All posts by Alex Donnithorne

Misha’s field recordings from Mexico

Events

The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery
Wednesday 5th April
7pm
Facebook event

 

Misha Marks presents his field recordings from Mexico.


Wonderful brass bands in the villages of Villa Hidalgo Yalálag, San Bartolomé Zoogocho and Santa María Tavehua in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca and some other things…


7pm SHARP.
FREE

 

 

 

Auricle Record Club

Events

The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery
Thursday 23rd March
6pm
Facebook event

 

The Auricle Record Club returns for a limited run of regular BYO vinyl social listening sessions. Standard single turntable setup, vinyl only.

An early session on this occasion, with Master Japanese Drummer Sabu Toyozumi in presence next door at Darkroom this evening also.

Refreshments etc. via the aforementioned Room.

 

 

Blankets / Regressor

Events

The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery
Thursday 16th March
8pm
Facebook event

 

Sasha Ford is a researcher and sound artist currently based in Montreal, Canada. Her practice centers around sound composition and performance, experimental art criticism, and philosophical writing. An active member of DIY music scenes across Canada for over a decade, Ford has performed in dozens of cities across North America as part of numerous musical projects. Most recently with her solo experimental electronic project Blankets, she performed at the International Noise Conference in Miami, and the Ende Tymes Festival of Noise and Experimental Liberation in Brooklyn, NY. She holds an MA in Media Studies from Concordia University and is currently at work writing a collection of essays of aesthetic theory.

Regressor is a corpse.

$5

 

Teen Haters

Events

The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery
Sunday 5th March
2pm
Facebook event

 

Teen Haters
Lazy Sunday Afternoon matinee
The Auricle
5 March – 2pm

After the dastardly last minute cancellation of their appearance at the recent POSTTD festival, Lyttelton’s supreme drone ratbags are set to dupe you all once again with a rare afternoon appearance at the Auricle. Those of a nervous disposition need to be forewarned: the guitarist is threatening to play in a standard tuning for the first time in 15 years, while the cellist will be debuting a new effects unit without having consulted the manual. There have been no rehearsals. A qualified doctor will be on hand to provide philosophical comfort to the mixing console. It could well be the performance of the year, and it’s only March.

No charge, children welcome (BYO restraints).

Mixtape by CSSA

Events, Exhibits

The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery
Thursday 2nd March
5:30 pm
Facebook event

The ‘mixtape’ is a familiar idea: a compilation of pre-existing recordings that expresses the taste and identity of the compiler, and which often is intended as a gift to a particular recipient. Compiling a mixtape is a creative act analogous to that performed by a DJ or, indeed, any art curator. It involves all manner of practical and aesthetic decisions in selection and sequencing of material, and in the way this is presented. Making a mixtape is like constructing an art museum group show in miniature – one, however, that takes place in a non-institutional and amateur setting. ‘Mixtape’ at the Auricle seeks to bridge personal and public spheres in the form of a gift from its contributing artists to any receptive ears.

Reuben Derrick
Alex Donnithorne
IRD
David Khan
Greg Malcolm
Tony Miles
Bruce Russell
Stanier Black-Five
Adam Willetts

Jerome Noetinger, Bruce Russell, Champions of the World

Events

The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery
Saturday 4th March
8pm
Facebook event

 

Jerome Noetinger composes studio-based works and performs improvised music using reel to reel tape recorders and magnetic tape, analogue synthesisers, mixing desks, speakers, microphones, various electronic household objects and home-made electronica. He performs both solo and in ensembles and tours extensively.

Noetinger is director of Metamkine, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the distribution of improvised and electroacoustic music.

Bruce Russell is a founding member and guitarist of the noise rock trio The Dead C and the free noise combo A Handful of Dust (with Alastair Galbraith). He has released solo albums featuring guitar and tape manipulation, and has contributed articles to British music magazine The Wire.

