Hello
It feels a little odd writing this in the wake of two deaths in the last days. My good friends, the turntablist musician Philip Jeck, and the musician Mira Calix, both passed away within hours of one another in the last week. These moments offer a time of reflection, working through your own history and connections.
As ever, I try to move forward positively, even in a world where in the blink of an eye, it feels like everything can just suddenly change. After two years of quieter moments during the Pandemic finally projects are returning and there’s a sense of optimism in there, at least, too.
My show finally took place at EartH in London with my old friend Christian Fennesz. After four previous cancellations, it almost felt like time-travelling sharing the stage for that night to a capacity crowd. The atmosphere was just amazing on the night, and hope that those of you who were able to attend enjoyed it as much as we did. Ironically, it seems like that Christian and I will perform another show together in Vienna in the next month, but at the time of writing that can’t be confirmed 100%.
I was also delighted to present a new sound installation at the Greengrassi Gallery in London, for the group show ‘I <3 your output.’ The surround sound work presented a reworking of archival recordings of mine and early releases into a new montage. It offered spectral rushes of noise, lush ambient tones and delightfully haunting voyeuristic telephone conversations dislocate, transporting you to a space of trespassed signals and crossed wires.
I have made this into a special release exclusively available at my Bandcamp site, with an accompanying film too. You can pick up the complete digital edition from the 1st April here.
My new live album La Fenêtre Magique is officially available this month on Werra Foxma Records. As I wrote before, this is a recording a radio session I created for Steven Anderson’s last ever weekly ‘Magic Window’ radio show in August of 2021, not knowing how many people might hear this at the time.
The album is available digitally and on white vinyl, exclusively at their Bandcamp account. Please be patient for it to appear on streaming services as that will follow in a few months’ time.
Le Son 7 closes this week in Buenos Aires. It’s an exhibition of sonic art works, all for sale, that was previously shown in Paris last year. The exhibition features new works from Burnt Friedman, Kathy Hinde, Caroline Devine, KMRU, Stephen Vitiello and many more.
The works, created exclusively for the gallery and all unique editions, include improvisation, found-sounds, field recordings, sonification and sound poetry. This is an opportunity to hear and acquire the sound art in person. In October a new exhibition will take place in London, so really hope to see many of you at this one.
April begins with a performance of Stockhausen’s Aus Den Sieben Tagen (1968) at DOX in Prague. Interestingly, the work itself was a reaction to the global and personal crises that took place in the period of its composition. The music was created primarily on the basis of intuition, rather than the technique of its performers, and is a felt, natural attempt to solve psychological difficulties and challenges.
I’m performing this as part of a truly amazing ensemble of musicians, including Motorpsycho drummer Tomas Jarmyr, Gareth Davis (Merzbow, Christian Marclay), Roland Dahinden (Miles Davis, Anthony Braxton), Dario Calderone (Klangforum Wien), Agathe Max (Rhys Chatham, Animal Hospital) and Czech singer Markéta Schaffartzik.
Last time we performed this in Den Haag at the Rewire Festival in The Netherlands it felt like the roof of the building flew off, it was that powerful. I’m thrilled to have another opportunity to share this extraordinary work. And hopefully in other places in 2022 too.
At the end of April, I’m thrilled to be premiering new work with another friend of mine, Ben Kelly, as part of Future Shock at 180 the Strand in London in April. Ben is best known for his interior design of the legendary nightclub, The Haçienda in Manchester. His practice has produced influential work for Virgil Abloh, The Sex Pistols, The V&A, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, Factory Records, 4AD, The Science Museum, The Design Council, The Natural History Museum, Gymbox and BIMM. So, it’s an absolute honour to create this new work with him.
I am creating the soundtrack for the installation you can see in the photo here scoring the films beside the sculptures, which display thousands of images of Roman columns around the world. The show also includes new works from Ryoichi Kurokawa, Caterina Barbieri, Actual Objects, United Visual Artists, 404.zero, Gaika, Tundra, Ben Kelly and Weirdcore with Aphex Twin. It should be a fun show! Book tickets here.
Nine Earths, my new work with British audio-visual innovators, will be showing at Sonar 2022 in Lisbon Portugal from 8-10 April. D-Fuse’s highly collaborative projects include immersive installations, experimental film, animation, live AV performances, and VR/XR.
Nine Earths is an environmental documentary that looks into the relationship between our collective and individual habits and the future of our planet. As alarmist as it is empowering, it’s an extraordinary audiovisual work. We just showed it in Indonesia in a spectacular space too. I hope that some of you might get to experience it!
Given the horrendous situation in Ukraine at present I’ve also done my best to offer support. In collaboration with Werra Foxma Records we auctioned off a unique one-off test pressing of my new album, signed, which sold for over £1200. And then I contributed exclusive material to this special compilation which has already raised about $10k for the Red Cross. 199 tracks for just $12 is a bargain for certain. Pick it up here.
I had a little playtime in the studio again, and produced a few interesting little things. On receiving this wonderful Wingie instrument by Meng Qi in China I was inspired to get finger tapping and foil focused.
And then a few days later I explored this emulation of the ARP 2500 synthesiser. The ARP 2500 was an analogue modular synthesiser created by ARP Instruments, manufactured from 1970 through 1981. I have come to accept that I will never own an original, so have built my own modest micro ARP 2500 using the recent Behringer remodels. This has probably saved me about £30k. And it sounds jolly nice too. Watch it here.
So, until May, I wish you well and thank you as ever for your support.
Best wishes
Professor Scanner
::: listen :::
Sonic Youth: In-Out-In (Three Lobed Recordings)
Johann Johannsson: Drone Mass (Deutsche Grammophon)
Carl Stone: Wat Dong Moon Lek (Unseen Worlds)
Josh Mason: Utility Music (Doepfer)
::: read :::
Jonny Trunk: The Music Library (Fuel)
Play it Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll (Yale)
Steve Reich: Conversations (Hanover)
Mark Fell: Structure and Synthesis -The Anatomy of Practice (Urbanomic)
::: watch :::
Red Rocket: Sean Baker
The Worst Person in the World: Joachim Trier
The Beta-Test: Jim Cummings
Session 9: Brad Anderson
