Saisonscape: Decay will be the third installment of Art Assembly’s Saisonscape - a quarterly series that investigates the seasons through experimental music and sonic art.
Taking place in autumn, Decay reflects on the natural cycle of the season. Leaf litter and organic material dropping to the ground and breaking down into one. Renewing the soil with a rich and nourishing composition. For this edition of the series we focus on artists who use archives of field recordings, tape loop, folk story and who layer instrumentation, objects and found sound without hierarchy. Sounds, ideas and material mulching into new combinations, providing fertile ground for unexpected work and inspiring performance.
William Basinski takes us on a hauntingly melancholic journey into autumn through the theme of Decay with his latest compositions Cascade and The Deluge. Basinski’s headlining tour will run over three consecutive nights in September in Cafe Oto London (15 Sept), Islington Mill Salford (16 Sept) and The Kazimier Liverpool (17 Sept). Cascade features an old and simple lilting piano tape loop set to repeat endlessly on a re-imagined landscape echoing the lapsing of time, whilst in The Deluge, Basinski's enduring motifs flow more fiercely much like the abrasiveness of time passing until the final moments, when the pianos temporal existence fades and breaks, to be replaced by a brief crackling orchestra eclipsing and re-orientating the piece, revealing the decomposition of time that has passed.
Sarah Angliss and Kemper Norton headline the second investigation into Decay taking place in November with Lisa Busby. Sarah Angliss performs Ealing Feeder, her forthcoming album infused with half-remembered stories from Edward Lovett’s Magic in Modern London (1927) and other archival sources. A composer, thereminist and maker of robotic instruments, Sarah uses electronics, ancient instruments and her startling musical automata to explore resonances between European folklore and machines. In this new work, Sarah conjures amulets in the surgical museum, shape shifters, ritualistic magic, vardøgers, fever vans and more.
Kemper Norton's obsessions include the changing landscape, particularly that of Cornwall and Sussex, lost or neglected social history, real and imagined communities and both traditional and modern folklore. His upcoming work is loosely based on themes surrounding the lost kingdom of Lyonesse and the Torrey Canyon environmental disaster of 1967 - both (supposedly) located off the Cornish southwestern coast - and explores ideas of loss, decay, nationalism, horror and vengeance.
Lisa Busby's Fingers in the Gloss is an album of new compositions, bringing together song with improvisations on playback media (turntable, cassette) and other sound making devices. It explores an experimental territory where melody meets noise and collage, and song fragments float in larger structures. For Saisonscape: Decay, Lisa will be debuting the album live and running practical workshops on alternative, non-instrument based approaches to composition and songwriting, exploring strategies of collage and improvisation.
Art Assembly are offering a unique and valuable opportunity for composers, ensembles and emerging artists to submit proposals to perform paid support slots at the Saisonscape: Decay series, providing them with a professional platform for exposure of their work. For more information please visit http://www.artassembly.org.uk/perform-at-decay