Humming Grotto #1
An evening of electronics/energies/bread/voice/other downstairs at the PBC with Del Lumanta, Peter Blamey, and Eleanor Zurowski.

Sunday August 25, 6 - 9pm, $10
Humming Grotto is new monthly series of sound and listening, taking place on the last Sunday of the month, downstairs at the PBC 💥

Doors at 7pm, music starts at 7:30pm. $10 donation. BYO.

1st set: Whirlpool
2nd set: Sam Gill's Scattered

Extended Play is back in 2019! The inaugural event last year was hailed as “the best new classical music initiative Sydney has seen in years” (The Australian), and an “exhilarating festival, wonderfully supportive of local artists and ensembles, emerging talent and an audience eager to engage.” (Real Time).

Mahagonny (Perth/DE/Syd)
Vavenge (Syd)
Anita Clark (Motte) (NZ)

$15 / $10 concession

It takes a special performer to grace the cover of the world's premier New Music magazine, THE WIRE, but this month one of Australia's most internationally acclaimed improvisers has that honour, which makes the People's Republic even more thrilled that he will be joining us for the first time in a very rare Sydney appearance with an equally excellent collaborator...

OREN AMBARCHI and CRYS COLE

SUNDAY September 1st
Commencing at 7.30 p.m. [doors at 7]

A night of spontaneous art and sound from the fearless Lena Czerniawska (Poland), and Emilio Gordoa (Mexico), with guest from Perth, Josten Myburgh.
Sydney friends, Clayton Thomas and Niki Johnson in their first duet experience, will start the night off with aplomb, or a bomb. Only time will tell.

8pm The Polymorphic Orkestra is an electro acoustic art music ensemble that produces improvised music using a mix of traditional instruments, media technology, audio FX and pre recorded audio stem data.

9pm Ephemera: a musical exploration of celestial landscapes such as pulsars, craters, planetary atmospheres, stars, sun and void. Merging the sound worlds of jazz and contemporary classical, and set to real space sounds, it is a unique sonic experience.

A special night of audio-visual madness with

Alon Ilsar - performing
Trigger Happy 'Visualised' (AirSticks/drums/interactive visuals)
&
Ben Carey performing
Structure in the Unfurling (modular synth/tape machine) &
Lichens (soprano saxophone and interactive AV)

Saturday 7 September 2019
Secret Newtown Warehouse (details to come)

What better way to kick off the new Sounds Unsound Presents irregular special event series than by hosting, all the way from Japan, the incredible guitar duo of Tabata Mitsuru & Junzo Suzuki (ex Acid Mothers Temple, Zenkeva, Boredoms) performing a special improvised set, with fantastic local support from Echolyte, Defektro, Charlie Sundborn and Sawfish 623.

Projections by LIVING SCIENCE Dept. and live soundscapes by Matthew Syres and David Lawford will also feature thought the night.

Doors at 3pm, $10 on the door

SOFT CENTRE is a one-day festival of dark abstraction. Experimental electronic music, radical performance art, large-scale light installations and new media works intersect to create an unforgettable day at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in South West Sydney. Awarded ‘Music Event of the Year’ at FBi Radio’s 2017 and 2018 Sydney Music, Arts & Culture Awards.

Radio Skidrow and G.A.N.G. Gang (Good And Nice, Great!) is pleased to present ~ Loft Renter ~ a music event and conversation series archiving works and processes of experimental, DIY and sound musicians who exist outside of culture industry frameworks.

PAPAPHILIA (Melbourne)
SEAYAMS
UHF-28
MILKFFISH
DJ BATTY BOOP
D ISLAND

With a wonderful line up of experimental sound and noise artists, and delivery of the spoken word, Sonic Moves XII is coming up at Halfback Books Dee Why. You are welcome to draw in response, or relax and immerse yourself in the sonicscapes.

This event is curated by Hirofumi Uchino and Christine Simpson.

