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NEW FORMS FESTIVAL 08
NFF08: Mosiacs
New Forms Festival Sept 18-27, 2008
lighta! sound and new forms festival presents…
[ DUBFORMS8 ]
putting the dub back into dubforms
POLE live solo . SIRBASSA live . CALAMALKA live . SEGUE live .
DECIDUOUS live . MICHAEL RED dj
JAHNICK mc . JULIE GENDRON vj . AIDAN live visuals & vj . TUSK vj
this’ll be the real deal.
a night different from any other dubforms so far.
digging deeper into the dub. blue light.
everything from roots to digidub to minimal steppers.
even exploring the realm of ambient dub on the big system.
and yes people, some dubstep as well.
proper sound. proper visuals. all tight security. all tight vibes.
saturday, april 12th / open studios - 252 E. 1st ave. / 10pm - late / $15
advanced tickets / more @ the door
email: reservations@newformsfestival.com to reserve a ticket
(all reservations void after midnight)
ticket outlets: Highlife www.highlifeworld.com/ Scratch www.scratchrecords.com/ BeatStreet www.beatstreet.ca/ Vinyl www.vinylrecords.ca/ Zulu www.zulurecords.com/ and clubzone.com
dubforms events can sell-out (last one sold out before it started) - so
buy or reserve a ticket to avoid dissapointment
www.soundsimple.ca/lightasound / www.myspace.com/lightasound
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[ POLE live solo ] ~scape, berlin
The music of Stefan Betke, a.k.a. Pole, is constantly in a subtle state of
flux. His recordings are evidence of his music’s evolution, milestones
along an open-ended journey. But this does not mean Pole’s albums are
provisional or incomplete; on the contrary, they express a kind of
perfectionism always aimed at reaching an imagined musical core.
The way Betke strips layer after layer of sound, working toward a
minimalist essence, everything is possible. For Pole musical reductionism
isn’t repetitive or deterministic. It involves constant motion around an
ideal core, the smallest possible unit. As a result, all of Pole’s
releases, despite their differences, are united by a central question: How
can one extract the most intensity from the least amount of material as
possible. Consolidation and purification as mutually beneficial processes.
It does not make any sense to try to approach Stefan Betke’s music with
buzzwords or narrow musical categories. At the beginning there was,
however, an often repeated anecdote, namely that of a minimalist dub
musician who found his style by chance, if not accident. In 1996, Thomas
Fehlmann and Gudrun Gut gave Betke a Waldorf-4-Pole filter, which had been
damaged in a fall. Betke found it made beautiful static noise – a kind of
crackling — that became an integral part of his first series of
recordings. The releases were just sequentially numbered (“1” in 1998, “2”
in 1999, “3” in 2000) so no titles would interfere with people’s
interpretation by preconceptions. The covers only differ in their colour –
blue, red, and yellow, the primary colours of the spectrum from which all
other colours can be mixed – mirroring the fact that for Betke, this
series offered a musical equivalent to the three primary colours, able to
be mixed in infinite combinations. The track titles “Stadt” (City),
“Fremd” (Strange) do not really go a long way toward explaining the
sounds, either. For Pole, titles only serve the purpose of making it
possible to discuss tracks - they do not constitute any statement about
the music. Pole’s minimal-electronica and dub remains abstract, but not
empty. From the very beginning Pole has been using a warm, groovy, and
elastic sound, but doesn’t lose himself in dancefloor functionality. The
music can be heard as sound-architecture, as well as a story.
Stefan Betke, who was born in Düsseldorf - after a couple of years in
Cologne - now lives in Berlin and works as a DJ, remixer and studio
operator. In 1999, together with Barbara Preisinger, he set up the label
˜scape. These days he’s cut back on his DJ-ing to devote more time to his
own music and his production work. But DJ-ing allowed him to keep on the
lookout for new sounds to incorporate into his own music, too. His sets
ranged from dub, jazz, and minimal music to hip-hop, the latter leaving
its mark on Pole’s second series of records, which consisted of the two
EPs, “45/45” and “90/90”, and the album “Pole” (mute, 2003). For “Pole”,
Betke abandoned the static noises and, for the first time, worked with
vocals, which were supplied by rapper Fat John from Ohio (US). Since 2005,
Betke has also been working as part of a live trio, with bass (Zeitblom)
and drums (Hanno Leichtmann). After numerous live gigs with this line-up,
a mini-album is planned for 2007, which is set to update Betke’s musical
ideas in an even broader format.
