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September 2007

Hello

Freshly landed from the beautiful landscape of Kristiansand, Norway.

Some months are busy, some are spent traveling from city to city, airport to station, hotel to hotel, but this last month has been an exceptional one.

August began with preparations and recording for Kirikou & Karaba, a musical based on an African folk tale where a newborn boy saves his village by ridding the world of Karaba, the evil sorceress. The original award-winning animation by Michel Ocelot is now being turned into a stage musical, directed and choreographed by Wayne McGregor, which I’m composing music and sound-designing for still. With 100 shows already confirmed at Casino de Paris and a short run in Lyon, the pressure has certainly been on everyone to produce the highest quality work in a very compressed time. Surreal moments included hissing into my laptop to emulate sensual snake sounds and grunting like a pig to produce playful animal sounds for one episode in the performance. Apparently Kirikou will then begin an international tour over the following 14 years!

With barely a moment to wash my smalls, I was whisked off to Moscow for the Linoleum Festival at the prestigious Kino 35mm cinema, the home of many art house films and events. I presented my 52 Spaces project in honour of Michelangelo Antonioni, and then enjoyed the extreme temperatures of the city whilst exploring the museums and metro, ‘the palace of the people’. With a hotel overlooking Red Square I was absolutely spoilt with regards to the geography of the city. Unfortunately somewhere in my adventures I caught a very malicious virus that began in my stomach, and moved slowly through my body, reducing me to a blurry shape, and one week was spent feeling rather sorry for myself and bonding with the bathroom.

Then it was directly to Brussels for the inauguration of Les Brigittines, a striking baroque chapel, now doubled up with a modernist twin extension to the original building. I performed a live soundtrack to a film work of celebrated French director Régis Cotentin, a mysterious film about lost identity and women, all whilst wondering if I’d simply fall over on stage from this Russian bug in my system.

Over to Dresden for this outdoor Electronic Garden event which was marvelous, a chance to re-visit a city I’d not explored in over two decades, one that has radically altered with such an ambitious re-building programme. Cakes, mosquitoes, a black out at night, faultless organisation and sleeping on a water bed! Such an exotic adventure! And finally to Kristiansand Norway for the dynamic Punkt Festival where David Rothenberg and I remixed the subdued smoky sound of melodious singer Solveig Slettahjell with the Slow Motion Quintet, the perfect soundtrack to an imaginary David Lynch lounge moment. Outstanding performances by J. Peter Schwalm, Joanna MacGregor, Jan Bang with Erik Honoré and Michiyo Yagi left strong impressions on my memory, as did meeting so many impressive artists!

Frequent shoppers may have noticed the modernisation of Posteverything.com where much of my back catalogue can be found. Now you have the ability to listen tracks in full on the radio link. It’s the place to find all that unusual quirky Scanner rare back catalogue, just in time for the coming winter nights.

Out this month too is the debut EP from Maninkari, a band out of Paris, who I remixed to produced a cinematic extravaganza. Alongside Justin Broadrick (Final, Techno Animal, Godflesh, Jesu) it’s a mesmerizing dense frenzied release out on Conspiracy Records, combining original works with strings and percussion that unites The Dirty Three with Philip Glass, Circle with Schnittke. Enjoy the darkness!

For rock and roll amusement, we at Githead central are preparing for a tour later this year, and have recently added a video for ‘Drive By’ to the downloads page. It’s a playful video, with the entire content shot on mobile phones and still cameras, with footage from Vienna, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. There’s also a whole bunch of new downloads at the site, with wallpapers, lots of new photos and so on. Spoil yourself for free.

For any London oriented folks there’s a fun FREE show coming up this very week at Tate Britain on Friday 07 September 2007, where David Toop, Steve Beresford and myself will be collaborating on two separate live shows. Though free you’ll still need to pick up a ticket from the information desk from 18.00 to ensure entry, as space is limited. Making our debut as a trio, we’ll be mixing music with stories, attempting the impossible by playing amplified devices and seeing where the stories take them.

In between I’m off to Lyon to work on Kirikou a little more, to Derry Ireland to present my work in lecture form,  and continue a host of other absurd activities. Perhaps I might even sleep for a moment :-)

Best wishes

Robin

::: listen :::
Canon Blue:Colonies (Rumraket)
Efterklang: Parades (Leaf)
Dinosaur Jr: Beyond (PIAS)
Alog: Amateur (Rune Grammofon)

::: read :::
Robert Lowell: Collected Poems (Faber)
Chris Marker: Staring Back (MIT)
Shooting Back catalogue (Thyssen-Bornemisza)
Dream & Trauma catalogue (Hatje Cantz)

::: film:::
Broken English, Zoe Cassavettes, USA
Sunshine, Danny Boyle, UK
The Good Night, Jake Paltrow, USA
Grey Gardens, Maysles Brothers, USA


Exhibitions

Klusterblock
TONSPUR 21
Artist-in-Residence
Passage
Museumsquartier Vienna Austria
FREE
Daily 10.00-20.00

22 July - 31 October

This sound installation explores an idea of the ensemble voice. Traditional choirs use a series of voices to compliment each other in an elegant formation, but here you listen to the singular voice of the artist in a choral manner. Using breaths and pauses within the piece to echo around this open location, the work suggests a collision between physical space and the human voice.

Klusterblock, a playful amalgam of German/English, suggests the use of the voice as a wall of sound, leaving subtle traces of the human, embedding the walls with harmonies of an imaginary nature.

www.tonspur.at
www.mqw.at


Night Haunts
By Sukhdev Sandhu
Design Mind Unit
Sound Design Scanner

Artangel Interaction invited writer and historian Sukhdev Sandhu to write a nocturnal journal unfolding over the course of 2006. His postings will appear sequentially at this microsite specially designed by Mind Unit. Sandhu's forays see him prospecting in the London night with the people who drive its pulse, from the avian police to security guards, zookeepers and exorcists. Acclaimed artist and musician Scanner has collaborated with Sukhdev and Ian Budden of Mind Unit to compose the sound for the site. If you would like to be kept informed as each episode is posted, join artangel's mailing list by clicking here .

www.nighthaunts.org.uk
www.artangel.org.uk



Bittersweet Songs for the Sleepless City
Artangel Interaction

NightJam is the latest project in Artangel Interaction’s Nights of London series of artist-led collaborations with people who have a special view on a hidden side of the nocturnal city. Scanner invited young people at New Horizon Youth Centre in King’s Cross to collaborate on a creative project that expresses how the city at night looks and sounds to their ears and eyes. Through music and voice workshops they explored the sense of freedom and fear, celebration and solitude of the concealing darkness. Meanwhile, they captured their nights on disposable cameras, taking images that are at times eerie, startling, contemplative and funny. NightJam presents two elusive visual and musical journeys through the city’s ‘quiet’ hours.

NightJam presents two music tracks, a film, photographs, that can be experienced and freely downloaded. A limited edition CD is also being distributed for free through the website. Now featuring remixes of NightJam by Stephen Vitiello, Hakan Lidbo, Troy Banarzi, Si-cut.db and Pete Lockett.

www.nightjam.org.uk