The final event in our 2014 Series takes place on 28th November at VIVID Projects and features our fourth New Collaboration from composers Chris Herbert & Nicholas Bullen. We are delighted to have these two Birmingham based artists perform together for the first time at SOUNDkitchen, a commission made possible through the generous support of Sound and Music.
Drawing on their shared interest in field recordings and found sound Herbert & Bullen have been exchanging sounds that they will develop in an improvised performance with a focus on textural soundfields and extended listening.
Herbert’s work utilises the extensive manipulation of field recordings and found sounds scavaged from domestic environments. This musical pallate may be augmented with short-wave radio, degraded cassettes and processed guitar and cymbals. His resulting sound worlds drift into deep spaces of undulating tonal drones with waves of pulsating, crackling noise – abstract and absorbing.
Bullen works across a range of media including sound, text, film, installation and performance. Like Herbert, his sound performance focuses on the use of environmental field recordings which become the basis of fixed media acousmatic composition extended with real-time signal processing and live improvisation. Bullen’s recent release ‘Component Fixations’ on Type clearly demonstrates his interest in strategies for the transmutation of elements and systems of communication. His use of sound as material and its subsequent transformation, removing all traces of origin, produces works reminiscent of classic musique concrète.