Futuresonic 2006 - Update
The_Look
technical reasons. However, the rest of the list remained the same,
which I'm posting here one more time:
Futuresonic 2006, the annual festival of electronic music and arts,
Manchester, UK, 20-23 July.
Participants of the programme:
Drew Hemment, Futuresonic
David Gunn, Manchester Peripheral
Tom Davis, Manchester Peripheral
Victor Gama, Pangeia Instrumentos (Portugal)
Lee Gosnay, Broad-minded
Shaun Vinylment, All the Colours of the Dark
John Redmon, All The Colours of the Dark
Matt Cameron (aka 273, aka bit56), Ninja Tune
Alexandra
Clint (Australia)
Below is a short summary, together with useful links, which I decided
not to separate from one another.
Drew Hemment, Futuresonic - www.futuresonic.com
2006 was the 10th anniversary of Futuresonic. Having originated in
Leeds, Futuresonic subsequently moved to Manchester (which, as a matter
of fact, had beaten out such strong contenders, as London and Glasgow).
This year's festival was taking place almost across the entire city,
from the Academy 2 at the Manchester University through several venues
in Castlefield to the Northern Quarter. The main place of activity,
however, was in the 1832 Warehouse at the Museum of Science and
Industry in Castlefield, which housed exhibitions and displays and was
the venue for the artists' talks and a conference. From there the
visitors and participants (easily distinguished by red wristbands)
would migrate to various music venues, like Odd Bar, Academy 2, Common,
Simple, The Bierkeller, to name but a few. Preparation is already going
on for the next year, and neither Drew nor the Futuresonic team are
showing any signs of fatigue.
David Gunn, Tom Davis, Alastair Dant - www.manchesterperipheral.com
The LOOK has combined the birds' trills and The Rossoneri performance
in Chorlton area with a canine barking grumpily in Levenshulme.
Manchester Peripheral is the trio's second work under the broad title
The Folk Songs Project. The first instalment of the project was carried
out in New York and was called Folk Songs for the Five Points,
commemorating the sounds of NY's Lower East Side and - the music of
Victor Gama. The website to go to is http://www.tenement.org/folksongs/
Victor Gama - www.victorgama.org, www.pangeiart.org,
www.pangeiainstrumentos.org
To sum up what is being written about Victor, he is an Angolan of
Portuguese origin, a composer, designer and sound artist, who for many
years has been creating Pangeia Instrumentos and who fronts PangeiArt,
a non-profit transnational association of artists, musicians, academics
and people from South America, Africa and the Caribbean.
With Victor's kind permission, The LOOK used a track called 'Mundo de
Aventuras' (World of Adventures) from his 2001 CD 'Oceanites
Erraticus', which is a musical geo-fiction. 2007 will have seen the
release of its second part.
To Futuresonic in Manchester Victor brought two of his Pangeia
Instrumentos - a totemic harp (Toha) and a Southern Cross. You can view
some images at www.pangeiart.org in the 'Pangeia Instrumentos'
section. It unfortunately doesn't contain the story of creation of the
totemic harp, which Victor told at his presentation. The idea was to
call for birds that have left Angola during the war to return home.
This poetic and inspiring story allows in fact to look at the harp not
simply as an object of art or a musical instrument, also as a poem per
se that has acquired a tangible physical form.
Finally, in 2003 Rephlex released Victor's album, Pangeia Instrumentos.
There are many reviews of it on the English internet, but I thought
I'd bring up this French review, for a change,
http://www.liabilitywebzine.com/?ac=non&contenu=viewchr&id=643
In case if you don't read in French, here is an abridged translation:
Victor Gama is of Portuguese origin, but was born in Angola. This
undoubtedly explains his profound interest in the traditional music of
this country. The Pangeia Instrumentos are acoustic musical
instruments, sonic mechanisms or yet installations created by V. Gama.
They are inspired by the phenomenon of a metamorphosis occurring to
traditional musical instruments through various migrations and
peregrinations. It might be strange to find this CD being released by
such label as Rephlex, which is better known for its albums of
electronic music. And yet the choice can be easily explained by sheer
beauty of the whole concept. The minimalism of this album, and the form
as well as the resonances of V. Gama's compositions, is at times
similar to subtle and lucid electronic pieces... Pangeia Instrumentos
is at the cross-roads of neo-futurist music and the cultural tradition
that dates back to the quasi-ancestral times... Here is the disc that
is... marked by its originality and creative spirit, and there is a lot
to be gained, if one ventures into its universe.
Lee Gosnay - www.broad-minded.com
Lee presented 'Persona' at the Simple Bar in Tib Street, a fusion
of styles from jazz to electronic music. Lee's own cherished project
is called 'Broad-minded', and is a non-profit organization
dedicated to the promotion of music and charity work. You can read his
biography on the website (click on the Moon planet at the top of the
page), as well as learn about many projects that Broad-minded has
developed and been involved in. Among these is the support that Lee
dons to the Huntington's Disease Association.
Sean Vinylment - http://www.myspace.com/pookawig and Johnny Redmon -
http://www.lovelockandload.com put up 'All the Colours of the
Dark', a celebration of Italian cinema, especially of the genres of
Giallo and poliziesco. Do visit Sean's and Johnny's websites for a
selection of films, tunes and news. If you decide to live up to
Johnny's hopes and become interested in these kinds of films, start
your education with a visit to Wikipedia's pages,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giallo and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliziesco.
Special thanks to Susie Stubbs, Alexandra, Clint, and Matt Cameron (aka
bit56, aka 273, Ninja Tune).