PLINK PLONK w/Semay Wu, Frise Lumière, Brainwave

Semay Wu (cello, electronics)

Frise Lumière (solo bass)

Brainwave featuring Lydia, Chris Dowding, David Ross (brainwave controlled synthesis)

Wednesday 20 November / OUTPOST project space, Gildengate House, Norwich, NR3 1AX

7 – 10pm / £7 (£5 conc)

Our 2024 Plink Plonk series continues with two fantastic soloists, with support from a innovative project working with Artists with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities.

Semay Wu will be presenting a solo performance with cello, objects and electronics. Having lived and worked in numerous musical directions for many years, Semay Wu’s begrudgingly faithful cello still remains at her side: from Merseyside, to Manchester, to The Netherlands, and now to Central Scotland. Always trying to push age-old boundaries of how the instrument is viewed and heard, her focus has led her to explore further collaborative and everyday improvisations, blending electronics with mixed media and a variety of gestural art disciplines.

‘Raspberry Hotel’ is Semay’s first foray into recorded solo work, and was released in Nov 2022. Semay has performed much with the same setup, notably at Tectonics Festival in Glasgow, and the Newcastle Jazz and Improvised Music Festival, both in 2023.

Frise Lumière is a personal project of Ludovic Gerst, refining the instrumentation to the bass alone. Music for Bass.

Everything comes from raw textures, a noise, a note… like a voiceless chant trying to come to life, to cast itself out of a body, out of a mouth, out of this page, this bass. Hit, stroke, hijacked, refined to only itself, this instrument becomes both melodic and rhythmic, turning into percussion, letting through other voices, other breaths…

Opening the evening will be a presentation from a very special project developed by Norwich based charity, Musical Keys and electronics improviser, David Ross. The Brainwave is an instrument that has been developed to allow those with limited communication to meaningfully participate in improvised musical exchange. Earlier in 2024 Musical Keys worked with a group of four young consultant Artists with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities to play with the instrument in different combinations and contexts. Tonight, one of those Artists, Lydia will be joined by Eastern Ear member and Musical Keys tutor, Chris Dowding for an intimate and duo.

Host or Publisher Eastern Ear