Friday 27 May 2022, 8pm
Thomas Ankersmit is a musician based in Berlin and Amsterdam. He plays the Serge Modular analogue synthesizer, both live and in the studio, and collaborates with artists like Phill Niblock and Valerio Tricoli.
His music is released on the Shelter Press, PAN, and Touch labels, and combines intricate sonic detail and raw electric power, with a very physical and spatial experience of sound. Acoustic phenomena such as infrasound and otoacoustic emissions (sounds emanating from inside the head, generated by the ears themselves) play an important role in his work, as does a deliberate, creative misuse of the equipment.
For this concert he will perform new, loosely structured solo material that’s perhaps more cinematic and musique concrète than his earlier work - a project commissioned by Cafe OTO.
A music of scenes, spaces, sonic perspectives - all of it performed on the Serge Modular analogue synthesizer: no samples, no field recordings, no digital effects. The music exists in the tension between abstraction and representation - with Ankersmit trying to 'breathe life' into the electricity, as it were.
At the same time, he’s approaching the synthesizer as an ensemble, sometimes referencing traditional instruments as well (horns, strings, percussion).
“Quicksilver mastery of the Serge Modular Synthesizer … The piece is gorgeous and visceral, balancing tonal bite with supernovas of sound, and deploying a grasp of dynamics and scale to fill the space with something worthy of its sheer grandeur.” – The WIRE
Beachers is the project of London-based Daryl Worthington. He works in the crossovers between accidental and composed sounds, hi and lo-fi audio, with a particular interest in the beauty of the mundane. This takes an array of approaches, from explorations of the materiality and ritual of radio signals through to analogue synthesis, field recording and musique concrete explorations, cassette collages and sample-based computer music. Beachers releases have appeared on czaszka (rec.), Shimmering Moods, Fractal Meat, Never Anything Records and Still Heat Recordings.
“When I think about the three Beachers releases I’ve heard, the main connective tissue is the underlying curiosity. Worthington is an explorer. He never seems settled, but there’s a certain comfort in the fluidity of his sound. As a listener, it keeps me guessing and excited about where the road will take the project next.” Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis
"Beachers couldn’t have planned to tune into a broadcast of wailing violins (or operatic voices?) on The Interview's “Happiness Isn’t in the Struggle”, yet his decision to swathe the harmonies within folds of static, denying the listener the beauty of the full signal, is both masterful and heartbreaking." Jack Chuter, ATTN Magazine
“Beachers' All Houses Are Haunted is, to me, astounding. It covers so much ground while retaining a specific vision, it’s just magical. There are moments of strange ambient stillness punctuated by gated vocal recordings, possibly radio snippets, but that’s a guess.” Aidan Hanratty, Bandcloud
https://beachers.bandcamp.com/
