Thank you so much to Chaos Engineers for making this!
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Half The Sky - France & Japan
I recently had the honour of playing bassoon and soprano sax in Half the Sky at Rock In Opposition in Carmaux. Such a privilege to share a stage with Chris Cutler and Dagmar Krause as well as the rest of the band and what a challenge and joy to play Lindsay Cooper's music!
Our next dates will be Nov 30th-Dec 2nd in Tokyo.
Our next dates will be Nov 30th-Dec 2nd in Tokyo.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
VÄLVĒ & other news
Lots has been happening. Firstly, many thanks to A Sweet Niche and to all who came down to Servant Jazz Quarters last night - what a fun evening! Here's a little glimpse of what we did, courtesy of Kunal of Chaos Theory...
The next VÄLVĒ gig will be 3rd August at New River Studios - it'll be a slightly different set as no Elen on harp so I'll be trying out some new stuff that I'm working on at the moment.
Knifeworld action is also in full swing. We've recently played the o2, Night of The Prog (in a beautiful Amphitheatre in Germany!) and Festival 23 in Sheffield - next stops are Supernormal and ArcTangent.
Practise is well underway for Half The Sky with Chris Cutler, Dagmar Krause and Yumi Hara - my goodness Linday Cooper's writing is complicated!!!!! Such an honour though and I'm learning so much. Can't wait for RIO!
Next up, some writing and recording for a NecroDeathMort track, more practise, more writing and then a much needed little holiday in France....
Pretty sounds from @chloeherington's VÄLVĒ last night #electronica #music #harp #saxophone… https://t.co/RsKk9VIpdr— Chaos Theory (@Chaos_Theory_) July 26, 2016
The next VÄLVĒ gig will be 3rd August at New River Studios - it'll be a slightly different set as no Elen on harp so I'll be trying out some new stuff that I'm working on at the moment.
Knifeworld action is also in full swing. We've recently played the o2, Night of The Prog (in a beautiful Amphitheatre in Germany!) and Festival 23 in Sheffield - next stops are Supernormal and ArcTangent.
Practise is well underway for Half The Sky with Chris Cutler, Dagmar Krause and Yumi Hara - my goodness Linday Cooper's writing is complicated!!!!! Such an honour though and I'm learning so much. Can't wait for RIO!
Next up, some writing and recording for a NecroDeathMort track, more practise, more writing and then a much needed little holiday in France....
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Knifeworld album release and tour
Thing have been super busy on the Knifeworld front - our album, Bottled Out Of Eden, has come out on InsideOut Records and we had a great mini-tour culminating in a pretty out there London show at Bush Hall - many thanks to Chris of InnerStrings who filled the venue with his crazy projections. It was really quite magical and we had the honour of the wonderful Bob Drake appearing in his bear dog costume during the set!
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| Mel & Bob [Ashley Jones] |
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| Bush Hall [Ashley Jones] |
Monday, February 29, 2016
Half The Sky
I'm unbelievably excited and honoured to have been asked to play bassoon and soprano sax with Half The Sky at Rock In Opposition this September in France. Half The Sky preform the music of Lindsay Cooper (Henry Cow/News From Babel) and include original members Chris Cutler and Dagmar Krause. More info as it happens!
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Knifeworld album teaser
The album is finally finished and will be released 22.04.16.
Here is the album teaser as filmed by Emmett during the recording sessions in the Pyrenees last autumn...
Here is the album teaser as filmed by Emmett during the recording sessions in the Pyrenees last autumn...
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
New piece - 'Rhythm Strip'
So, it took longer than intended to both conceive and then to edit but it's finally out!
My mother posted me an ECG printout (rhythm strip), knowing about my interest in graphic scores, having noted that it did look a bit like something useful. 2 years later, I finally realised how I could use it. I am interested in how people, collectively and individually, interpret similar material and what the combined effect might be.
Taking the three outputs on the strip, I researched how to work out the actual bpm and then used the graph paper on the strip and each output wave to create a score with bar lines on tracing paper. The section I had amounted to 11 bars at 50bpm. The respondents to my very vague Facebook post calling for 'contributors to an experiment' were allocated one of the three parts in the order in which they responded, to ensure equal distribution. I had absolutely no idea what would come back or how I would put the parts together until they did. Thank you so much to all who contributed - so many interpretations of my mother's heart! I think it's beautiful. And she would have found it utterly ridiculous but have been secretly highly faltered, I'm sure!
