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MxTAB2019 – Aivar Tõnso

Aivar Tõnso is a musician, sound artist and curator of cross-cultural events. As a musician, Aivar Tõnso is known primarily as a creator of electronic music through projects such as Hypnosaurus, Kulgurid and Kismabande, and as a curator of cultural events, his most prominent projects include festival Hea Uus Heli and recordlabel Ulmeplaadid. Currently he…

MxTAB2019 – Mart Avi

Estonian singer and electronic producer Mart Avi hooks up neo-glam aesthetics with unmapped sonic territories for an age yet to come, playing around with his persona, real, imagined, on or offline. His is the the sound of information overload, of thousands of underground server parks filtering the signal of the perfect pop song from the…

MxTAB2019 – Rebecca Kontus

Rebecca Kontus is a professional singer-songwriter. With her smooth timbre best at home in jazz, she has also experimented various other genres, ranging from gospel to rock. Her 5 solo albums (Inglite pisarad, Déjà Vu, Võin ma tulla, Flâneur, Jõuludeks koju) provide a colourful journey. Her latest project is dedicated to Edith Piaf and has…

MxTAB2019 – Taavi Tulev

Taavi Tulev is an award winning Estonian artist working on multiple fields. He’s been making electronic music for almost 20 years, makes nature recordings, works with architecture, creates patterns, made soundscapes for architectural spaces and many other things. Inspired by nature/mathematics and deeper states of mind which he tries to bring into physical realms. He…

MxTAB2019 – Tuulikki Bartosik

Accordion music is rarely described as innovative and fresh but Estonian musician and composer Tuulikki Bartosik confounds expectations. From introspective solos to collaborations with musicians around the world, her inspiration is rooted in her native Estonia’s Võrumaa region. Tuulikkis latest projects include playing with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and collaboration between her Estonian Folk…

MxTAB2019 – Argo Vals

Argo Vals is an Estonian composer, guitarist and live-electronics artist. He started to perform as a solo artist using live-electronics in 2008. The architecture of sounds resembles at times idm, ambient, math rock, progressive music and nordic jazz. These days Argo also composes music for several dance and theatrical performances. He is a member of…

MxTAB2019 – Sander Mölder

Sander Mölder is a composer, producer and DJ. He started his music career as a cellist and has made music in very diverse ensembles and musical environments. Some of his highlights include performances at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona and Open’er festival in Poland. In 2018, he released the…

MxTAB2019 – Maarja Nuut

Maarja Nuut is a singer, violinist and a determined experimenter, someone who seeks a personal fusion between the musical traditions of long-lived times and new technologies. She’s known for utterly compelling, often hypnotic performances filled with quirky and haunting storytelling about death and the landscape. For Musicity x TAB 2019, Maarja created a piece in…

Musicity x Tallinn Architecture Biennale

Musicity brings its architecture-inspired music and sound art programmes to Tallinn. Musicity x TAB 2019 is launching as part of Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2019 Satellite Programme. _Eight new tracks inspired by architectural gems and lesser-known spaces of beauty in North Tallinn _TAB 2019 Satellite Programme is curated by Estonian architect Kirke Päss and showcases accompanying…

MxLL – James Alec Hardy

James Alec Hardy is a fine artist known internationally for his multi-screen based video installation and crossover audio and video performance works. His practice is based upon a philosophical enquiry between consciousness and the connection to the materialist world. Using feedback generated through obsolete analogue technology from the 20th Century, he creates chaotic systems, manipulated…

MxLL – Suitman Jungle

Suitman Jungle is a creation of percussionist Marc Pell. He plays live Jungle and Drum & Bass mash-ups using his voice, a sampler, and a standing cocktail drum kit. Having started on the streets of L.A.’s Hollywood Boulevard busking next to Captain America, the show has toured supporting Goat Girl and Mount Kimbie, performed at…

MxLL – Tom Szirtes

Tom Szirtes is a music composer, producer and digital artist based in London. Tom is best known for his productions under the deep house moniker Shur-i-kan. With a legacy of two studio albums and over fifty releases and remixes for dance music’s most influential record labels including Freerange, Lazy Days, Simple, Anjunadeep and Defected. Tom’s…