He established the Xpressway record label, which was active from 1985 until the early 1990s, releasing mostly cassettes and a few records. Russell then founded the Corpus Hermeticum record label. Xpressway released only music by New Zealanders, usually song-based. Corpus Hermeticum releases, in contrast, may feature New Zealand or international artists, and they eschew song forms in favor of free-form, experimental, usually improvised sounds.

Champions of the World are two derilict and shady characters who grew up in Sumner.

The Auricle
8:00 PM
$10

 

Party of Special Things to Do Festival

Events

Party Of Special Things To Do Festival Of Sonic Delights 2017

By Reuben Derrick

The Party Of Special Things To Do Festival was a series of sonic events running between February 8th and 11th, 2017. Christchurch’s community of sound artists and improvisational musicians joined forces with guests from Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, Melbourne and Vienna.

In the tradition of previous POSTTD events most performances featured selected first-time groupings of participants,  while others encompassed solos or established bands.

Austrian violinist Irene Kepl opened the festival with a solo in the  Auricle gallery, followed by a Dunedin-Christchurch-Wellington collaboration between Motoko Kikawa, IRD and Bridget Kelly. Melbourne musician and Anita Clark presented their duo project in the Darkroom. The first day closed with an ambient set from Vantablack.

Day 2 began with a piece by David Kahn in which the audience and the space itself became the performers. A short and gritty guitar duet between Toshi Endo and Tony Miles preceeded  solos from grvdggr, Gemma Syme and Blues Professor and a free-jazz set from Gerard Crewdson, Ivan Mršić and Reuben Derrick

The third day commenced with a late afternoon performance of Ivan Mršić’s Kako-Otautahi-phonia, for large ensemble, outside the Christchurch Art Gallery.

Kako-Otautahi-phonia

Reuben Derrick’s recording used a moving microphone.

The evening performance was hosted by Free Theatre, across the road in the Arts Centre, beginning with an acoustically enveloping set from Les Baxters.

Les Baxters

Gerard Crewdson then presented an enchanting narrative with accompanying music and artwork. Emma Johnston, Nic Woollaston and Mike Minchington closed the day with two improvisations.

Emma Johnston (voice), Mike Minchington (piano and drums) and Nic Woollaston (electronics)

The final day was hosted by local artist Chris Reddington at his historical church in North Canterbury. Adam Willetts opening the afternoon with a Taonga Puoro performance.

Adam Willetts

Chris Reddington and Tom Phillpotts presented a duet using percussion, piano and home made instruments. After a picnic lunch, Irene Kepl and Reuben Derrick were joined by Motoko Kikawa and Gerard Crewdson in a musically and spatially progressive improvisation, which led the audience out in to the garden to close the festival.

Video by Motoko Kikawa

POSTTD Special Guests

Irene Kepl (Vienna)
http://www.irenekepl.at/Irene_Kepl/next.html

Violinist and composer Irene Kepl studied classical violin and jazz in Linz and she now lives
in Vienna. Her work focuses primarily on contemporary classical music, free improvisation, composition, Jazz and groove based musics. She has performed at many prestigious venues and festivals including: Klangspuren Schwaz, Festival 4020, Festival Unlimited, 12 points Festival/SE, Donau Festival Ulm, DanceKiosk Hamburg/GER, Java Jazz Festival, Jazzfest Vienna, Jazz Festival Petrovac/ME. Her music has been broadcast on various radio stations in Austria and abroad. She has received the fellowship “Music OMI” New York, Gustav Mahler Composition Prize, the national scholarship for young musicians, the talent development award for composition from Upper Austria and the Theodor Körner Prize for composition.
Commissioned works for Brucknerfest Linz, ORF Musikprotokoll and Wiener Festwochen. She has worked with Joëlle Leàndre/FR, Malcolm Goldstein and George Cremaschi/USA, Korhan Ehel/TR, Petr Vrba/CZ and Moe Staiano/USA amongst others. She is also the founder of the monthly held concert series “Musik in Raum” in Upper Austria which will feature many different projects. Further work includes commissions for theater, film and sound installations.

