Kammer Klang @ Cafe Oto: Luxury Meets Kitchenware

We Spoke

01/12/2015

The Kammer Klang series pretty much guarantees sonic encounters with the unexpected.
Consistently coming up with intriguing new live formats and motifs, their December 1st concert--a kinda whoopee winter opener--featured resident ensemble We Spoke (the combined forces of Serge Vuille & Mark Knoop), artist Jessie Marino and cellist Oliver Coates - flying solo, and in collaboration with video artist Lawrence Lek. Artist Philippe Daerendinger, in the meantime, shone in his absence with his 2015 urban video break Sensitivity Balls.

So what did this disparate group of artists cook up this time?

Butter Mania (2002)

The night opened with Marino/We Spoke's first offering Guillaume de Saint Cloud Suffers a Violent Dazzling (2015), for two shoebox cassette players and electronics. Like in the trio's second piece, Endless Shrimp (2015), for two performers, kitchen instruments and video, the sound floated between casually delivered spoken word and muddled retro noise - a duet of focused, unsmiling faces bending over their machines, serving cracking sonic-verbal-visual dishes with their guest. But that's typical We Spoke. Whether zooming in on the pioneering John Cage or playing the latest in kitchenware, they come up with challenging, fascinating ways to combine the trivial with the thoroughly educational, the silliness of everyone's inner child with the concealed musicality of everything that surrounds us. 

"Stop having boring lives", they spoke. We'll be happy to oblige.


Marino provided the most irksome piece of the night with Ritual I (2011), for snare drum, light and tape - making her point alright. Steadily attacking the drum and simultaneously accentuating the noise by turning on and off a lamp, our psyche suffered and our eyes struggled to adjust...Which drove us to the unavoidable conclusion (at least, us in this blog's company): We're all trapped in little pieces of reality we can't escape, from a deafening car engine to a snooping neighbour - yet, we lower our stunned stare, shut up and move on. The word in this writer's head was REACT, next time you get a chance.

The farcical Butter Mania, on the other hand,  the artist's 2012 video, was simply hilarious at times. Depicting a so-called Norwegian blogger lamenting the lack of butter in her country, (b)utterly at a loss during the baking high season of Christmas, it forced you to point the finger at yourself - you with the abundant supply of butter and the neighbours that can come to your rescue rain or shine. Concurrently, a woman in a sexy black dress and killer heels slow-danced (and heinously slipped) on chunks of slowly melting butter. Laugh as you may, the truth is, we don't understand..

A solitary Oliver Coates poured his frustration out on the cello with Music for Losers, Andrew Hamilton's piece (and a UK premiere) inspired by his visits to a friend battling a serious illness. You'd think it'd end up with weepy notes - but it was the anomaly of observing people that just can't win in life that fed the exasperated sound.

On from the solo to the grand scale of the closing performance, Coates retreated from the stage for his collaboration with video artist Lawrence Lek: Unreal Estate - Live brought to the big screen a magnified, twisted virtual reality with an ominous soundtrack of cello and electronics. Transporting us into a parallel universe where the Royal Academy of Arts has been sold to a Russian oligarch as his new luxury mega-pad, this disturbingly thought-provoking but visually stunning piece took no prisoners. Joni Zhu provided the voiceover in both English and Mandarin, translating text initially found in Russian Tatler magazine, imparting advice such as not to get into a fight with your helicopter pilot for being 5 min late, since you could jeopardize your family's safety. As you do..

Serge Vuille of We Spoke

Issues like the London housing crisis are no laughing matter, yet we laughed quite a bit. We flew through opulent corridors, but we were floored by the shortage of good old butter... The Kammer Klang series enlighten us in monthly doses at the dim-lit Cafe Oto, all the way until June. We can't promise it'll all be comfortable and easy, but it's a welcome surprise to see what those contemporary art fiends think of next...

Unreal Estate

Inside what was once the esteemed Royal Academy of Arts

Oliver Coates

                                     
                                          Lawrence Lek & Oliver Coates's Unreal Estate video

                                     

Text and photography by Danai Molocha. Opening image by Halit Ozturk.

Ibrahim Maalouf Strikes A Chord With Jazz Audiences

I recently came across two stunning live performances by Lebanese trumpeter (among much else) Ibrahim Maalouf: One at the prestigious Victoires du Jazz 2015, where he won the 2013 Artist of the Year award, and a second one at Holland's North Sea Jazz Festival.

Virtuoso Arabic vibes in a sea of jazz make this an enticing, irresistible mix for jazz lovers and beyond. See what you think...

Kooba Tercu live @ Gagarin, Athens

Greek noise travelers Kooba Tercu opened for ritualistic Swedes GOAT @ Athens's Gagarin live venue (17/10), introducing an evening of loud and adventurous psychedelia with whimsical percussive madness.

So this is what happened, before it all went completely bonkers...

Video courtesy of the Spinalonga Crew.

U.S. Girls: Popping, Half Free @ Corsica Studios

Now signed to the much-respected 4AD, U.S. Girls Meg Remy is soon to release Half Free, her debut for the label. Check out the retro surrealist, old Hollywood-scented video for Window Shades, borrowing from Gloria Ann Taylor's "Love Is A Hurting Thing". What is impeccable aesthetics in my book, comes with a burning melodic undertone that, typically, Remy with a helping hand from husband Slim Twig twist, break and refreshingly rebuild. (Un)steadily floating somewhere between Glass Candy and The Ronettes throughout her releases, Remy's vocals here bend toward more classic, less rough hues.

U.S. Girls will be stopping by London's Corsica Studios on the 28th of October.

Les Tambours & Giant Divas @ Covent Garden Piazza

06/09/15

Mad mad mad!

This was the word most commonly used to describe the divine divas curiously sliding the Covent Garden Piazza last Sunday, like giant singing canvases walking a culturally wild walk of fame.

Part of the Royal Opera's Deloitte Ignite 15 street events, held on the piazza from 3-27 September, Transe Express's Les Tambours & Giant Divas won acclaim and lots of bewildered tourist faces with short shots at Carmen, among other operatic masterpieces. Tall, talented and utterly..well, mad, they successfully hit all the high notes, all the while sticking their tongues out at each other and fixing their giant, colourful brasiers into place. A line of percussionists with painted faces were at their beck and call, drumming and jumping as necessary.

Congrats to the ROH for offering majestic, uncompromising entertainment on one of London's most-visited tourist hubs.

                                                         A snippet of the ROH operatic madness, due to size limitations...