MxLL – Gestalt

Gestalt: An organised whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts. A collaborative ‘Audio Visual’ project directed & curated by composers Joel Wells & Abi Wade; With a sole focus on creating experimental music works and soundscapes, which have an intrinsic relationship to visual art. The duo have a passion for…

MxLL – Lola de la Mata

Lola de la Mata is a London based French composer, artist and musician (violin/ electronics/voice). Her practice explores the experienced as embodied sound through the relationships between the bodies of the instrument, the performer and the architecture. Her recent works focus on her experiences of the female body and research based on AI and the…

Simonsound Soundtrack at The Lowry

If you are in Salford over the next few days be sure to drop by the Life photography exhibition by photographer Zoë Law at The Lowry where you’ll hear two incredible soundtracks accompanying the exhibition within the galleries. . It was a pleasure to commision Simon James (AKA The Simonsound) to create a piece for the…

MxLL – Frog Morris & Daren Callow

Frog Morris is a performance artist and Daren Callow is a singer-songwriter, they first met at Goldsmiths University in 2007. Frog Morris also works as an artist, curator, comedian, designer, stage manager, magic lanternist and bingo caller. Daren Callow can be seen playing guitar with Dare To Be Charlie and Alan Reed & the Daughters of Expediency. For…

MxLL – Thomas Stone

Thomas Stone is an electroacoustic composer and musician from London. His practice focuses on live performance, reconciling disparate influences such as his tinnitus, false memories, the physical effect of sound, victorian séance, bass music and 20th century composition. For Musicity x Low Line, Thomas created a piece in response to the space of Ewer Street….

MxLL – Cunning Folk (George Hoyle)

Cunning Folk (George Hoyle) is a musician, storyteller & music promoter & folklorist. He has performed worldwide in indie bands, cosmic house acts, experimental music collectives & as a folk artist. He sings songs of place & magic & ritual & songs from the tradition of the British Isles. His music has been described as…

MxLL – Chihiro Ono

Japanese-born violinist Chihiro Ono use music as a tool to explore human abilities, link people and places, and open human beings’ minds. For Musicity x Low Line, Chihiro created a piece in response to the space of Bermondsey Street Tunnel. Here, she shares her insights: I fell in love with this tunnel because it…

Musicity x Low Line

Musicity brings architecture-inspired music and sound art to the Low Line Musicity x Low Line is launching as part of London Festival of Architecture in June 2019. _Fifteen new tracks created for the Low Line, spanning Bankside, London Bridge and Bermondsey, encouraging the exploration of urban spaces through music. _Celebrating the heritage of the railway…

MxCM – Musicity 360

Musicity 360 is using the medium of Virtual Reality to further extend Musicity’s exploration of what can happen when music meets architecture. Musicity 360 will be a series of 360 degree videos accompanying Musicity compositions and locations, featuring different combinations of digital visual artists working to illuminate how a location can inspire a piece of…

MxCM – Alex Ho with Héloïse Werner

Alex Ho is a British-Chinese composer based in London whose work explores narratives of diasporic identity. Alex Ho wrote a piece for solo soprano a capella, interpreted by French-born and London-based soprano Héloïse Werner. For Musicity x Culture Mile, Alex created a piece in response to the space of Barbican Lakeside. Here, he shares his…

MxCM – EMS Collective

EMS Collective, directed by Mike Roberts, is an ever changing ensemble of musicians and composers connected to Guildhall School’s Electronic Music Studios. For Musicity x Culture Mile, EMS Collective created a piece in response to the spaces of Smithfield Rotunda Garden. Here, they share their insights: The Smithfield Rotunda is an anomaly on Culture Mile…

MxCM – Fari B

Fari B is a sound artist, composer and arts-broadcaster who works with listening, language and the environment to question our sense of self and our place within society and nature. For Musicity x Culture Mile, Fari created a piece in response to the spaces of The Charterhouse Cloister & Chapel. Here, she shares her insights:…

