NOW HEAR THIS!
A festival of urgent sound, adventurous music and deep listening
13-18 October 2020
WEDNESDAY 14 OCTOBER @ AUDIO FOUNDATION, 7PM
Reuben Derrick / Ruby Solly, Tim Player, Simon Allen / Phil Dadson, Pumice, Blood Mothers, Stef Animal, P Wits / Jess Morgan
Tickets from www.UnderTheRadar.co.nz
Festival info: http://www.audiofoundation.org.nz/festival/now-hear-this-festival-2020
ARTIST INFORMATION:
RUBY SOLLY
Ruby Solly (Kai Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe) is a musician, writer, taonga pūoro practitioner, and music therapist living in Pōneke. She has played with artists such as Yo-yo Ma as part of his Bach Project, The New Zealand String Quartet, Trinity Roots, Whirimako Black, Orchestra Wellington, Al Fraser, and Ariana Tikao. She also works as a session musician and features as a cellist on over twenty different albums.
Ruby is a taonga pūoro player and music therapist with a speciality in kaupapa Maori research and the use of taonga pūoro in acute mental health care. As a taonga pūoro player and therapist she is privileged to work around the country with people from all walks of life sharing the taonga of her ancestors.
She is currently studying towards a PHD in public health at Massey university looking at the use of taonga pūoro in hauora.
REUBEN DERRICK
Reuben Derrick is a sonic artist, saxophonist, clarinettist, composer and field recordist active in New Zealand and Australian exploratory music communities. His ongoing projects in New Zealand include various and eclectic creative music groups, sound design, as well as multi-disciplinary collaboration. As a composer and field recordist, Reuben’s works are rooted in meaningful encounters with the environment, creative exchanges which he enters into as a collaborator: the recordist and environmental soundscape as compositional co-creators.
He is a longstanding member of the CSSA (Cantabrian Society of Sonic Artists) for which he hosts visiting artists and facilitates experimental music events.
Reuben’s recorded work has been released by labels in NZ, the United States of America, and Australia, including God In The Music, Trapdoor Tapes and Big Sound.
TIM PLAYER
Performance artist and musician Tim Player (Ov Pain, Opposite Sex), having recently returned from Melbourne, presents new music developed specifically for Now Here This!
SIMON ALLEN / PHIL DADSON
Phil Dadson is an artist with an interdisciplinary practice working essentially in sound, music, performance and moving image. In 1970 he founded Scratch Orchestra (NZ) and later, in 1974, the music/performance group From Scratch, which subsequently performed to wide acclaim in New Zealand and overseas. His own practice includes building and performing with experimental musical instruments, sound sculptures, digital media, music compositions, graphic scores and drawings. Moving image and foregrounding sound has been a feature of his practice since the early 70s, referencing body, land, nature, triadics and the human condition.
“The awareness and use of space in this music suggest a physical sense of the Pacific unlike anything else I’ve heard.” – Nick Bollinger
Simon Allen’s practice draws upon collaborative experience with many artistic disciplines. His process fuses established compositional strategies with improvisation, extended techniques, digital manipulation and instrument making. He has collaborated and studied with artists from Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Egypt, Japan, Iran and continued in collaborations with many new music composers. Simon has recorded with John Cage, Gavin Bryars, and many other notable names.
Recent projects have involved the modification of deconstructed pianos with found objects to create materials that deny any trace of traditional piano sound. These elements range from the purely musical to a kind of ‘noise’ aesthetic.
PUMICE
The current incarnation of Auckland’s porous rock band Pumice is Jade Farley (violin, guitar, keyboards) and Stefan Neville (reed organ, synth, guitar, vocals, tapes). Lately the duo have been extending the circular melodies & breathing drones they stumbled upon on with last years Platelets 7″ into a soft sonic stillness with distressed shanty interludes.
Their new album Table will be released in 2020 by Soft Abuse Records.
BLOOD MOTHERS
Blood Mothers is a collective powerhouse of avant-nesian binary bending artists reprogramming the mainstream by encompassing the instinctual power of oceanic storytelling that transcends illusions of western order.
In their year together, they’ve opened for the likes of Betty Apple, Eartheater, Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts, Blak Dot Gallery (Naarm) and worked alongside local icons such as Faf Swag and Big Fat Raro. This is a live broadcast… bitch you thought you knew!!!
STEF ANIMAL
Stef Animal, acclaimed by Bandcamp Daily as a leading example of “Oceanic Vaporwave”, who recently released her own game and accompanying album, Spooky House, performs her latest workings in the field of technology-focused deep-nostalgia.
P WITS / JESS MORGAN
P Wits is the project of Auckland-based experimental artist Benedict Quilter, who also records collaboratively with Psychick Witch and Yawn, has been spotted on local stages as a member of Ary and the Jansens, and co-founded prolific experimental imprint Independent Woman Records. He performs alongside Josh, Luke and Tim with visuals by Jess Morgan.
Press contact: admin@audiofoundation.org.nz