But neither hip-hop nor dub were the defining elements in Betke’s first
two musical phases. Betke has never been a reggae or hip-hop artist. His
music isn’t based in a scene or in private experience, but in musical
structures, which he decontextualizes in order to integrate them into his
own personal musical language. In Betke’s 2007 release “steingarten” there
are no more references holding the music together. Electronics, loops,
minimalism – all of that is there, of course, but now it’s all operating
in a space all its own. Betke’s work, created in a vacuum, independent of
musical trends and clearly defined reference systems, is not predicated on
anything or prefacing anything - it’s a timeless artistic achievement.
www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=91 /
www.scape-music.de
[ CALAMALKA live ] lighta! sound
digging into the deeper and more soulful flavours of dubstep. with
unavoidable elements of hip hop. mike c makes really good music really
quickly. check out the update, cuz he’s been busy. sure to be heavy.
www.myspace.com/calamalka / plugresearch.com /
www.briefcaserockers.com
[ SIRBASSA live ] big bass theory, interchill
Sean SirBassa Hill is a musician/composer, DJ and producer of dub-rootstep
and dancehall music “bassed” on Salt Spring Island, BC. A stalwart of the
west coast Dub scene for over 20 years, he has endured and embraced the
many changes to the DUB genre over time to create his original style of
roots oriented, uplifting and Bass heavy Dub. Currently touring to promote
his recent BIG BASS THEORY release “DUB UNIVERSE”, available on the
SirBassa Sounds label, the album has garnered rave reviews from dubheads,
DJs and
radio hosts alike. His all original SirBassa live sets include subsonic
Bass guitar, keys, dub FX, percussion and vox.. full of serious Bass
frequencies inna “less is more” mix.
www.sirbassa.com / www.myspace.com/bigbasstheory /
www.interchill.com
[ MICHAEL RED dj ] lighta! sound
starting off the night with a mix of roots dub & moderism, some recently
acquired advancements from the jahtari camp, and foreshadows of the coming
techno/dubstep crossover take-over. this’ll also be the chance to play
some of his more heady originals and remixs that have accumulated over the
years. while dubbing out jahnick on the mic and his custom built sound FX,
this should stoke up a pretty good fire for the night.
[ JAHNICK mc/host ] samourai productions / french guiana / france
Jornick Joelick sings in Patois, Creole, French, English and Portuguese,
and has a bright and impactful presence on the mic and in person. Jahnick
has own solo career based out of France with conscious roots music, and
tho he’s really a world traveller and performer, he is now loosely based
out of BC now (yes!). He’s the singer for Big Bass Theory and a nice
handful of colloborations with other artists spanning the globe.
www.myspace.com/jornickjoelick /
fr.youtube.com/watch?v=jOTEC8Np25k
[ SEGUE & DECIDUOUS live ] duckbay
*segue * is jordan sauer from vancouver, canada. he has been making music
under his segue moniker for several years with releases on autoplate,
kyoto_sound, silent season as well as on his own netlabel, duckbay. most
of this released music is based on a glitch, dub-reggae flavoured, yet
contemporary compositional approach to electronic music. more recently,
jordan’s musical production has taken a different direction stylistically
towards experimental/minimal ambient compositions - most of this material
is still unreleased. regardless of this shift in production technique,
jordan continues to produce dub-inspired music and play live when the
occasion arises.
Deciduous is the name used by Shane Wilson for his ambient musical
productions. Hailing from the west coast of British Columbia, Deciduous
has been releasing music under the net label Duckbay for the past few
years. With a local following of nature enthusiasts and fellow musicians,
Deciduous holds a monthly slot at Trees Cafe in downtown Vancouver on the
first friday of every month. With musical styles ranging from ambient
drone to more dance-able forms dub and reggae influenced electronic music,
th music of Deciduous attempts to bridge the gap between a natural and
urban aesthetic of sound and music. With upcoming releases on Silent
Season and collaborations with other artists in the works, Deciduous is
ready to bring his music to the world.
honored to play alongside one of their mentors, segue and deciduous will
be splitting the last hour of the night to showcase some their newest
material, live.
www.duckbay.net / www.myspace.com/seguejs /
www.myspace.com/desiduous / www.silentseason.com
[ AIDAN live visuals & vj ] himself
last time aidan did live visuals it involved a tangle of house plants and
a hatching beehive. what ever he pulls of for pole, it’s sure to be
interesting and original, and most likely a perfect match. aidan will also
be VJ’ing custom built clips through-out the night.
[ JULIE GENDRON vj ] desiring productions
it’s been to long. always different and always with depth.
www.desiringproductions.com
[ TUSK vj ] lighta! sound
finally tusk returns to the VJ booth with a custom built adventure for
calamalka’s set, and mixing up elsewhere in the night schematics of urban
decay and seeds of light.