MxCM – Emma-Kate Matthews

Emma-Kate Matthews is an architect, artist, musician, composer and PhD candidate at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL whose practice is concerned with discovering and exploiting creative reciprocities between music; as constructed sound, and architecture; as constructed space. For Musicity x Culture Mile, Emma-Kate created a piece in response to the spaces of Barbican level…

MxCM – Robin The Fog (Howlround)

Robin The Fog is a sound artist and radio producer whose work largely falls under the broad term ‘Radiophonics’ and includes field recording, radiophonic composition and documentary. For Musicity x Culture Mile, Robin created a piece in response to the spaces of Beech Street Tunnel. Here, he shares his insights: The Beech Street Tunnel…

MxCM – Craig Richards

Craig Richards is a visual artist, producer, record collector, gentleman of the night and mind altering selector who has shaped the musical identity of Fabric, the 25,000 square feet underground club set in the Metropolitan Cold Stores. Each and every week he creates an inspiring soundtrack for the club, never the same and always challenging,…

MxCM – Mandhira de Saram

Mandhira de Saram is a versatile violinist performing as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral violinist in the UK and abroad. She is a founding member and the leader of the Ligeti Quartet, a young string quartet which has established a reputation as a leading dynamic and imaginative force in contemporary and modern music. For…

MxCM – Tom Richards

Tom Richards is an artist, musician, DJ, researcher and instrument designer working between sonic art, sculpture and music. Drawing from his PhD study (Goldsmiths/Science Museum) on the musical innovations of Daphne Oram, he has built his own idiosyncratic modular electronic music system, with which he creates slowly evolving and heavily textured polyrhythmic improvisations. For Musicity…

MxCM – Tania Nwachukwu & Bump Kin

Tania Nwachukwu is a Nigerian-British writer, poet and performer from London whose storytelling springs from profound, personal matters and from the lives and experiences of Black communities in Britain (see her project Black in the Day). Tania is supported here by fellow Barbican Young Poets Alumni, music producer and beat maker Bump Kin (Gabriel Jones)….

Musicity x Culture Mile

New music inspired by City architecture commissioned by Musicity and Culture Mile in association with the Barbican _10 architecture inspired tracks and VR video-art pieces created across Culture Mile _Musicity x Culture Mile launches at Sound Unbound on 18-19 May 2019: a weekend-long festival celebrating classical music from the mediaeval era to the present day…

MxCM – Kassia Flux

Kassia Flux is a sound artist, composer and scientist who forages and forges material from her surroundings, integrating it with her electric violin, voice and other instruments. For Musicity x Culture Mile, Kassia created a piece in response to the space of St Bartholomew the Great. Stepping inside St Bartholomew the Great, one literally…

Sunrise Documentary

Here’s a short documentary about the processes involved in our successful and packed out events with NEON at Coventry Cathedral on New Years Eve featuring the commissioned musicians Anna Palmer and Andrew Spackman.

MSCTY 003 – Simon James Release

New Limited Edition cassette release, recorded and mixed just weeks ago during Simon James’ trip to China as part of our latest Musicity adventure. The results are now available via Bleep.com https://bleep.com/release/120729-simon-james-shenzhenshanghai Bleep’s review: Nick Luscombe’s Musicity returns with a surprise release from Simon James aka Simonsound. On Shenzhen/Shanghai, Simon looks to the hidden sound…

MSCTY 002 – James Greer Release

We are happy to announce news of our very first artist album, following on from the sold-out cassette compilation of tracks commissioned for Musicity Southwark in 2017. TOKYO の DENSHA is the debut tape release from Tokyo-based field recordist and composer James Greer. Described as “an audio map of Tokyo suburbs, bars, streetcar journeys, local…