Backstage Music has your Thursdays covered this October with a triptych of musical offerings. It all kicks off on Oct 17 with RADIO SIGNALS:

Cathy Milliken + Jane Sheldon + Lamorna Nightingale + Fiona Hill

Lewis Mosley + Sam Weller + Charlie Sundborn

We don’t often take a retrospective look at music here at Backstage, but we’re pleased to be celebrating the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio alongside new works by Cathy Milliken and Fiona Hill in this program.

Leading experimental artists
Gail Priest, Lauren Brincat and Alex Murray-Leslie all create work that sits at the forefront of sound, technology, experimental music and contemporary art. Moderated by Clare Cooper (Co-Founder of the NOW now festival, Splinter Orchestra, Splitter Orchestra and Frontyard Space) these Liveworks artists discuss their research interests and artistic practices, as well as what it means to create collaborative work that spans sound, installation and performance.

In Double Double, celebrated dancers and choreographers Jo Lloyd and Deanne Butterworth are joined by interdisciplinary artists Evelyn Ida Morris and Tina Havelock Stevens—each on drums—in an epic meeting of four performers where spontaneous compositions and formations emerge out of a physical and sonic mania. Over the course of two hours, the performers lap through time and space as their personas merge, separate and collide. Motion and noise slap against each other as tension escalates, making for a riveting sensory experience.

In Double Double, celebrated dancers and choreographers Jo Lloyd and Deanne Butterworth are joined by interdisciplinary artists Evelyn Ida Morris and Tina Havelock Stevens—each on drums—in an epic meeting of four performers where spontaneous compositions and formations emerge out of a physical and sonic mania. Over the course of two hours, the performers lap through time and space as their personas merge, separate and collide. Motion and noise slap against each other as tension escalates, making for a riveting sensory experience.

Backstage Music has your Thursdays covered this October with a triptych of musical offerings. Join us on Oct 24 for our second event, FORBIDDEN THINGS.

Biliana Voutchkova + Clayton Thomas

Ensemble Offspring (Claire Edwardes + Jason Noble)

Henry Justo

Improvisation, at its best, is a living experience; a timbrel, textural, visceral approach to music making. With one foot in the past, and one foot in the future, the players give and take in equal measure, building a collective response to moment. This evening of ‘in-the-moment’ collaborations explores a global history of art music, folk music’s, and western classical music.

Led by sound artist Gail Priest and designer Thomas Burless, this workshop will reveal some of the processes and research they explored while creating the performance installation.
"A continous self-vibrating region of intensities". Offering ear-opening and hands-on experiences, the workshop will explore some of the physical properties of acoustic and amplified sound by conducting non-empirical experiments into manifesting sound visually and tangibly. Participants are invited to bring acoustic (voice or instrument) or some digital sample material of their own to play with in conjunction with a number of kinetic installation objects. Open to all levels of experience: curiosity is the only pre-requisite.

Backstage Music has your Thursdays covered this October with a triptych of musical offerings. Join us on Oct 31 for the finale to our month of music!

William Barton + Veronique Serret

Niki Johnson

A fusion of musical landscapes encapsulating the very essence of art culture and history. Two instruments the didgeridoo and the violin hand crafted from the trees of the earth that together transcend upon a common musical ground creating a tonal and melodically grounding journey of rhythmic energy. Like the river flow of life the bird calls of ancient whispers call out from the great escarpment of the Australian landscape to the oceans of our earth and to the universe beyond.

Ephemera Quartet is led by Keyna Wilkins (piano/flute/compositions) with Elsen Price (double bass/loop pedal), Will Gilbert (trumpet) and Carl St Jacques (viola) and includes freely improvised pieces. The quartet is accompanied by a soundtrack of outer-space electromagnetic waves recorded by NASA and complied by astronomer Professor Paul Francis. The music is complimented by projections of space probe footage. Each member brings their own unique voice to the ensemble drawing from a multitude of musical backgrounds, combining to create a distinctive soundscape that organically reacts to stellar concepts. Universe and Universality.