Wednesday 3 May 2023, 8pm
Laetitia Sadier and Marie Merlet - aka Iko Cherie – unite with Blanca Regina on improvisation electronics and objects and Pierre Bouvier Patron on visuals where they will explore aspects of their respective works with a view to expanding their sonic universe.
Sharon Gal, Lucie Stepankova and Greta Pistaceci will play a continuous and shapeshifting set, including various combinations and instrumentations and presenting changing dynamics and sounding(s)
Laetitia Sadier and Marie Merlet met in Bordeaux in the 2000s when they both worked on Laetitia's 'Monade' solo project. At that time, Marie was studying electro-acoustic composition and Laetitia had set up a studio in the Médoc region where Stereolab and other projects were recorded. They joined forces again in London, where they now live and continue collaborating.
Few musicians can claim to have made such a mark on the British music scene in the last thirty years as Laetitia Sadier. As a member of Stereolab, she’s released ten full albums, gaining along the way a large dedicated fanbase and acclaim that rightfully singles out Stereolab as "one of the most influential alternative bands of the '90s”. With influences as wide as Krautrock, bossa-nova and French pop, the band sculpted a truly original and distinctive sound, one that journalist Simon Reynolds describes as "always the same, always different". Solo, Sadier’s work is both a continuity of her time in Stereolab, and unafraid of change. Laetitia Sadier has collaborated with the likes of Mouse On Mars, Atlas Sound, The High Llamas, Blur and Common. She is one of the most innovative and influential musicians of our time.
Marie Merlet was born and raised in Bordeaux, where she maintained a close, continuous relationship with music while she was a film and electro acoustic student, playing in various bands and Djing weekly on the local radio station Nova Sauvagine. When she met Laetitia Sadier, Marie was involved in multiple projects: a girl-group covering sixties bands, a Washington DC influenced punk combo, and a few experimental electronic ventures. But when the then singer of Stereolab asked her to join Monade and they started recording and touring together, there was no turning back. Marie traded Bordeaux for London, where she has since continued her artistic journey following her broad musical interests. Guitarist in psychedelic cumbia outfit Malphino, member of HahaSounds Collective and player with the likes of Yama Warashi and Gina Birch, Marie also has a monthly residency on Soho radio where she celebrates women in music.
Spanish interdisciplinary artist, audiovisual designer and educator based in London, working across live performance, projection art, installation, sound and film. For over two decades she has developed spontaneous composition systems in which image, light and sound merge into a single field, drawing on traditions of free improvisation and expanded cinema. Her collaborators include Matt Black of Coldcut, Leafcutter John, Steve Beresford, Peter Cusack, Benedict Taylor, Mandhira de Saram and Laetitia Sadier. She is founder and Director of Unpredictable Series CIC and a member of LAC at Cruce Arte Contemporaneo in Madrid. She holds a PhD cum laude in Audiovisual Performance Art from URJC Madrid, and her work has been supported by Arts Council England, the British Council, Sound & Music and the Francis Chagrin Award.
Visual artist based in London, working between digital video and analogue film and exploring the boundaries between them through moving image works, performances and installations, with a background in experimental film, expanded cinema and documentary. He presents video screenings and performances both solo and in collaboration. His work has been shown at L'Atelier MTK in France, Cruce and Proyector Festival in Spain, Café OTO and Iklectik in London, Sowieso in Berlin, Zaal100 in Amsterdam, and in Mexico.
https://www.studiopierre.art
Lucie Stepankova (aka Avsluta) dedicates her creative practice to object-oriented improvisation, live performance, interactive installation, curation and DJing.
Inquiry about our being in, experiencing and interacting with the world through the lens of deep ecology and new materialism are at the core of her performative and installation works. Lucie co-creates with objects and natural materials, field recordings, electronics and digital processing to embody speculative narratives via sound-making. The general aim is to encourage audiences to engage in listening as an active-creative practice, reconnect with and manifest emotions, and forge a sense of interspecies solidarity and environmental responsibility.
Lucie performed in the UK and Europe in venues and festivals including Hangar Pirelli Bicocca [IT], Lunchmeat Festival [CZ], Cafe OTO [UK], IKLECTIK [UK], Waking Life [PT], LOM Space [SK] and Construction Festival [UA] among others.
She runs Introspective Electronics, a platform exploring the vast frontiers of ambient-inspired music and featuring regular radio shows and podcast series. Together with the London-based DJ and producer Alicia, Lucie co-curates Terra Obscura, a quarterly event series inspired by the new generation of ambient-tinged UK bass. In collaboration with Christian Duka and IKLECTIK, she co-organises SONIC GARDEN, a series of experimental ambient and downtempo events at IKLECTIK's Old Paradise Yard.
Greta Pistaceci is a multidisciplinary artist, performer and improviser.
In her musical performances, be they solo or group improvisations, she is equally at home in unrestrained noise and excess as in sparse, contemplative and controlled sound. She has performed extensively both solo and with a variety of acts including recurring appearances with the A Band, Paradise Yard, Unknown Devices, and alongside members of Arco.
She has also created performance scores: most notably for Ingrid Plum’s project Taut, as well as performing Stillness, her own sound art composition for two or more theremins and thereminists (in enclosed spaces), at venues including Supernormal 2019. Her favourite performance was as a member of a specially convened ensemble playing Pauline Oliveros' "To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation" at the Her Noise: Feminisms and the Sonic event at Tate Modern in 2012.
Greta also has an ultra-lo-fi DIY alter-ego called Modersohn-Becker and has been in a long-running noise duo with Smike Anthony Bardwell called Earth Creature. She has been obsessed with the improvising group Alterations for over a decade, to the point her 2011 dissertation was mostly about them and has as a result (and with much pride) contributed liner notes to their 2016 CD box set.
Sharon Gal is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, vocalist and composer, specialising in free improvisation, experimental music and collaborative, participatory large group compositions. She works with voice, electronics, extended techniques, field recordings, found audio, video and collage; exploring presence, listening, embodiment, and the relationship between people, sound and space. Sharon performs solo and in collaborations with: David Toop, John Butcher, John Edwards, Sue Lynch, Andie Brown, Yoni Silver, Steve Beresford, Phil Minton, Charles Hayward, Anat Ben David and Lina Lapelyte.
Since 2007 she has directed a series of site specific, large group compositions, inviting musicians and non-musicians to take part. She curated music concerts, including the series Sound Matter, at Café OTO, and concerts at Iklectik arts lab. Her music was released by many labels, including five solo albums and various collaborations.
Past performances include The V&A, ICA, The Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Modern & Tate Britain, MACBA, and Colour Out Of Space, Borealis, Supernormal, Supersonic, TUSK and Tectonics festivals.
Etudes by Sharon Gal, a collection of text & colour scores, presented as a deck of 78 cards, was supported by Sound and Music and published in 2021. Her project, Healing Choir, ran @ the Kilburn Tin Tabernacle between August-October 2024.
https://www.sharon-gal.com/
https://sharongal.bandcamp.com
