Mediamatic, DNK-Amsterdam and <>TAG hosted another we love concert in front of the Post CS. We were lucky again to have such nice weather and a great turn out. Thanks for the support!

JS Lach’s video piece

Byungjun Kwon

Jun’s set up using self-built piezo camera pen instrument and analog sound generators

Neuringer / Mazur / Espinoza trio

Diego Espinoza on drums / percs

Rafal Mazur on bass

Keir Neuringer on saxophone

Nanko on guitar and computer

(all photos taken by Eelco Borremans)

Text from our mailing list:
Byungjun Kwon
Byungjun (1971, Kr) started his musical career in early 90`s as a singer/songwriter and has released 7 albums ranging from alternative rock to minimal house. He creates music for records, sound tracks, fashion collections, contemporary dance, theater plays and interdisciplinary events. Recent works and performances have been presented in many international venues. Now he lives and works in Amsterdam.
http://byungjun.pe.kr/

The Sightings (US)
http://www.myspace.com/sightings

<>TAG presents touch #28: audio solidarity
touch is a creative music concert series curated by Keir Neuringer for <>TAG in The Hague. This special Amsterdam edition, at Mediamatic, is an expression of solidarity with STEIM, an organization that has been an important source of inspiration for <>TAG’s audio programming. We present three artists who have performed at previous touch concerts and we believe live up to the high standards of experimentation and musical creativity that STEIM stands for.

Nanko (Rotterdam) - guitarist and electronics manipulator, creator of heavily cut-up, beat-driven, melody-laden, post-dance song forms and improvisations. Two CD’s (’Nanko’ and ‘Stratonica’) out on the Laterax label.
www.myspace.com/nankomusic

JS Lach (Ghent/Mexico City) composer, sonic researcher, and keyboardist. His audio-visual performance installation Victoria’s Secret, composed as an homage to Robert Ashley, mixes current events with pre-selected texts and sets up the voice of the computes operating system (Victoria) as a musical oracle.

Mazur/Neuringer (Krakow/The Hague) - Rafal Mazur (acoustic bass guitar) is an astounding musician whose improvisation defies superlatives. He has maintained a duo with Keir Neuringer (saxophone), since Neuringer arrived in Europe in 1999.
www.myspace.com/mazurneuringerduo

MW

people

Feedback Society QuadraTV

Mobile Touch Exhibition

Mark Gergis, Liz Allbee, Raed Yassin

Sevensea’s Basement Analog Studio

Tarek Atoui

Laetitia Sonami

Akira Sakata and Robert van Heumen

Joel Ryan

Akira Sakata, Joel Ryan and Raed Yassin

Raed Yassin and dj sniff

(All photos by Frank Baldé)

Text from our mailing list:
Vol.5 All Doors Open - Season Ending Party in Every Studio!
We would like to invite you to the 5th edition of events presenting the now of STEIM. Now as a continuum in a rich history of technological innovation, now as a studio for emerging artists to explore and develop new ideas, and now as a research center and venue for today’s adventurous live electronic arts. Why now? Because it’s a moment of time that our primary funding is in danger. We were criticized for being niche and closed. However our “niche audience” - performers, researcher, hackers, thinkers and tinkerers - from around the world sent us over 1000 letters of support in 2 weeks time. Now its our turn to show our gratitude with what we do; artists at their best in the here and now.
<3 = heart: We <3 STEIM, STEIM <3s you.

————–
PROGRAM SCHEDULE

18:00 doors open
Foyer - bar, snacks
Middle Room - Mini Mobile Touch Exhibition
Studio 2 - OpenStudio - Mark Gergis (US) & Liz Allbee (US)
Studio 1 - quadraTv installation by Feedback Society (NL)
Studio 0 - STEIM Media Lounge
Basement - Open Analog Studio by Jorgen Brinkman (NL)

19:30 Concert 1 in Studio 3
Introduction - Takuro Mizuta Lippit
Set 1: Tarek Atoui (LB) - Computer + Controllers
Set 2: Akira Sakata (JP) - Saxophone / Robert van Heumen (NL) - Computer + Controllers
Set 3: Laetitia Sonami (US) - Lady’s Glove

