Kontraklang presents 4 Duos at arkaoda / Monday, 13.05.2019

This Kontraklang evening is dedicated to unusual duos. The first half of the program focuses on the human voice. Ute Wassermann’s piece “Pneuma” works with fine nuances of vocal expression. Speech and noise sequences are disassembled and combined anew. Wassermann’s duo partner is no human, but rather Martin Riches’ ingenious self-made “Talking Machine”. This machine is a sort of acoustic speech synthesizer that works like an organ. With help from special pipes that mimic aspects of the human throat and mouth, the machine creates vocal-like sounds. Tomomi Adachi has also chosen the machine as a partner. His approach is more formal and analytic; through an invented semantics, Adachi creates a synthetic language and music. At the end of this set, Wassermann and Adachi will perform a rare improvised duo with each other. The second set, a duo of baroque violist Marie Takahashi and electronic Renaissance man Cedrik Fermont, will also be improvised. The new duo promises a musical tour de force between harsh noise and abstract Ambient.

The composer-performer Ute Wassermann, an expert of the voice and bird calls, is among other things a member of groups such as Les Femmes Savantes. The artistic media of composer, performer, and instrument builder Tomomi Adachi are the voice and electronics. He currently works with artists such as Jaap Blonk, Jennifer Walshe, and Otomo Yoshihide. The experimental electronic artist Cedrik Fermont aka C-drík aka Kirdec is a composer, musician, author, curator, and more. Marie Takahashi, a violist specializing in baroque and contemporary music, discovered her lust for experimentation in Berlin. The sound and media artist Martin Riches specializes in musical machines and acoustic speech instruments.

Ute Wassermann: Pneuma (2016) for voice and Talking Machine
Tomomi Adachi: How to learn to talk 2U (2013) for Talking Machine, voice, gestures, and electronics
Ute Wassermann + Tomomi Adachi
Cédrik Fermont + Marie Takahashi