Programme Note:
doorframes covered in masking tape is a piece that employs percussions, concatenative synthesis and voice fragments to explore an empty space. Warehousing - corporations buying entire floors (entire buildings) just lo leave them empty and raise the prices. At the center of our cities, this creates a vacuum - a space barely seen, barely existing. The piece is not a naturalistic description - it’s a vaguely distorted mirror of the subjective feelings this kind of liminal space evokes.

Bio:
Mattia Benedetti creates acousmatic music, pieces for instrument and live electronics and A/V compositions. He’s interested in quietness, algorithmic and aleatoric techniques and the relationship between sound and words. His pieces have been presented in Europe, North and South America and Asia.

Programme Note:
The piece was based on the soundscape recording from Colombia by Rafael Diogo: what grabbed me was hearing two opposites collide – the raw, wild roars of howler monkeys and a strange, mechanical buzz. The longer I listened, the more apparent it became that this recording, much like the composition it inspired, revolves fundamentally around the idea of distance. Different kinds of proximity mix here – the clash of nature and machines, things that are near or far (those birds!). It provokes urgent questions: What is our place in nature? Where do we fit in the chain of evolution? What is our impact on the surroundings? That friction between what’s wild and what’s wired creates a kind of unease. You can hear it in the music: a low, unsettling rumble, sharp spikes of noise, and a quiet ache that hums underneath. It’s that feeling when things don’t quite line up - like we’re close to nature, but also miles apart.

Programme note:
Recorded August 29th 2024 in Brussels, Belgium.

Bio:
EFC was created in 2023 consists of François Monaville (guitar, electronics, various instruments) and Quentin Stinglhamber (electronics and various instruments).

Link:
https://efcduo.bandcamp.com/

Programme Note:
Tympan 3 embodies the interplay of hyperreality and memory, exploring the blurred boundaries between authenticity and simulation. The work integrates over two decades of audio recordings, spanning from 1999 to the present. The soundscape builds upon a remix originally crafted for the now-defunct Polish band Archinta, further transformed through iPad audio applications such as Yellofier and Kuvert. These tools distort and reimagine the auditory material, creating simulations detached from their original contexts. By doing so, the work challenges perceptions of sound as an authentic historical record, instead presenting it as a mutable construct shaped by technological processes. In 2025 Tympan 3 was selected out of 274 entries to be performed at the Ars Electronica Forum Wallis 2025 - the International Contemporary Music Festival in Switzerland.

Bio:
KOshowKO is the electronic Big-Hop project of Polish-born, Australia-based producer Martin K, also known for his nu-disco and indie-dance releases as Philosophy of Sound and his ambient work with iubar project. Since its inception in 2004, KOshowKO has served as a platform for collaboration and stylistic exploration across electronica, big beat, hip-hop and indie pop. The act has released music on Emerald & Doreen, Clan Analogue and Martin’s own label Las Maquinas, and has performed at major events including White Night, St Kilda Festival, Renaissance Festival, Electundra and Opoeia, alongside shows in Germany and Poland. KOshowKO’s work has been recognised internationally, with highlights including a nomination at the Art Music Awards for Intone: Voice Abstractions, finalist placement in the International Songwriting Competition, and a special mention in the Music Aid Song Contest and Awards. The project’s music has featured in film soundtracks, global festival screenings, and collaborations with artists such as Chicks on Speed, Winduptoys and B(if)tek. More recently, KOshowKO has pioneered live audience sampling with iPads and produced the international compilation Mobile Strategies: Battery-Powered Sonics for Clan Analogue, further cementing its place at the intersection of electronic experimentation and collaborative innovation.

Programme note:
Filament (noun): a network of lace-like filaments. Galaxy filaments are the largest known structures in the universe, consisting of walls of galactic superclusters. There is something awe-inspiring about structures that span cosmically vast (really, inconceivable) distances. This piece reflects on how pervasive personal listening spaces are in this historic moment; the two parts of the stereo image linked by complex neurobiological and acoustical processes and phenomena, analogous to the filaments. Despite all of this complexity, though, the social aspect of sonic experience is lost in these personal listening spaces.

Bio:
Vincent Giles (*1985) is an Australian composer based in Naarm (Melbourne). His music explores the boundaries of perception, stability, and the glitches produced by humans and machines. Vincent’s music has been performed in North America, Europe, South-East Asia, and throughout Australia and have included Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Tura Totally Huge New Music Festival, multiple Fringe Festivals, Impuls Festival and Academy for New Music, and more.

Vincent’s notated work is published by Wirripang Australia and Edition Resonance. He co-founded and co-directed the Tilde New Music Festival and Academy since 2013, and serves on the executive committee of the Australasian Computer Music Association.

Link:
https://www.vgiles.net

Programme note:
The Western Line is the railway line that runs from the city centre of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland to the outer suburbs and back again. Passengers experience this flickering landscape while thinking of other things. Western Line expands this fragmented terrain and explores the aural moments where the railway intersects with the urban fabric of west/Auckland.------ The work was originally presented as a four channel work to accompany the exhibition Western Line at the Audio Foundation in 2023.

Bio:
David Cowlard is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and educator. His practice is located in the exploration of contemporary urban environments and includes working across photography, moving image, field recording and sound design. His work has been exhibited, screened and broadcast widely in New Zealand and internationally.

Andrew Moon / RST is an experimental musician and recording artist. He has performed extensively in New Zealand and in China and his work has been released on labels such as Ecstatic Peace Records, boomkat and utech records

Bio:
John Kingston is a guitarist and performer based in Wellington, New Zealand. Box Of Hammers is his solo ambient project based on painterly use of guitar tones and drones.

Link:
www.boxofhammers.bandcamp.com

Programme note:
This piece is made up of sounds produced using different feedback techniques, including feedback frequency modulation and cross patching of envelope generators to produce chaotic micro-rhythmic patterns. It presents dense noisy material in a very condensed form, representing anger and resistance, but also a certain beauty that can emerge from chaos. The title is inspired by a Zapatista song, a section of which, loosely translated, reads: “It takes a certain amount of tenderness to see, in this darkness, a little bit of light.” It is dedicated to the Zapatistas in Mexico, to the people of Palestine, and to everyone who suffers under oppression and refuses to be erased from this world by the forces of capitalism and colonialism, and who still manage to find beauty, hope and love in the face of disaster and in the most difficult of circumstances. May their resistance prevail, and may their struggles lead to a better future for themselves, and a more just and compassionate world for us all.

Bio:
Originally from Mexico City, he studied philosophy and music at the University of Victoria (Canada), and later at the Xenakis Centre (France), the Institute of Sonology and the Royal and Rotterdam Conservatories (Netherlands), the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Washington’s DXARTS Center (USA), and the University of Birmingham (UK), where he received his Ph.D. He composes sound-based music for acoustic instruments, live electronics, and fixed media, with a focus on timbral and spatial elements. His works have been presented internationally at events such as ICMC, BEAST FEaST, MA/IN, SEAMUS, Gaudeamus, NYCEMF, Sonorities Belfast, Espacios Sonoros, ACMA, FIMNME, and the Kyma International Sound Symposium. He currently lives in the Netherlands, where he works as an independent artist and music software developer, while remaining engaged in political and social causes, including active support for the Palestinian struggle.