Music We'd Like to Hear - May 2024

Rie Nakajima - new work

Scott McLaughlin - we are environments for each other

Rie Nakajima, performer; Mira Benjamin, violin; Zubin Kanga, piano & electronics

Celebrating the launch of we are environments for each other, a new album of music by Scott McLaughlin performed by Mira Benjamin (violin) and Zubin Kanga (piano & electronics), released on Huddersfield Contemporary Records.

The concert features an extended version of the title track, which concerns entanglements of sound and material and agency, and what paths and possibilities emerge when responding in performance to a complex field of potentials. Zubin Kanga uses an electromagnetic resonator to explore the harmonics of the piano strings, creating feedback drones. Mira Benjamin's violin is inserted into this feedback, impersonating the piano string and replacing its resonances with her own, trying to find points of metastability, hybrid harmonies where piano and violin strings mutually reinforce. Both players holding each other in a balance of resonances, curating serendipity.

Rie Nakajima is a a sculptor living in London. She creates sounds indoor or outdoor spaces using combination of motorised devices and daily objects. It can be installation or performance. Fusing sculpture and sound, her artistic practice is open to chance and the influence of others.
Her first major solo exhibition was held at IKON Gallery in Birmingham in 2018. She has also worked with Museo Vostell Malpartida (Cáceres), Association de Le Cyclop (Milly la Forêt), ShugoArts (Tokyo), Donaueschinger Music Festival (Donaueschinger), and Cafe OTO (London). Her collaborators are Pierre Berthet, David Cunningham, Keiko Yamamoto, miki yui, hans.w.koch, Marie Roux, Billy Steiger, David Toop and Akira Sakata.

Host or Publisher Music We'd Like to Hear