Matmos + Jennifer Walshe / b-l duo

Tickets £21 // Concession £17 // Under 30 £5
Advance booking required

b-l duo:
Bertram Wee keyboards
Lynette Yeo keyboards

Francisco Uberto (Argentina, 1988)
K.A.M.I.K.A.Z.E (2023) 12’ World Premiere

Alex Paxton (UK, 1990), arr. by Bertram Wee (Singapore, 1992)
Just-Gum Friends (2022) 11’

Matmos:
M C Schmidt electronics
Drew Daniel electronics

Jennifer Walshe voice / electronics

Matmos (US) with Jennifer Walshe (Ireland, 1974)
improvisation 45’

San Francisco-formed, Baltimore-based experimental electronic duo Matmos are renowned for their enthralling performances generating melodic electronic sounds through musique concrete methods. The list of objects and sound sources sampled and manipulated by the group over the years is astounding; everything from the amplified nerve tissue of crayfish, plastic surgery and PVC riot shields to helium tanks, frozen streams thawing in the sun and of course their own washing machine has a place at a Matmos concert. Their prolific collaborative approach has resulted in works with Björk, the Kronos Quartet, Terry Riley, Marshall Allen and many more besides. At hcmf//, they perform an improvised set with Composer in Residence Jennifer Walshe, which will no doubt prove to be a playful, sensorially delightful affair.

Determined to play the creepiest and most irreverent keyboard music there is to hand, b-l duo return to the festival after last year’s psychedelic affair to open this concert. They will present a pair of recent works for MIDI keyboards that operate in the blurred space between physical and digital realities. K.A.M.I.K.A.Z.E sets the mute yet heavy presence of Tokyo to an erratic, fragmented fresco of digital sound, alluding to everything from video games to vaporwave and inviting listeners to navigate the incidental encounters that emerge from this juxtaposition. always give up, meanwhile, draws from transgressive noise music practices, manifesting as a ‘sonic body-horror’ traversing themes of futility, violence and harm.

Produced by hcmf// supported by Culture Ireland and Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation

Photo: © Matmos / derVisagist.com