Tuesday 18 June 2024, 7.30pm
BILLA ENSEMBLE was formed in the winter of 2023 on the rare occasion of Michiu, the concept horse, Turmeric Acid and Marie Vermont coming together in Vienna. Coming from different musical backgrounds, a dedication to working with and manipulating magnetic tape in various forms (reel to reel, cassette, minicassette) ties the members together and informs the group‘s approach to music making, improvisation and listening. This shared approach is then broadened into different forms of electroacoustic and analog instrumentation in live performance through the use of bells, contact mics, mallets, feedback, analog synths, guitars and even odd handheld electronic kitchen devices.
Each member is active with diverse solo projects as well as curating small labels for experimental music on tape: Czaszka Records, Molt Fluid, Beach Buddies Records, eë editions.
Michiu / electric guitars
the concept horse / no input feedback, bells, reel to reel tape machine, dictaphone
Turmeric Acid / tapes, contact microphones, objects
Marie Vermont / contact mics, effects, keys, tetrax, tape, mallets, cymbal
Dan Michiu - Musician and graphic artist living and working in Bucharest, Romania. Active in the field of experimental music, with a specific focus on improvisation, he is an active solo performer or a participant in various Bucharest based units. Focusing mainly on playing electric guitar and tape players, he also operates the independent label Beach Buddies Records.
the concept horse composes and releases music constructed from an array of physical sound sources that relies as much on repetition and slight change as it does on analog error, chance and unrepeatability.
He co-organizes the concert series „knopfwissen“ in Vienna, runs the label eë editions and is one half of the duo IEOGM (w/ Marie Vermont). the concept horse has released solo and collaborative sounds on phncrs, flophouse, FALT, Gracious Host, Beach Buddies Records and czaszka [rec.]. Recent live performances in the USA, Austria and the Czech Republic.
Turmeric Acid is Michał Fundowicz, a listener, music enthusiast, occasionally musician. He‘s interested in exploring tape music and improvisation. Michał is one half of Free Magic Show. He runs Czaszka (Rec.) and Molt Fluid.
Marie Vermont has been making noise music with and without participants in various formations since 2007, currently with IEOGM (w/ the concept horse), Micro Mata (w/ RSMA) and others. Moving between music and visual arts, she combines electronic, unprogrammed analogue devices with tape, electroacoustics, cables and graphic scores in improvisation, as well as releasing cassettes as a means of reproduction. She co-organizes the concert series „knopfwissen“ in Vienna.
SW1n-HUNTER is the solo sonic project of artist/musician Adam Denton. His recorded output, released on labels such as Opal Tapes, Hard Return and Fort Evil Fruit, is a dérive through the workings of the network, where frazzled samples, redirected electricity and disarmingly joyful noise emerge from the media machine’s interior to create something “beautiful and unnerving” all at once. Live, Denton combines aspects of frequency sculpture, instrumental mutation, environmental recording, machine/human utterance, feedback systems, movement and decayed samples in his performances. Most recently live shows have manifested as unwieldy, improvised audio essays, often interwoven with textual video works, performed in places such as Sound of the End of the World in Rio de Janeiro (2023) and light beams under a bridge in London (2023).
When not performing and recording as SW1n-HUNTER, recent collaborative projects have included The Old Police House (2013-2021) with Mariam Rezaei, the Abandonments sonic research project in Slemani, Kurdistan region of Iraq with Hardi Kurda and Space21 Festival (2022), the Property Unknown tour with en creau, Dhangsha and Pokk! (2023), and No Hevdem at Sonorities Festival (2024).
Lucia H Chung is a Taiwanese artist based in London, United Kingdom. She performs and releases music under the alias ‘en creux’ where the sound creation springs from her fascinations in noise generated through no-input feedback mixing board. The volatile nature of the system and the unpredictable glitch from the excessive energy pouring into the equipment becomes her improvisational and compositional strategy.
Lucia’s passion lies in live performance and has regularly performed solo and with collaborators in the UK, Europe, Asia and North America, including Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival, Krama Festival, Lisboa Soa Festival, Sanatorium of Sound Festival and Festival Electropixel.
‘Fuzz comes alive, moving at odd angles like the sinuous threads are being chased by a series of subatomic bleeps and flashes. Tension rises as the tempo picks up, fueling the disjointed rhythmic quality within each sterile, self-contained unit.’ – Fox Digitalis