20:45 - Performance in Studio 1
Live Cinema - Macular (NL)

21:30 Concert 2 in Studio 3
Set 4: Akira Sakata (JP) - Saxophone / Joel Ryan (NL) - Computer
Set 5: Tarek Atoui (LB) - Computer + Controllers / Raed Yassin (LB) - Bass + Objects / dj sniff (NL/JP) - Turntable + Computer

23:00 program end
————–

Tina Blaine

Tina and Gerry

Gerry Bassermann

Piet Jan Blauw and Jaap Drupsteen

All together with Piet Jan’s hand-made instruments

(All Photos by Frank Balde)

Text from our mailing list:
2008 Artistic Advisor Tina Blaine presents: Earth Tones – Electronic Zones
This evening will present a series of works that express acoustic and electronic sound sources and their transformations thru analog and digital signal processing. EarthTones – Electronic Zones will reveal an array of unique instruments, motion graphics and the exploration of real and imaginary potential thru cycles of audiovisual enhancements and deconstructions. - Tina Blaine

Piet Jan Blauw (NL)
Visual artist, musician, inventor of instruments and installations: the amiable artist known as Piet Jan Blauw from the North Holland town of Hoorn is impossible to pigeonhole. Piet’s vision is not just the mere manipulation of technological gadgets. Their use is meant to ultimately evoke an emotional response from the audience and spur them on to discover lost domains within themselves. His musical instruments are of sophisticated craftsmanship and produce archetypal sounds. The didgeridoo he built from aluminium also serves as a cello and a berimbau. Little details defy the ideal. Piet’s music can never be played in exactly the same way and demands improvisation. He sculpts soundscapes as he plays and manipulates radiowaves with the impedance of his body. Seemingly anonymous ultrasonic waves are invoked into being by his conjurations. This results in a pantheon of sounds that are ministered by samplers, sequencers, and processors. Piet drives his own aural sculptures to their limits in every performance. Technology enables him to push the limits, yet he always uses it as a tool of creation.

Jaap Drupsteen (NL)
Jaap Drupsteen (1942) studied graphic design at the Academy for Arts & Crafts and double bass at the Music Lyceum, Enschede. He started as a graphic designer at NOS-television and was a jazz bass player in his spare time. After a career as an art director at Tel Design, designer and tv-director at VPRO Television, and creative director at Signum (BBDO group), he started his own company Studio Drupsteen. Jaap has specialized in synchronous motion graphics to live music performances with different musicians, composers and orchestras since 1999, Jaap has been immersed in the world of computer music for more than twenty years composing for TV and for his own performing groups combining sound and vision. His awards are many, including the TV-critic’s Nipkow Award, Werkman Design Award, Sikkens Award, Prix Italia, L.J.Jordaan Award, Alblas Award, Holland Video Award and the Prix Sacem du Louvre.

Gerry Bassermann (US)
Composer Gerry Bassermann is a musician who works in many different acoustic and electronic styles, playing a wide variety of instruments and programming music computers. He holds several degrees in music composition and conducting at the Eastman School of Music, and currently owns and operates OPUS NINE, a project studio in the San Francisco Bay area (www.opusnine.com). For the past twenty five years, he’s worked as a musical consultant, writer, composer, and electronic instrument designer. Gerry is currently focused on music production and sound design, blending synthetic and acoustic sounds. He has taught electronic music at University of California at Santa Cruz since 1995, and is currently Director of North American Markets for Propellerhead Software. In 1993, he co-founded the Bay area ensemble Haunted By Waters which performed electro-acoustic compositions inspired by musical styles from many cultures. His current projects are Artifact, which explores loop-based trance music; Nye’s Reef, a free improvisation group based in Half Moon Bay, CA; and subTribe, a Middle Eastern music and dance ensemble and production company.

