Friday 1 December 2023, 7.30pm
Cafe OTO and C.A.N.V.A.S. present an event to mark five years of the record label’s activities with performances from C.A.N.V.A.S co-founders Lugh O’Neill and Olan Monk joined by C.A.N.V.A.S. artists Elvin Brandhi and Alpha Maid.
Elvin brandhi is an improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist from Bridgend, Wales making auto-tune blast beats from field recordings, tapes, instruments and voice. Live shows are unyielding bursts of erupting animation where her caustic stream of consciousness cavorts with restless, glitched out heaviness.
Her first E.P ‘Shelf life’ was released on ‘C.A.N.V.A.S’ in 2018. She one half of father / daughter noise-improv berserkers Yeah You who released on Alter, Slip, Opal, Psychik Dancehall and Good Food. She also performs in collaborations such as ‘Bad@Maths’ who also released on Slip, ‘INSIN’ who released their first E.P ‘Sadsun’ on Hizz, and unreleased projects such as ‘Gailvn Keiln’, ‘OCDC’ and ‘0n est Malade’.
https://canvas-index.bandcamp.com/album/shelf-life
Lugh O’Neill’s work navigates an eerie and evocative space formed by the overlap between what is recognisably tangible and familiar and the aseptic sterility of the digital - the separation of which is continuously and progressively challenged.
In recent performance and installation works, Lugh has focused on emphasising the potential of spatialisation in sound and music composition - while composition is traditionally conceived over the spectra of frequency and time, Lugh’s work focuses on space as another dimension in which sound and music composition is written.
As co-founder of C.A.N.V.A.S. — a record label and events series — Lugh has released his own works such as the Re Munus LP, directed the research based Cipher and Apocope compilation LPs, and co-produces other works released on the label.
Olan Monk is a musician, performer and writer from Connemara, Ireland. They co-founded C.A.N.V.A.S. with Lugh O’Neill as an events series and record label, established in 2018 to give collective agency to an increasingly dispersed community of artists.
Their practice involves experimental and popular songwriting, performing as a solo act and in collaboration with other musicians, including recordings and performances with Actress, Ashley Paul, Elvin Brandhi, James K, Maria Somerville and Michael Speers. Past releases include Love/Dead (2020) and Auto Life (2021) on C.A.N.V.A.S. and Dubplate 08 (2022) on AD 93.
Alpha Maid (aka Leisha Thomas) is a guitarist, vocalist, and producer from South London. Alpha Maid's debut EP 'Spy' (2019) was released by the collective/label CURL, whose live shows she would also perform in. She continues to collaborate in various forms with fellow members such as Ben Vince, Coby Sey and Mica Levi. Alpha Maid's debut vinyl release 'CHUCKLE' EP (2021) was released on the C.A.N.V.A.S. collective/label, and garnered significant critical attention. In spring 2023 Alpha Maid teamed up with Mica Levi to self-release their joint EP ‘spresso’.
