Music – Page 2 – Project DIVFUSE

Sonic Pop Meditation : Janine A’Bear [PAST]

Performance :

29 January Saturday 2022 6-7pm [This event was rescheduled from December 2011]

Ticket: £5 . 10 seats only. To buy tickets, please email divfuse@gmail.com for payment information. There will be small choices of non-alcoholic drinks for sale on site.

Janine A’Bear will perform a deep meditative AV set of new and unreleased material in an intimate setting at Project DIVFUSE. Combining processed vocal loops, deep psychedelic arpeggiated synth patterns layered with unique rhythms and distorted recordings.

A’Bear is a multi continental avant synth electronic producer and DJ making cosmic inspired piqued out pop layered through with messed up frenetic beats. South African born, Australian raised, and London grown, Janine A’Bear’s music production and live performances encourage inclusivity and feminist utopia on the dance floor. Described by Resident Advisor as ‘wonderfully unhinged’, A’bear combines psychedelic polyrhythms with distorted bass lines and warped vocals. Trained in gong meditation A’Bear explores her deep connection with the chaos of sound leaving her unique imprint across diverse activities including: her regular radio show EastBlenders with Lia Mice on Threads Radio, on Bristol’s Noods and guest spots on Netil, New Rivers, NTS and Red Light radio; hypnotic live analogue synth club sets; and transcendental track releases on labels including Elestial Sound (USA) and Система (RU).

A Tape Recorder Quartet : Robin The Fog [PAST]

Live sound generation + Tape loop creation + Performance

12 February 2022 Saturday 6-7:30pm [This event was rescheduled from December 2011]

Ticket: £5 . 10 seats only. To buy tickets, please email divfuse@gmail.com for payment information. There will be small choices of non-alcoholic drinks for sale on site or simply BYO beer.

Project DIVFUSE is pleased to present our second event under our curatorial series Sound Meta, which celebrates sound making through performances or workshops. Join us for a unique event where tape loops will take over the entire venue – and the audience will be expected to help hold it all together!

Robin The Fog is a Cumbrian sound artist and audio producer based in London. He is the founding member of Howlround, a project that creates recordings and performances entirely by manipulating sounds on a quartet of vintage reel to reel tape recorders, with all additional effects strictly forbidden – no samples, no synths, no pedals, no plug-ins. Howlround’s eighth studio album will be released in 2022.

RobinTheFog.com | Howlround.co.uk

Image by Victoria Hastings

London 26 and 28 March 2020: imitation: inversion : Caroline Kraabel [PAST]

Exhibition:

11 March 2022 Friday 3-7pm. Artist will be at the gallery 4:30-6:30pm on 11 March.

12 & 13 March 2022 Saturday & Sunday 2-6pm

Free Entry

A sound-film by Caroline Kraabel

‘This 40-minute Ivor Award-winning film (Sound Art category), my first, started with shots of London during the first UK Covid 19 Lockdown (the strict phase of which began on 23 March 2020), taken on my phone during “permitted exercise” (cycling), so my children would have a record of the unfamiliar stillness of their city at a time we now have ingrained in our memories for its sudden difference, and for the surfacing of fear, grief, and love it brought about.

I kept coming back to these shots of quiet streets: who was missing, who was still there, what was revealed when the tide of sound and activity went out?

I undertook to make sense of these images by playing their sounds, and their absence of sounds:

The shots from 26 March are “imitated”. On the alto saxophone I have recreated as many as possible of the original sounds from the audio on my phone-shots, and thus replaced the original audio.

For the shots from 28 March I replaced the original audio, too, “inverting” it.

I aimed to make music that was in a definable way the OPPOSITE of the actual sounds recorded on my phone.

First I divided the original audio into six “strips”, covering six separate frequency ranges, from low to high. Then I recorded six “strips” of sax and bass chords, again from low to high, and matched the highest sax/bass strip with the lowest original strip, the second highest with the second lowest, the third highest with the third lowest.

I used the dynamics of the original “strips” to control the sound on the corresponding sax and bass strips, ducking out the chords where there was a sound on the original, and leaving the chords present when there was no sound on the original. Then I muted the original audio tracks for all but a few dramatic seconds of the “inversion” section.

33Hz Sonic Orgasm : Mark Wagner [PAST]

Exhibition:

1 April 2022 Friday 4-8pm

2 & 3 April Saturday & Sunday 3-7pm

Free Entry

33Hz Sonic Orgasm is an interactive installation based on the modern folklore of 33Hz being the most arousing frequency. Using transducers and subwoofers mounted to a seat, Wagner ‘plays’ the saddle with frequencies, waves and sweeps using octaves, harmonics and overtones of 33Hz.

Though it can effectively trigger an orgasm, the project is first and foremost a playful and sensual sound experience with mystical implications.

Indeed, the number 33 is of great esoteric significance, pertaining to the nodal points of the central vortex or Kundalini. The sound travels from the root through the body and chakras resulting in an energetic ‘massage’ that can be just as much spiritual as sensual.

The experience is tailor made live adapting to each participant regardless of gender to create a unique experience…. Participants will be invited in turn into the intimate gallery space for the experience which lasts 10 – 15 minutes. The interactive installation has been presented in Geneva and Barcelona and this will be its UK public premiere.

Kingdom Loops 2002–2020 : Toby Kaufmann-Buhler [PAST]

Exhibition:

22 April 2022 Friday 4-8pm (Artist will be at the gallery 6-8pm)

23 & 24 April Saturday & Sunday 2-6pm (Artist will be at the gallery 3-5pm both days)

Running time : 29 minutes. Free Entry

Keys to the Kingdom 2002

The windows of our third floor flat overlooked the constant bustle of Hammersmith Broadway, and this view became the object of fascination for the two years we lived there. Constant traffic, masses of people, mass transportation and mass surveillance overlaid our life there. All of this (particularly the latter aspect) inspired me to set up a camera at the window, and frame as much of the activity as it could gather. One result was this video, made quickly in early 2002.

Sawing the Kingdom 2020

In the summer of 2020 and amidst the ongoing pandemic, I revisited video footage shot at Hammersmith Broadway from September 2003 (this time two shots recorded over two hours). I took a bifurcated approach to the imagery, similar to the 2002 video (altering the speed), and also manipulating the video through software effects to highlight and play with the density of activity in the frame. For the sound in this video I used an approach with singing saw (manipulated by software); the saw has been an important part of my practice for many years, and this sound has an affinity with the traffic and environmental sound of the original video.

– Toby Kaufmann-Buhler

S☉N OF THE SUN : Mark Wagner + Blanc Sceol [PAST]

Live Performance :

15th July Friday 2022 7-8:30pm

£3 Entry to be paid at the door. This event will take place at the open space of Tilia Road studios. BYOB

Mark Wagner presents S☉N OF THE SUN a ritual-performance based on Hermeticism and the Great Work of Alchemy, featuring live electronica.

This is the second time Wagner performs at Project DIVFUSE. His debut performance at the space, 33Hz Sonic Orgasm, brought new connections between sound and body.

Playing in the open yard on the same evening is Blanc Sceol, (artists Stephen Shiell and Hannah White). They will perform with voice, fujara and bells.

‘We’re all going to die, is it ok? A lament for the body, a cyclical sinking into earth and stone, and becoming again in wood and air.’