MUSICITY TOKYO LIVE

24th October 2018 Musicity Presents: MUSICITY LIVE TOKYO AT SUPERDELUXE [3 Chome-1-25 Nishiazabu, Minato, Tokyo] 10 / 24 / 2018 / Open 1900 (live start 1930) adv. ¥3000, door ¥3500 (+drink) LIVE: Langham Research Centre (UK) Jim O’Rourke Kassel Jaeger (FR) Hosted by Nick Luscombe and James Greer Following on from a successful summer of…

Mineral & Myth: Richard Carter

Architect Richard Carter connects the music of Keith Rowe and John Surman with his home town of Plymouth. Mineral & Myth My home town is an old, old town; straddling a boundary in remote language and landscape; yeth ha tir, quartered by water; Hamoaze Laira Cremyll Cattewater Deep chill waters lap a myriad of black…

MSCTY 001 – Cassette Compilation

Here’s the very first MSCTY release featuring tracks commissioned for various locations across Southwark. It’s a limited edition cassette and features tracks by patten, William Doyle, Moses Boyd, Throwing Shade, Stick in the Wheel, Hejira, Sean O’Hagan and Audialsense. Available via Bleep.com https://bleep.com/release/93311-patten-throwing-shade-william-doyle-hejira-stick-in-the-wheel-moses-boyd-sean-ohagan-audialsense-musicity-london

Musicity: Introduction by Nick Luscombe

Musicity – by Nick Luscombe From Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit (2014) in the Olympic Park to Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North (1998) in Gateshead just off the A1, here in Britain we are used to seeing artworks in public places. Architects, property developers, urban planners and regeneration agencies have regularly commissioned visual artists to make work that…

London Underground: Alice Nicolov

London Underground: Alice Nicolov How do we relate to the cities that are important to us? The cities we live in, learn in, love in? The cities that shape us and give us our identity? Most of all, how do we understand and process the cities that we call home? London is my city, and…

Architecture x Music: Sooski

Musician and architect Sooski discusses the connections between her two creative practices: Architecture is an imperative part of our life and environment; it affects our experiences, feelings, memories and ultimately the decisions we make. It can tap into our mind and build new meaningful experiences. Similarly when it comes to music, we associate it with memories…

Simon Vincent – Feeling Sound

Thoughts and Observations on the Relationship Between Music and Architecture by Simon Vincent. Part 1: Introduction. The following words introduce an adaptation of work that I undertook in 1990 on the possible links between music and architecture, as part of my studies in music composition. Reading the text some 27 years later, it may occasionally…

SA-X and the City: Rebecca Morrill

A Revolutionary Format: In Praise of the Tape by Rebecca Morrill In summer 2017, in the window of a record shop in Edinburgh’s Old Town, a hand-written sign announced simply ‘Tapes!!!’. The three exclamation marks caught my eye, suggesting the writer was rather surprised to be selling them again. This was a format that was…

Architect Paul Bavister and his work with Musicity

Paul Bavister from architectural firm Flanagan Lawrence outlines his work with Musicity to help develop the creative response of the commissioned artists to various spaces. Background The design of spaces for listening has not, historically, been a linear process. For thousands of years, built architecture and musical repertoire have formed a coexistent symbiosis, each factor informing…

Architecture x Music: Simon James

Architecture x Music by Simon James (The Simonsound) “Music, like architecture, is time and space. Music and architecture alike are a matter of measure” Le Corbusier Music and architecture share many things in common and are linked through centuries of cross pollination, interaction and evolution. As Le Corbusier’s quote stated, they are both art forms…

The Deed and Prosper by Elizabeth Kane

The Deed and Prosper – Elizabeth Kane The great swathe of land that makes up London’s Dockland’s is a malfunctioning time machine. Vast glass office walls scrape against the charm of what once was the noble entrance to the London Docks, reiterating the moment the bulldozers beat monuments of Britain’s industrial past to the ground. Ashes…

The Composer’s View: Simon Vincent

Musicity Introduction by Simon Vincent As architecture traverses space, so humans traverse architecture. As music traverses acoustic space, so humans are traversed by music. It is difficult, if not impossible, to formulate an opening sentence that will somehow both describe succinctly the nature of architecture and music, their relationship to each other and the way…