Here's the final piece and links to the 'instructions' and individual scores can be found below:
INSTRUCTIONS
aVF SCORE
II SCORE
III SCORE
The starting point for almost all my work is a graphic one. Sometimes it's something I see in my mind that conjures up a sound, sometimes the other way round, but there is always a graphic.
I first started working in this way in the late '90s when I discovered that 'synaesthesia' actually existed and I wasn't mad [much to my relief!]. I spent a long while researching it and ended up writing my dissertation at Goldsmiths about the links between our senses and exploring how we could extend/enhance our experience of an art form by combining them. After much cogitating (and quite an extended fag break) I started re-examining these ideas in my own practice.
A selection of these scores can be found HERE.
My mother posted me an ECG printout (rhythm strip), knowing about my interest in graphic scores, having noted that it did look a bit like something useful. 2 years later, I finally realised how I could use it. I am interested in how people, collectively and individually, interpret similar material and what the combined effect might be.
Taking the three outputs on the strip, I researched how to work out the actual bpm and then used the graph paper on the strip and each output wave to create a score with bar lines on tracing paper. The section I had amounted to 11 bars at 50bpm. The respondents to my very vague Facebook post calling for 'contributors to an experiment' were allocated one of the three parts in the order in which they responded, to ensure equal distribution. I had absolutely no idea what would come back or how I would put the parts together until they did. Thank you so much to all who contributed - so many interpretations of my mother's heart! I think it's beautiful. And she would have found it utterly ridiculous but have been secretly highly faltered, I'm sure!
Here's the final piece and links to the 'instructions' and individual scores can be found below:
INSTRUCTIONS
aVF SCORE
II SCORE
III SCORE
The starting point for almost all my work is a graphic one. Sometimes it's something I see in my mind that conjures up a sound, sometimes the other way round, but there is always a graphic.
I first started working in this way in the late '90s when I discovered that 'synaesthesia' actually existed and I wasn't mad [much to my relief!]. I spent a long while researching it and ended up writing my dissertation at Goldsmiths about the links between our senses and exploring how we could extend/enhance our experience of an art form by combining them. After much cogitating (and quite an extended fag break) I started re-examining these ideas in my own practice.
A selection of these scores can be found HERE.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Skip-diving
This week is pre-production week with Knifeworld as we have an album to learn before going into the studio next month. A song a day; so far so good! On day 1, I found some notation, scribbled on a bit of mdf, in a skip. So I decided to 'realise' this found score. This is what came out:
Monday, July 27, 2015
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Recent news and forthcoming dates....
Things have been pretty busy on the Knifeworld front - we did a UK tour last month and had the wonderful experience of playing at the Tim Smith benefit Alphabet Business Concern at Salisbury Arts Centre.
Other than that, we have been steadily learning new songs in preparation for recording the next album.
I have also been working on a new V A L V E piece for Tai Shani. I shall post about this in more detail when it is released - it will be in the form of a book!
Knifeworld's summer is revolving around some festivals in July and supporting LITES (Japan) at The Dome in Tufnell Park on August 19th.
In late August, I will be performing with A Sweet Niche on a track that I co-write with them. This will happen at The Harrison in Kings Cross and will be supporting Prescott. See 'Performance' for all tour dates.
Friday, March 6, 2015
KNIFEWORLD DATES
The dates are getting confirmed...more to come soon.....
02.05.15, KNIFEWORLD, Salisbury Arts Centre, SALISBURY, UK
24.07.15, KNIFEWORLD, Kozfest, DEVON, UK
25.07.15, KNIFEWORLD, Tramlines festival, SHEFFIELD, UK
26.07.15, KNIFEWORLD, Ramblin' Man Festival, KENT, UK
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Dark Continent: Part 3
Last week I performed part 2 of Tai Shani's piece at The Hayward and the final live instalment will be happening twice on Dec 6th. Entry is free with a ticket to the exhibition.
http://mirrorcity.southbankcentre.co.uk/tai-shani-dark-continent-performances
http://mirrorcity.southbankcentre.co.uk/tai-shani-dark-continent-performances
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