Program

Vladislav Delay aka Finnish composer and percussionist Sasu Ripatti is one of the most innovative and influential electronic musicians of the last two decades. A prolific and chameleon-like operative whose multiple pseudonyms (Luomo, Uusitalo, AGF/Delay) have allowed him a unique and gorgeously fractal take on electronic music. He has worked with a wide range of artists including Rhythm and Sound, Black Dice, Massive Attack, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and has released his music on well respected labels like Chain Reaction, The Leaf Label and now Raster-Noton, as well as major labels and his own Huume imprint.

Vladislav Delay is Sasu's most personal project, in which impossibly deep, dub-inflected compositions are constructed like sonic architecture with every note, pause and click positioned for maximum impact in the mix. Combining a constant push for more honest and revealing emotions and a desire for absolute sonic integrity, these are all-consuming compositions that draw you in and take you under.

Live Vladislav Delay performs in a huge array of configurations - all are textural, unique and judged perfectly to the surroundings and acoustics. He is a hugely sensitive and tactile live electronic artist and percussionist whose liquid like use of echo, melody and rhythm is always an immersive and moving experience.

Vladislav Delay's tenth album 'Vantaa' was released on Raster-Noton at the end of 2011. After the explorative post-jazz/noise improvisations of the Quartet, 'Vantaa' is a return to the pure electronic compositions that Delay is best known for, combining absolute sonic integrity with deep emotive resonance. Now based on a remote island off the coast of Finland, the tracks oscillate between an overbearing, post-industrial soundcloud and the epic vistas of a vast and desolate Arctic landscape. At times tiny rhythmic bricks drift and collapse like tectonic plates, before opening up into spaces that radiate calmness and tranquility; at others synthetic textures somehow arouse associations with natural elements, whether gushing water, crackling wood, or growing grass.

The visuals for the Vladislav Delay concert in SEMIBREVE will be performed by Antye Greie. Born in 1969 in East Germany, lives and works in Hailuoto, Finland. Known also as AGF. Focus of work includes the relationship between language and sound, audiovisual live performance, digital communication, sound installations and commissions for movies and theater. Throughout her career, Greie has released 20 long player records and numerous collaborations under such ali- ases as AGF/Delay (with Vladislav Delay), Greie Gut Fraktion (with Gudrun Gut), and The Lappetites (with Kaffe Matthews and Eliane Radigue), many collaborations with the award-winning classical composer Craig Armstrong. Greie also runs her own production company, AGF Producktion, and has produced records for other artists most famously for Ellen Allien (SOOL, 2009, BPitch).

www.vladislavdelay.com

antyegreie.com

Mouse on Mars is one of the few electronic bands to stand the test of time. Constantly reinventing themselves, they have taken electronica to new heights with a unique blend of sound annihilation, fragmented melodies and an impassioned hatred of conformity. For nearly two deacades, Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have sweated over burning consoles to create a new musical language, only to twist it again into thousands of myriad distortions.

Their latest LP Parastrophics is a thriving vision of the other side of experimental music. Discordance turns into pop as Alice in Wonderland bounces her booty to laser bass sounds, the likes of which would make Walt Disney jealously ponder the question, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” Parastrophics is glamorous, funky and deep. No speakers exist that could display all the details of such manic production.

Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have been more than busy in the intervening years since the release of their last studio album as a duo, Varcharz (2006). They collaborated with The Fall’s Mark E. Smith as s Von Südenfed and released Tromatic Reflexxions on Domino. Both Toma and St. Werner produce independently for their Sonig label. St. Werner has worked on solo records under several monikers, written pieces for classical instrumentation and electronics, did music for installations, and acted as the artistic director of the Amsterdam Institute for Electronic Music, steim. Toma has produced Moondog, Stereolab, Junior Boys and The Fall, amongst others. One of their most recent projects Paeanumnion has been as unique as the rest of their career – an orchestral piece which didn’t play by any of the rules. As St. Werner said, “it was a way for us to carry on being an electronic band, only without electronics”. As ever, he was not being entirely serious. Both Jan and Andi were on stage throughout this hour- long voyage, playing their own digitally-crafted sounds and processing the orchestra at the same time. For this event Mouse on Mars have created their own musical software which they also used for the production of Parastrophics.

mouseonmars.com

The music Ben Frost is about contrast; influenced as much by Classical Minimalism as by Punk Rock and Metal, Frost's throbbing guitar-based textures emerge from nothing and slowly coalesce into huge, forbidding forms that often eschew conventional structures in favor of the inevitable unfoldings of vast mechanical systems.

“…The emotional power of Frost's music comes precisely from the stark contrast between extremely basic musical material and the deadly virtual instruments he invents to perform it… This is Arvo Pärt as arranged by Trent Reznor” – Wire Magazine, 2007

On albums like Steel Wound, released on the Room40 label in 2003 (Pitchfork: “An exemplary ambient experience”), Theory of Machines on Bedroom Community in 2007 (Boomkat: “The Future of electronic music…”) and 2009's BY THE THROAT (NME: “a hollow, unforgiving, brutal yet utterly beautiful record, full of deep intricacies that won’t let you go.”) Frost’s music is more than a cerebral exercise and has an undeniable visceral presence, felt as much as heard. His compositions are created with an acute awareness of the listener and their comfort thresholds, exploiting every extreme of pitch and volume. His notorious, building-shaking performances at international festivals including Montreal’s famed MUTEK combine amplified electronics with the furious thrashing of live guitars. Frost himself has been described as “one of the most interesting and groundbreaking producers in the world today.” (Boomkat). His music’s intense physicality has filled gallery spaces and driven contemporary dance productions by Chunky Move, the Icelandic Dance Company, and the acclaimed choreographers Erna Ómarsdottír and Wayne McGregor.