NOW HEAR THIS!
A festival of urgent sound, adventurous music and deep listening
13-18 October 2020

FRIDAY 16 OCTOBER, WHAMMY BAR / WINE CELLAR, BACKROOM, 8PM
The Pyramids Were Built From the Top Down, Ghost Bells, Aotearoa Snuff Jazz Sextet, Grecco Romank, Riki Gooch / Al Fraser, mHz, Big Fat Raro, Citacsy, Native Bush, Stef Animal / Renée Barrance / Alice Sparrow, Lucky Paul, Samara Alofa, Motte / Chris O’Connor, Guardians

With visuals by Cat Ellis and Andrew McLeod

Tickets from www.UnderTheRadar.co.nz

Festival info: http://www.audiofoundation.org.nz/festival/now-hear-this-festival-2020

ARTIST INFORMATION:

THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT FROM THE TOP DOWN
This trio of cosmic journeymen call upon friends and relatives from The Orion Spur, Perseus Arm, and The Sagittarius Arm to experience their unique space-Jazz first-hand, first-tentacle, or first-claw. In their own words, “Our down to earth team are committed to your new future, and would love to get started on expanding your galactic outlook.”

GHOST BELLS
Rising from the ashes of Eye and the Terminals (following the tragic death of Peter Stapleton), Ghost Bells is an improvised noise band from Dunedin. Anchored by the drumming of the Dead C’s Robbie Yeats, Peter Porteous (guitar) and Mick Elborado (bass) play the devil’s music.

THE AOTEAROA SNUFF JAZZ SEXTET
Imagine a horn-led sextet that gives you the same visceral thrill as a ringside seat at the great Ali/Frazier fights – the Rumble in the Jungle, or the Thriller in Manila. We’re talking some serious ‘energy music’, the kind that gives everyone at least a bloody nose, if not an actual trip to the emergency room. Three saxes (Jeff Henderson, Reuben Derrick and Matt Middleton), blown ‘without qualms’, as the Axemen put it – plus a polyrhythmic drummer (Nick Harte), double bassist (Tom Callwood) and a guitar-player (Bruce Russell) who can start fires psycho-acoustically.

Three decades of antipodean sonic experimentalism distilled into one line-up, the only extant descriptor for this kind of punishment is what Borbetomagus used to call ‘snuff jazz’. So get your fattest reed and bite down hard, this will be one wild ride.

BIG FAT RARO
Curator, musician and artist Tokerau Wilson, aka ‘Big Fato Raro’, aka ‘Lady Grey MC’, a maker of psycho-tropical layers of meaning (Big Fat Raro, Not Even Owls, Mental Health Triangle, etc.)

CITACSY
Under the shelter of “experimental techno”, Tash van Schaardenburg, a.k.a. Citacsy, loops their way through all matter of music mischief with wandering synthesizations and unexpected beats; impulse driven somatic sounds inspired by the percussive noises of daily life; promising to take you on a journey that sways as much as it stomps.

NATIVE BUSH
Beating strong with the south pulse, Pipiana Hemi (Ngāti Pikiao/Ngāpuhi) is takatāpui Māori and a queer interdisciplinary artist exploring the bounds of a digital body with deep roots. Based in Tāmaki Makarau and working under the current pseudonym Native Bush, her work cultivates an experience between old & new worlds to convey the driving force of duality. Their memos share a constant of few fucks and fluid motion to break the monotonous crutch of capitalism… yawn.

Her explorations have led her to support acts and events such as Riki Gooch, Julien Dyne, Jayda G, Daydreams, Filth, Bodyhaus, Flamingo Pier and Hybrid Festival (alongside Ngāti Kangaru) as well as opening for Betty Apple, Eartheater + more as part of the avant-nesian collective ‘Blood Mothers’ of which she is one of the founding mothers. Occasionally she likes to DJ and eat steam pudding with all the toppings.

GRECCO ROMANK
3 piece, maximalist tech-larpers, Grecco Romank, churn out post empire themed dungeon power techno. It’s Skinny Puppy meets Aqua, in a dancefloor video-nasty mutation wrestled from within the belly of the heart of the city of sails.

