ANDIE BROWN + POULOMI DESAI
Born and based in London, Andie began playing bass-guitar and from her mid-teens onwards worked with a number of bands. Whilst the bass remains her first love, Andie has been performing and recording as a solo-artist since 2007, under the name These Feathers Have Plumes, primarily working with glass and electronics. Elsewhere, Andie performs and records in a duo with artist Sharon Gal, and has collaborated live with a diverse range of artists including Sophie Cooper & Joincey in Remedial Queen of England, Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides, Phil Julian, Piotr Kurek and Adam Bohman. In 2015 Andie played in a percussion and glass ensemble, conducted by Steve Beresford for Christian Marclay at White Cube Gallery.
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/artists/andie-brown/
Poulomi Desai’s unique, modified sitar embraces elements of chance, challenge and subversion as she returns to her industrial, post punk and noise influenced improvisations. Her prepared / bowed sitar is extended with modified cassette decks playing her field recordings, circuit bent toys, distortion pedals, optikinetic instruments, slide projectors, kitchen knives, broken banjos, axes and massage tools. It is a conscious response and reaction to the idea of ‘authenticity’ seeking to break the rules and expectations of how a ‘sacred’ instrument should be played, the strictures upon the player, the guru-shishya approach, and the assumptions made upon the identity of the player herself. Her sitar is the primary basis for sonic improvisation and exploration; an allegorical antidote to the objectification of the ‘South Asian woman’s body’ in ‘Bollywood’ cinema / ‘popular culture’ and, in a broader sense, affirming her idea of ‘Noise’ as protest. She also runs the Usurp Art Gallery.
www.poulomidesai.tumblr.com
www.usurp.org.uk
Photography: Agata Urbaniak
+ FOUR MANATEES
Four Manatees are Dolly Turing and Verity Spott. They met five years ago in a whirl of free improvisation and live together in Brighton. They are in love and spend their time making and shaping dialogues, friendships, schemes, play, poetics. Both are musicians, using improvisation and composition. They play together using instruments, toys and electronics. Both are writers. Through different stresses and spheres their writing has in common queer love, transformation, bathos and a distrust for power games and established and arbitrary formalities.
Both hold a deep burning love for ritual, symbolism and process, a light hearted tendency to “make shit up” and a practical cynicism in the face of life and death.
Verity and Dolly have a fascination with exploring / exploding the boundaries between music/sound, magical ritual, poetry and play, using this as a tool. They have continually developed these ideas, for example composing a piece “Rocket Science” for Cage Rattling, a tribute to John Cage, Kings Palace, London; collaborating with each other and others on soundscapes, poetry and ritual at the poetry press’s “Veer to Athens” event last year, and creating a music/poetry/ritual for 2015’s Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival’s aftershow.
+ ALISTAIR STRACHAN
Alistair Strachan is usually known for his work with brass instruments and electronics, but on this occasion he is planning a site-specific piece called ‘Outside In’ that will process the sounds outside Cafe Noor as source material for an improvised set.
Limited Infrasection #5 prints available on the night.