Gerard Crewdson (Wellington)

My beginning was doing a vocal piece, spoken and sung, with the Primitive Art Group in a performance they did at Rawa House, which still survives and is in upper Cuba Street. There was a space two floors up which was run by the Orange People which was a group set up by a guru, his name’s something like Bagwan Rajneesh. Eventually he was convicted for fraud and various misdemeanors by the United States Government which really doesn’t say anything necessarily about his guilt. But the Orange People, it was like a libertarian, hippie, Hindu combination, hedonism but with Hindu spirituality thrown in. They had this space set up, a restaurant with vegetarian food and this great space. That was my first experience of actually performing with the Primitive Art Group. They did some great performances up there and also there were these two guys that were really good at dancing, which I was also doing, so it was really fun because at that time there was nothing else like that in the sense of a kind of freedom and totally going into a void.
Ivan Mršić (Auckland)

Ivan Mršić is a Croatian New Zealand interdisciplinary artist, percussionist, composer and improviser. His work crosses many disciplines, he builds his practice on notions of avant gardé transforming them into contemporary dialogue. He has a fascination and annoyance with consumerism, waste and excessive energy consumption.

 Motoko Kikawa (Dunedin)

Motoko is a Dunedin based artist who works across many fields. We look forward to her magical and spontaneous violin.

Seth Rees (Melbourne)

Seth Rees is a sound artist who action paints with detuned guitars, multi-effects and feedback to create detailed sonic compositions of textured tone, movement and stasis. His prismatic sound portraits speak the echo and fall of lost time. Originally from Christchurch, Seth now lives in Melbourne and has forged his unique sound upon the Melbourne music scene. As well as being a solo artist he also plays / played in bands such as, Amplifier Machine, The Spheres, This is your Captain Speaking, and I want a Hovercraft. His albums have been respected worldwide on labels such as 12K (US), and Resonant (UK).

Bridget Kelly (Wellington)

Bridget Kelly tenor sax, clarinet, bass clarinet Originally from chch, based in Wellington last 20 years. Bands include The Troubles, Balkanistas, The Fourtet, Village of the Idiots, Dreamville, Zirkus.

Vantablack (Dunedin)
Vantablack are William Meung and Brendan Jon Philip.

grvdggr (Dunedin)

 

Grvdggr is the solo sound project of Dunedin based artist Brendan Jon Philip.

 

 

Facebook event, two, three, four

Wed 8th (Darkroom / Auricle) 8pm
Irene Kepl
Motoko Kikawa, Bridget Kelly, IRD
Seth Rees/Motte
Vantablack
Thurs 9th (Darkroom / Auricle) 8pm
David Khan
Tony Miles, Toshi Endo
grvdggr
Ivan Mrsic, Gerard Crewdson, Reuben Derrick
Gemma Syme
Blues Professor
Fri 10th (outside art gallery) 5:30
Ivan Mršić’s Kako-Otautahi-phonia
Fri 10th (Free Theatre) 8pm
Les Baxters
Gerard Crewdson
Mike Rofone, Emma Johnston, Nic Woollaston
Sat 11th (Sefton) from noon. BYO picnic
Adam Willets
Chris Reddington, Tom Phillpotts
Irene Kepl (Austria), Reuben Derrick, Motoko Kikawa, Gerard Crewdson
And more!

Sonic Poem by Paul Timings

Events, Exhibits

The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery
Thursday 2nd Feburary
5:30 pm
Facebook event

 

Sonic Poem is an interactive sound installation that transposes Malaysian sound artist Kok Siew-Wai’s improvisational vocal techniques onto the phonological properties of the alphabet. These properties are then engaged with through the written expressions of the participant via a 140-character audiovisual interface.

Paul Timings is a New Zealand artist who develops installations and recordings via algorithmically generated soundscapes, using source material primarily derived from field recordings.