Cuspeditions presents: HISS & VISCERA (AUDREY CHEN & RICHARD SCOTT) + Partial:Recall
On the face of it the human voice and analogue synthesizer may appear to have little in common but Audrey Chen and Richard Scott share an intuitive, corporeal and dynamic sound world out of which an intense and sustained musical conversation develops. Phrases and interjections bounce and ricochet between Chen’s vivid lexicon of glottal pops, rasps and expulsions and Scott’s exhaustive catalogue of electronic clangs, plosives and propulsions. The resultant musical conversation may not always seem entirely human in origin, conjuring sonic images of stories, languages and environments populated by many unearthly creatures, real or imagined.
Support comes from......
Partial:Recall
Partial:Recall is the first iteration of a group exploring compositions that focus on memory and organisation in improvising. At this moment in time it is formed by a quartet of Ecka Mordecai (Cello), Michael Perrett (Bass Clarinet), Sam Weaver (Modular Synthesiser) and Otto Willberg (Double Bass). Partial Recall tries to test and push our abilities to listen and interact with what we hear around us. Is is also very much a work in progress, and will hopefully remain that way for a long time to come.
AUDREY CHEN is a 2nd generation Chinese/Taiwanese-American musician who was born into a family of material scientists, doctors and engineers, outside of Chicago in 1976. Parting ways with the family convention, she turned to the cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training in both instruments, with a resulting specialization in early and new music, she parted ways again in 2003 to begin new negotiations with sound in order to discover a more individually honest aesthetic.
Since then, using the cello, voice and occasional analog electronics, Chen’s work delves deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. A large component of her music is improvised, is completely un-processed and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of an analog synthesizer, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language.
For nearly two decades, her predominant focus has been her solo work with the cello, voice and electronics, but she has more recently, in the last four years, begun to shift back towards the exploration of the voice as a primary instrument. Aside from her solo concerts, Chen performs currently in duo with Phil Minton; as BEAM SPLITTER with trombonist Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø; as MOPCUT with Lukas Koenig and Julien Desprez; as HISS & VISCERA with modular synth player Richard Scott; as trio in SEN RYO NO with modular synth players Tara Transitory and Nguyen Baly; in duo with electronic music artist Kaffe Matthews; as AFTERBURNER for voice/live electronics/light with Doron Sadja; and as VOICE/PROCESS for voice/live digital process with Mexican sound artist Hugo Esquinca. Notable past collaborators include German conceptual artist John Bock and abstract turntablist Maria Chavez.
Among her more recent album releases include, "By the Stream" with Phil Minton - Subrosa (Brussels), "Hiss & Viscera" with Richard Scott - Sound Anatomy (Berlin), "Rough Tongue", BEAM SPLITTER'S debut LP - Corvo Records (Berlin) and her solo album "Runt Vigor" - Karl Records (Berlin).
Chen has performed across Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Canada and the USA.
"Audrey Chen has created an uncompromising and idiosyncratic music, tightly disciplined yet acoustically wild and heavy with implication. Her ultra-verbal vocalising, often reminiscent of the visceral and emotionally charged sound poetry of François Dufréne or Henri Chopin, exposes physiological aspects of utterance that are concealed within standardised articulation and day to day speech. Fleshy, breath-driven and flecked with spittle, Chen's voice emanates not just from her mouth but from an ensemble of upper body surfaces, channels, passages, and cavities." - Julien Cowley THE WIRE
Richard Scott is a composer and performer of electronic and improvised music. For much of the last decade he has been dedicated to the compositional and performance possibilities of analogue modular synthesizers. He also works with a variety of digital technologies such as Ambisonics, multichannel diffusion and with instruments such as the Buchla Lightning and Thunder and his self-designed WiGi system developed as an Artistic Resident at STIEM.
Otto Willberg plays various bass instruments and lives in London. Live, Otto performs unashamedly melodic improvisational workouts created almost entirely with heavily filtered bass harmonica and electric bass. Strangely abstracted funk and fusion, a blend of the abstruse and immediate. silky smooth, luxurious, odd and compelling, "like listening to Eberhard Weber through a drainpipe”.
Otto is often heard on acoustic and electric bass with Laurie Tompkins (Yes Indeed) and Charles Hayward (Abstract Concrete//This Heat), as well as the fractured No Wave unit Historically Fucked. His previous solo releases have ranged from extended technique double bass to explorations of the acoustics of a 19th century artillery fort.
He has a solo record called ’The Leisure Principle’ out on Oren Ambarchi's the Black Truffle label. 6 unashamedly melodic & profoundly strange workouts for heavily filtered bass harmonica & electric bass!
(voice, modular synthesizers)
“Hiss and Viscera” is Sound Anatomy’s fourth album release and presents a striking debut recording from two highly distinctive voices in the richly varied Berlin improvising scene. On the face of it the human voice and analogue synthesizer may appear to have little in common but Audrey Chen and Richard Scott share an intuitive, corporeal and dynamic sound world out of which an intense and sustained musical conversation develops. Phrases and interjections bounce and ricochet between Chen’s vivid lexicon of glottal pops, rasps and expulsions and Scott’s exhaustive catalogue of electronic clangs, plosives and propulsions. The resultant musical conversation may not always seem entirely human in origin, conjuring sonic images of stories, languages and environments populated by many unearthly creatures, real or imagined.