Resonifying the city at Audacious

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Resonifying the cityOver three years ago the bells of Christchurch Cathedral ceased tolling when the iconic building was destroyed in the major earthquake that shook the New Zealand city in February 2011. In Resonifying the City, Stanier Black-Five brought this integral part of the city’s soundscape back for the weekend of the Audacious – Festival of Sonic Arts, which joined her ongoing installation in Colombo Street that reflects the sounds of a once noisy thoroughfare back into the street.

The earthquake transformed the city soundscape dramatically, for a while muting the noise of daily life and removing some familiar sounds altogether. Resonifyng the City returns sounds to their old locations through a series of installations created from archival material and personal recordings.

Many people in Christchurch miss the sound of the cathedral bells. These returned to haunt the ruins of the building, evoking a nostalgia for what has been lost. The CameraZOOM-20140302145808716juxtaposition of this sound from the past chiming in what is now a very different city also aimed to provoke reflection on the change that has occurred since the bells were last heard and pose questions about the past and its relevance to the present.

The sounds for the installations were recorded around Christchurch by Stanier Black-Five, except the historic Christchurch Cathedral bells recording, made and kindly donated by Mike Clayton.

Avast! NZ album launch at the Torpedo Boat Museum

Sunday 2nd February at 3-5pmTorpedo boat

Torpedo Boat Museum
Magazine Bay, Lyttelton

Avast! is the latest solo album by Lyttelton sound artist, Stanier Black-Five (Jo Burzynska), created from field recordings made around the port of her home town. Released on the European Entr’acte label, Burzynska is bringing Avast! back to its source for its New Zealand release at a launch event in February at Lyttelton’s Torpedo Boat Museum. This will feature a new live work based on her Lyttelton material and will also feature performances inspired by the port and the atmospheric Torpedo Boat bunker by Zeug Gezeugt and Regressor.

Sounds for Avast! were captured between 2009 and 2012 at sites around the natural amphitheatre of the extinct caldera: from the abandoned wartime gun emplacements on the top of the crater rim to the port and its cacophony of cargo ships, tugs and workshops. The work is also haunted by the resonance of buildings such as the Timeball Station, which were destroyed in the earthquakes.

Avast! is already starting to receive highly positive reviews in the European press since its release there in late 2013:

“Don’t be fooled by its mock-historical title, the album’s three pieces zero in on the disembodied sonic textures of modern capitalism. As ships dock and steel containers move in transit, engines whirr and grind, and relentless mechanical rhythms are punctuated with sundry creaks, bleeps and clangs.” Nick Cain, The Wire

 
Copies of Avast! will be available to purchase at the event at a special price and entry will be by donation to the Torpedo Boat Museum.

 

Body Waves Christchurch premiere & NZ album launch

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Seismogram picThursday, November 28, 2013
7:30pm

The Auricle presents an evening of seismic sound with Christchurch premiere performances of Stanier Black-Five and Zeug Gezeugt’s Body Waves – a work created from unique recordings of the Christchurch’s earthquakes – and Austrian artist, Klaus Filip’s 36 Days of Earthquake in Japan. The performances will be preceded by a talk by the artists on the music and acoustics of earthquakes.

Body Waves is a work created with the powerful field recordings of earthquakes and seismic phenomena made by Lyttelton sound artist, Stanier Black-Five near the epicentre of the February 22nd 2011 earthquakes. These will be tuned by local electroacoustic artist, Zeug Gezeugt to the unique resonant frequencies of the performance space, creating an infrasonic soundscape in which the audience is immersed in a visceral music that goes beyond the auditory system to be felt in the body.

Body Waves has generated considerable international interest and was the subject of a feature on TV3. After touring Body Waves around the world, the duo will be bringing it back to its Christchurch source for its first and final performance in the city. The event is celebrating the launch of their Body Waves album by the European Entr’acte label.

