Molto & Nika Son at arkaoda / Wednesday, 29.05.2019

A top double bill of experimental sounds at Arkaoda next week with Molto & Nika Son both performing live.

Molto builds abstract and subtle compositions and grooves from percussive instruments with minimal electronic touches. Like the sculptural work of Lorenz Lindner the music of Molto focuses on the beauty of the casual. His music is highly reduced, yet his adept
play with dynamics/pauses/silent sections sweeps the audience away to a distant island, letting them sink into a sandbank of sound. Lorenz Lindnerʼs first recordings as Molto were made for the radio. These commissioned pieces lead to the idea to produce highly atmospheric music one can most appropriately describe as library music. Molto focuses on sound aesthetics, abstract rhythms and narrative improvisations.

In 2017 Lindner started performing Molto live onstage which took the project to a new level. When Molto is improvising with custom built percussion, found objects, and mini synths the performance takes on the character of a sound installation. In 2016 the LP “Versatile International Service” was released on Kassem Mosseʼs Ominira label with 18 miniatures ranging from 1 to 10 minutes. The album was recorded between 2010 and 2015 in various places in France and Germany, and features liner notes by Claire Potter. Lorenz Lindner performed on several international stages such as Atonal (Berlin), Cafe OTO (London), Dokumenta 14 (Kassel), Galerie Für Zeitgenössische Kunst (Leipzig), Gewandhaus (Leipzig), Jazzfestival (Kopenhagen), La Machine du Moulin Rouge (Paris), Meakusma Festival (Eupen), Maerzmusik (Berlin), Salon des Amateurs (Düsseldorf), Schauspielhaus (Leipzig)

Nika Breithaupt alias Nika Son works as a musician, artist, dj and film sound-designer after graduating in Fine Arts at Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (HfbK) in 2012.
As a sound artist she became a dedicated hunter of extraordinary sounds and discoveries of new and old technologies in music. In her live shows, analog synthesizers communicate with manipulated tape machines, cinematic sounds are translated into a very unusual musical language, as if one watches the audible. Her compositions are built from deformed and fragmented fieldrecordings, interweaving with analogue synth lines, broken rhythms, rare voice scraps and filtered tape layers. Nika Son has played at international festivals such as Intonal, Meakusma, IFFR, Klub Katarakt, Volt etc. and released on various labels, such as First Terrace Records, Mmodemm, Sky Walking, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray and her own imprint Noctui. Next to her solo project, she has been collaborating with various artists for many years now, foremost with the musician F#X (C) and the filmmaker Helena Wittmann.

Furthermore she hosts regular art and music events at the notorious Golden Pudel Club in Hamburg since 2011 (Next Time, Noctuidae). In July 2018 she staged a two-day festival called Eruption, freely based on the musician and video artist Conrad Schnitzler. As a DJ (also under Nikae), her waywardly sound is marked by the outer space of electronic music, spanning from musique concrete, (early) electronics, synth wave, Industrial, Kraut and experimental Techno.