The Audio Foundation is thrilled to present Now! Here! This! – Ōtepoti.

Now! Here! This! Festival is making its way down the country, with the latest installment held in the depths of Ōtepoti from August 26 – 28. The 3 day festival is part of the re-invention of the popular Altmusic programme, which has seen regular tours by legendary artists of experimental music and sound art tour Aotearoa over the past decade. With the advent of Covid 19 and the impossibility of international visitors the Altmusic programme has been transformed to present 3 day festivals in Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington in addition to the regular festival in Auckland.

Curated by local dastardly duo Sewage (Ro Rushton-Green & Gabriel Griffin), Ōtepoti will be blessed across 3 nights and one day with experimental sound and adventurous music by a huge roster of visiting and local artists, hosted at the New Athenaeum Theatre and Lodge Maori.

More info, including full programme, artist bios and links: http://www.audiofoundation.org.nz/programmes/altmusic/now-here-this-otepoti

Friday 27 August at New Athenaeum Theatre,
doors open 7:30PM
– Dante + Kolya
– Vow Cave + Mud Death
– Samara Alofa
– Blue Cheese + Reuben Derrick + Motoko Kikkawa
– Drum Power Ensemble
Visuals by Beth Hilton

$20 on the door/$13+BF resales from UnderTheRadar

DANTE
A Mystery

KOLYA
Dark techno beats impart heavy, acid rhythms to psyche-up your psyche and haunt your heels

VOW CAVE
Vow Cave is the evolving performance and recording entity founded by
Ava Louise Mahoney and Paul Blanchard in 2017. Melting soundscapes and shuddering loops, melodious folk hymns & hysterical chants.Chaotic cacophonies, falling towers and tales of ancient despair. Sinister sounds for the golden age

MUD DEATH
“Nothing rests; Everything moves; Everything vibrates.” “The all is mind; the universe is mental.” Lance Strickland is Mud Death.

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 new worlds. Their command over atmospheres transcend and reveal deep truths, that 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.

BLUE CHEESE
Blue Cheese swirls music and performance art in a crazed, erratic, charming, reflexive, humorous, sensual, scary, and oh, so, fun, fashion. The collective unconscious/non physical realms being channeled by Poppy ask to affect and alter your st8 of mind.

REUBEN DERRICK

Reuben Derrick is a saxophonist, clarinettist and composer. His ongoing projects in New Zealand include various and eclectic creative music groups, sound design, as well as multi-disciplinary collaboration. He is a member of the Cantabrian Society of Sonic Artists for which he hosts visiting artists and facilitates experimental music events.

Recently Reuben performed in Sydney and Melbourne with Baliphonics and the Australian Art Orchestra; Vienna, Ljubljana and Zagreb with Irene Kepl (2019); The Nowhere Festival (Auckland, 2018); Radio Asia Festival with Baliphonics (Warsaw, 2018) and at the Music Matters Festival (Colombo, 2016) with Sri Lankan folk musicians and other international artists. He was awarded a fellowship to the Music Omi residency (New York, 2015), where he collaborated with 13 other musicians from around the world.

Reuben’s Doctor of Musical Arts research Acoustic illuminations: recorded space as soundscape composition (University of Canterbury 2014) draws upon field recording and improvisation. This work featured soundscapes in New Zealand, Australia and Sri Lanka.

MOTOKO KIKKAWA

Motoko Kikkawa is regarded as one of the Ōtepoti-underground’s most prolific and versatile exponents. Her presence across noise, contemporary classical, free improvisation and quasi-ritual fields on violin, voice and atmospheres is as recognisably unique and identifiable as it is sympathetic, musical and adaptive. Notable projects include The Ladder is Part of the Pit and Ray Off, though Kikkawa’s collaborations are essentially impossible to track!

DRUM POWER ENSEMBLE

Drummers! And Effects buddies!