September 2024 Update
Thanks so much to everyone for the support and patience during my Mother’s illness, and the period of bereavement. In her final days she was mostly sleeping; the last time I posted here, the final chapter of the Searching for the Sound film, I was sitting by her bedside as she slept. She hadn’t communicated in a couple of days. After writing the post and beginning the upload of the film, I turned to see her looking at me with big huge eyes, asking what I was doing. It’s a very important memory for me.
The main creative event for me of the past few months was the performance of a commission, a new organ mass at Herz-Jesu church, Graz— the realization of a long-clutched dream to write music for the best of the organs I’ve visited, on a commission. Enjoy a sample of the work, the communion music. Read more about it here.
Otherwise I’ve been back to the Orgelpark in Amsterdam for their annual symposium, and enjoyed a performance by Detroit noise duo Wolf Eyes alongside a new exciting artist in the experimental music scene, Evicshen, in The Hague.
I spent the summer in Ottawa sorting my mother’s belongings and getting to know a new niece, Sophia.
In early September I was invited to attend a conference on pipe organs organized by my friend John Forster at City College, London, where I heard lectures about leather pipe-tongues, and the newfangled instruments of early 20th century inventor Georges Cloetens. And enjoyed inimitable London.
I arrived in Vienna September 12 for a three-month residency at MontleArts, just in time for their waterworld apocalypse. It was raining and very windy for five days without stopping, so much so that the annual Vienna art fair Parallel was postponed.
Click this link to view a short series of video clips I posted on Instagram of the weekend, which includes a visit to the exhibition of the artist Hanna Hollmann, where a workshop in which the public were invited to deconstruct records took me right back to the old days of the Waxathon LP. Hanna performed with her father in the 1998 6-day-play of Hermann Nitsch, and I also posted in these videos some excerpts of Nitsch LPs she has from that performance, and from a 1972 action. To use this linked video, click the speaker icon in the top right to turn on the sound, and the arrow buttons on either side to skip forward and backward through the clips.
Several people have asked me for more information about the Hermann Nitsch performances I participated in, and of course for video. I’ve created a page of photos and videos here.
My residency at MontleArts lasts until the end of November, at which time I’ll move to Paris for a residency at Cité internationale des arts.
In the next week or so I’ll be releasing new electronic music and I’ve created videos to support those singles. The album is titled Hairball as it is a collection of disparate materials accumulating in my archive and I need to clean it out now to get a fresh start for these residencies. Inkeeping with the concept I used footage I found from a long time ago and had never released to make the videos. A preview is available here.
Please also enjoy this soon to be released EP of experimental organ music recorded at the Kunst Kultur Kirche, Frankfurt. The artwork is by photo artist Hajnal Szolga. Email me to reserve your copy.
Upcoming Behind the Tiles interviews include Ottawa artist Barbara Carlson; pieces about Hans-Christian Dany, Ara Diamond and Bradford Kessler; and a podcast about the Orgelpark Symposium.