AF SUMMER SOUND SERIES:
The Audio Foundation’s 2020 programme begins with a bang!

The first week of February will see a series of events held throughout Tāmaki Makaurau featuring acclaimed international artists alongside local performers. This series heralds a new year of programming in adventurous sound and music, showcasing the site-sensitive explorations of Aki Onda and Akio Suzuki (Japan), the humorous and expansive free improvisation of The Monicker Trio (Canada/U.K), and the microscopical electro-acoustics of Annette Krebs (Germany).

Over 5 days, performances will be held at locations throughout the city, beginning within one of its unique lava caves, before moving to Platform Gallery at the Parnell Train Station, Aotea Square, and the Audio Foundation on Poynton Terrace.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS:
– Japanese sound artists, Akio Suzuki and Aki Onda, work at the intersection of sound and space, unfolding reflexively in unconventional environments. Though they differ in generation and performance practice, the NYC-based Onda (b. 1967) and the Kyotango-based Suzuki (b. 1941) share an astonishingly inventive, open-ended, and spontaneous approach to the infinite and variegated possibilities of sound.

Following years of extensive and varied work as solo artists, Akio and Aki have developed a close working relationship, releasing first collaborative album, “ma ta ta bi”, via Room 40 in 2014, their second, “ke i te ki”, in 2018.

By responding to the architecture, acoustics and energy of the performance space, Suzuki and Onda, exploring the possibilities of site-specific happenings utilizing self-made instruments, analogue tape machines and radios, wood pieces, nails, hammer, and other daily objects in profound explorations of the surrounding acoustic-environment.

In collaboration, they share a deep interest in the relationship between sound and space.

Watch them perform below:

– The mercurial music of the Monicker Trio, comprised of Scott Thompson (trombone), Arthur Bull (guitar), and legendary percussionist, Roger Turner, has been celebrated as “a high-water mark in Canadian free improvisation”.

Roger Turner is regarded as a giant of improvised percussion; a virtuoso whose humour and power have seen him establish and explore new pockets of the field.
In addition to co-founding the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto 2004-09, Scott Thompson has worked across an array of genres within the fertile Montreal scene, where his ability to improvise with flexible sensitivity has resulted in collaborations with poets, dancers and musicians.

Guitarist Arthur Bull is a veteran musician of the improvising music scene. Since the mid-1970s, Bull has worked extensively with musicians as diverse as Paul Dutton, David Prentice, Michael Snow, John Oswald and John Heward, and performing in concert alongside Roscoe Mitchell, John Tchicai, Peter Kowald, John Russell, Joe McPhee, Derek Bailey, Paul Rutherford, Phil Minton, John Butcher, Michael Snow, Paul Dutton, John Oswald, Fabrizio Spera, Mike Cooper and many others.

Listen to Spine (2019):

– Annette Krebs is one of Europe’s leading exponents of live electro-acoustic music. Based in Berlin, Krebs’ explorations of sonic minutiae synthesise strategies borrowed from instrumental chamber-music with digitally mediated approaches and techniques.
A recurring theme of Krebs’ activities across performance, installation and sculptural sonic assemblage is the amplification of small sounds (voice, objects), which, much like a microscopic organism, take on new life under magnification.

Listen to a excerpt of Annette’s 2019 release, Filed with Figures:

PROGRAMME:

Sunday 2 February, The Lava Cave, Maungawhau
SPELEO-SONICS.2
w.
Akio Suzuki & Aki Onda
Richard Francis
Old Chips

Tuesday 4 February, Parnell Platform Gallery, Parnell Train Station
w.
Akio Suzuki & Aki Onda
Monicker
Ro Rushton-Green & Aaron Longville

Wednesday 5 February, Audio Foundation
w.
Akio Suzuki & Phil Dadson
Roger Turner & Hermione Johnson
Arthur Bull, Paul Buckton, Scott Thompson, and others

Friday 7 February, Aotea Square
w.
Annette Krebs
True Bliss Experience

Friday 7 February, Audio Foundation
w.
Annette Krebs
Ivan Mršić

Saturday 8 February, Audio Foundation
w.
Annette Krebs & Antonia Barnett-McIntosh
Clovis McEvoy