Michael Sperring (Bib Kids, Blue Bloods, Drab Doo Riffs, Mean Street) has paired with classically trained chanteuse Billie Fee to bring Damian Golfinopoulos (TV3 News, Stress Cadet) out of retirement for an unholy musical rite, engineered as ritual for ending all market trading.

GUARDIANS
Guardians are a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Gatekeepers of the Eternal beat. Solve et coagula. Hail Eris.

ALISTAIR FRASER / RIKI GOOCH
Percussionist Riki Gooch (Ngai Tāhuhu, Ngāti Māhanga, Patuharakeke) and taonga pūoro practitioner Alistair Fraser (Pākehā) come together to create Rangatira, an album dedicated to their mutual friend Eddie Tutaki. The pair met through Tutaki in Dunedin where they were raised then, upon moving to Wellington, continued both their friendship and music careers (Gooch going on to play in a wide range of high profile New Zealand ensembles as a percussionist, composer, and now conductor, while Fraser went on to become one of Aotearoa’s leading experts and players of ngā taonga pūoro).

The initial nationwide rāhui for Covid-19 inspired the two friends and musicians to create an album that could act as a tribute to, and a meditation for their friend Eddie.

LUCKY PAUL
Lucky Paul, a.k.a. Paul Taylor, is a touring and recording drummer/percussionist who has worked with many renown artists including Feist, Jamie Lidell, Moses Sumney, Lianne La Havas, Aqualung, Beth Orton, Rodrigo Amarante, Mocky and Chilly Gonzales. Lucky Paul prioritizes utilizing technology to customize an approach to music making, and values spontaneity and openness in his performance style.

MHZ
Mo H. zareei aka mHz is a an electronic musician, sound artist, and researcher. Using custom-built software and hardware, his experiments with sound cover a wide range from electronic compositions to kinetic sound-sculptures and audiovisual installations. Regardless of the medium, Zareei’s work aims to highlight the beauty in the basics of sound and light production, and reductionist audiovisual elements that draw inspiration from physical and architectural principles. Mo is a lecturer in composition and sonic arts at Victoria University of Wellington, creative director at Aotearoa Audio Arts

His recent album, Form, was released via Important Records (Massachusetts, U.S.A.), and is described as “a perfect balance between the crisp granular qualities of the constituent sounds and the seductions of rhythm” – The Wire.

MOTTE + CHRIS O’CONNOR
Anita Clark is a musician who has worked across many projects: she’s played violin in The Eastern; performed with fringe-jazz-good-time-party-band, Devilish Mary and The Holy Rollers; with Indira Force she was duo New Dawn; and now, in her solo endeavour she’s the folk-noir Motte – a spine-tingling blend of digitally layered violin, vocals and electronic percussion.

Motte joins with improvising musician and multi-instrumentalist Chris O’Connor, who is a member of Vitamin S, The Spoilers of Utopia, The Phoenix Foundation and Don McGlashan’s band the Seven Sisters. Chris has performed with the Auckland Chamber Orchestra, the New Pacific Music Ensemble, WOMAD Festivals in Taranaki and Adelaide, The Wellington International Arts Festival, the Auckland Festival, and as a soloist at the Silver Scrolls

SAMARA ALOFA
Samara Alofa is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Aotearoa, Tāmaki Makaurau.

Samara’s enchanting soundscapes, stories of the past, future, and present, surreal visuals, and ritualistic rhythms/loops create worlds. Their command over atmospheres transcend and reveal deep truths, they may leave you laid out on the floor or buzzing for more. Magnetic, enchanting, authentic, and pure in purpose samara is one worth experiencing in the flesh.

STEF ANIMAL / RENÉE BARRANCE / ALICE SPARROW
Trio comprised of retro-eclecto-practicioner Stef Animal, Renée Barrance (Ov Pain) and Alice Sparrow (Gogg)

With visuals by:

CAT ELLIS
Contemporary artist working in film, music, theatre, artists and education for sharing / learning / making together. Alongside these projects, Catherine has a prolific drawing practice. She creates poetic comic illustrations communicating emotions and mental spaces, which represent, and are influenced by, interior spaces and music.

ANDREW MCLEOD
Tāmaki Makaurau based painter and musician known for his experimentations in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Press contact: admin@audiofoundation.org.nz