Penultimate Press & Cuspeditions present… The Pancrace Project
Music for pipe organ Stiehr-Mockers 1848, bird whistles, Baroque Violin, Irish Flutes, Boîtes à Bourdons, Landscape Piano, Motorised Bows, Standuino Pi Synth, Microphones, Hurgy Toys, AM radio, Church Bells, Uillean Pipes and Hulusi Flutes.
Pancrace is a unique improvising quintet comprising French, British and Austrian performers. The members include Prune Bécheau, Arden Day, Julien Desailly, Léo Maurel and Jan Vysocky. Pancrace is also the name of the church in Dangolsheim Alsace and is next to where the instrument inventor Léo Maurel, known for his ingeniously designed instruments inspired by the hurdy gurdy, lives.
In Pancrace one can hear a radical new music comprised of many of Léo’s shape-shifting instruments and devices being utilised without knowing which are bowed, plucked, hammered or rubbed. The results are a maelstrom of sound and song which see-saw between the harrowing and the sublime with incredible detail to sonic content.
One of the most exciting debut’s to arrive in recent times the material recorded at Saint-Pancrace/Dangolsheim in April 2015 will be
Published on double vinyl by Penultimate Press
……………………………………………………
BEN KNIGHT DANCING
(Ben Knight from Psykick Dancehall, Human Heads and Katz Mulk fame will present a new dance piece called 'NEVER PRACTICE')
Based in Dangolsheim since 2010, I design and manufacture in my workshop unusual instruments for people curious about new interfaces and sound experiences, whether in experimental or contemporary music, for theater, artistic installations, or pedagogy. My research focuses mainly on "acoustic" instruments, which inherit the ways of thinking and playing of electronic instruments born in the 20th century. I have thus developed several models of motorized hurdy-gurdies, as well as computer-controlled, spatialized and transportable organs. I also have a certain attraction to the playful character and collective play; certain projects such as Veines de Vent, l'Orgue Sourd, l'Organous, or le Télécatida testify to this.
I had the opportunity to work for Yann Gourdon, Super Parquet, Oiseau Tempete, Stephen O'Malley, Kali Malone, Golem Mécanique, Alexis Degrenier, Heiner Goebbels, Cie Bas les Pat'hibulaires, Tarek Atoui, Ensemble Batida, Ensemble HanatsuMiroir, Ensemble Recherche, Clément Vercelleto, Ernest Bergez, Julien Chamla, the CFMI of Sélestat and Lille, among others.
Jan Vysocky (aka Wysozky) is a sound designer and composer actually based in Paris working on music and film soundtracks using micro sound, atmospheres and Foley in combination with prepared, motorised accoustic and electronic instruments.
https://www.wysozky.com/
As composer and live-performer Jan also collaborates regularly in contemporary art, dance and theatre scene; exploring the crux where the human body, voice and sounds may (em)merge.