They will be joined on the bill by highly regarded Viennese performer, composer and programmer, Klaus Filip who will be performing 36 Days of Earthquake in Japan. In this sonification of the magnitude 9 Japan 2011 earthquake, Filip will be creating a live mix using raw seismological data from four different seismic stations played 4000 times fasterto make it audible.

Filip’s installation, Photophon is also being exhibited at the Auricle in the week leading up to the performance. Using the principle of Graham Bell’s invention of the “photophone”, the installation features a direct translation from sound into light and vice versa: you see what you hear, you hear what you see. Listen through headphones as the light signals are transformed into sound and every light bulb transmits a different frequency. The installation can be experienced on Sunday 24th: 2-5pm, Wednesday 27th 12-5pm & Thursday 28th 12-6.30pm

Artist Talk: 7.30pm
Performances start 9pm sharp ($5)

At The Auricle – 35 New Regent St, Christchurch CBD

Stanier Black-Five live with Merzbow

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Merzbow posterOne of the most extreme and uncompromising musicians of the 21st Century is coming to New Zealand this November, performing in Christchurch on 21st November at the Dux Live with Stanier Black-Five and Acclimate.

Delving deep into otherworldly extremes of industrial, metal machine noise and beyond, Merzbow’s blistering output runs the gauntlet of his definitive brand of Japanese noise – from charred and blackened subterranean lows to interstellar cosmic highs. Punishing, remorseless frequencies pour forth in a relentless onslaught of pure sound, decomposing electronic textures devolve into tsunamis of brutal guitar wreckage.

 

Stanier Black-Five (Lyttelton)
One of the noisiest women in New Zealand music, Stanier Black-Five has been performing her unique brand of industrial musique concrete across the world for over two decades. Her work is largely based on the manipulation of her own environmental recordings, which she uses to create dense soundscapes that use sources such as mesmerising aircraft drones to the pounding rhythms of trains and more recently the sounds of the earthquakes that have shaken her city. This will be her first performance on home turf since her tour of Europe this September to promote her recent album releases on the UK/Belgian Entr’acte label. www.stanierblackfive.com

Acclimate (Rotorua)
Without following clear guidelines, Acclimate marks its style by combining more aggressive and dark sounds of electronica with disorder and chaos, merging experimentation with confusion but managing to transmit a worthy solidity of the most academic artists. Noisy abrasive sounds collide with atmospheric patterns of tranquillity, layers of dark low-end rumblings hover over minimal textures of electronic experimentalism, and rusty and scratchy power noise beats clash with synthetic interstellar pad work to create a whole new dimension of sonic pleasure. www.samboygethelp.co.nz/#!acclimate 

Presale tickets available via Undertheradar – http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/utr/show/SID/34356/N/Altmusic-Presents-Merzbow-with-Acclimate-and-Stanier-Black-Five.utr

Special thanks to Asia New Zealand Foundation for their support of this tour.

Altmusic is a programme administered by the Audio Foundation www.audiofoundation.org.nz/altmusic with this tour part of Altmusic’s programme of independent & adventurous international musicians touring New Zealand in 2013 – special thanks to CNZ for their continued support.

 

 

Whakahou! at Club Jigoku, London

Jigoku flyerStanier Black-Five and Zeug Gezeugt celebrate the end of their European tour at Club Jigoku in London. This will be the UK premiere of their new collaborative work, Whakahou! – sounds rising from the rubble of the earthquake of a city’s demolition, deconstruction and reconstruction.

with

Cementimental
http://www.cementimental.com/

Mothers of the Third Reich
http://mothersofthethirdreich.bandcamp.com/

Plus TEAM PI$$ DJing rhythms from Rihanna to Genocide Organ; Nicki Minaj to Nocturnal Emissions; Gucci Mane to Esplendor Geometrico…

Free Entry

Catch Bar

22 Kingsland Road

London

E2 8DA.

http://thecatchbar.com/event/club-jigoku/