Tina Blaine (US)
Inspired by global traditions and spontaneous music, Bean has built custom electronic midi devices and studied acoustic percussion from Africa to Asia and beyond. She has written music for NPR, video games, TV and documentary soundtracks, and has performed/recorded with Brian Eno, Mickey Hart, Haunted by Waters, D’CüCKOO, Tracy Blackman, RhythMix, Pandemonaeon, University of Pittsburgh Gamelan, Maze Daiko and others lured by the muse. Bean currently works as a curator for the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose and is an artistic inspirator with the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam. An energetic performer/educator, Bean developed a variety of interactive media experiences while teaching at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center and working as a “musical interactivist” at Interval Research in Palo Alto. Her collaborative work with students and colleagues has resulted in several museum exhibits at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Zeum in San Francisco, the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria, Laboral in Gijon, Spain and Give Kids the World Resort in Orlando, Florida. Bean co-founded the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME.org) conference in 2001 and looks forward to discovering each year’s whimsical inventions.

The recent interest in analog synths and circuit bending is an obvious reaction to laptop music. But what good would all this be if it was just about nostalgic or gadgety interest and not reflected upon music and its innovation? It is really hard to deny the richness of analog synthesizers and the wonderful look of hacked toys spread out on the table, but the music created must go beyond Tudor or Subotnick whether it is pure to its method or a combination with today’s digital tech.
DIE SCHRAUBER came with an impressive spread of instruments consisting of circuit bent toys, hand-made synths, radios, toy turntable, guitar and a MacBook running Max/MSP. Each player had a distinctive array of sounds, mostly playing short bursts at a time. The performance started with great energy but quickly fell into a random sound triggering contest until they agreed upon a delicate structure half way in. Once they settled there everything became much more musically structured with each player paying more attention to the overall energy and density.
Ankersmit and Tricoli played a wonderful set constructed between improvised, composed and pre-recorded material. The sounds and drones they produced where extremely textural and like their super directional speaker that occasionally swirled around the room, their musical direction was very clear, very well executed and very seductive.

DIE SCHRAUBER (from left to right: Hans Tammen, Mario de Vega, Joker Nies)

Ankersmit / Tricoli duo

(photos taken by Frank Balde)

Text from our mailing list:
Vol.2 STEIM Concert presenting the forefront of today’s electronic music

STEIM has never been the cutting edge of technology. We have always been the cutting edge of musical use of technology. Examining available technology for musical merit and expression is a special technique that falls in-between multiple disciplines. In our next concert we present highly unique use of familiar and unfamiliar tools for creating exciting new music.

Valerio Tricoli (IT) - Revox, lights, electronics
Thomas Ankersmit (NL) - Serge analogue modular synthesizer, computer, alto saxophone

DIE SCHRAUBER
Hans Tammen (NYC) - Endangered Guitar, realtime live sound processing
Joker Nies (Cologne) - Omnichord, circuit bent instruments
Mario de Vega (Mexico City) - SPK ®, glitch sampling

Videos:
DIE SCHRAUBER http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=hansteg
Thomas Ankersmit http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x47s2p_thomas-ankersmit-nl_music

dj sniff was invited to the dBâle Festival in Switzerland.

Chikashi Miyama and Qgo sensor instrument

dj sniff

Die Schrauber trio

(Photos take by Vivian Wenli Lin)

dBâle electronic music festival basel - interfaces-instruments-installations
Every 2-3 years, the Electronic Studio Basel of the Hochschule für Musik organises an international festival presenting re-known artists from abroad as well as from the local electronic music scene.
At this year’s dBâle electronic music festival, the theme is interfaces-instruments-installations with the design of electronic instruments and installations taking centre stage.
The music industry in general is still very much focussed on traditional instruments such as keyboards and controller for the recording studios. Therefore, many artists resort to self-designed hardware and self-developped software to produce and change electronic music live on stage. At dBâle, should you see a computer mouse or a plastic keyboard in a performance then, in many cases, you will see it in a diverted form, dispossessed from its original functionality, broken up, with changed soldering inside, cables hanging out, re-contextualized and recycled (circuit bending).
The festival’s aim is to show what is possible once there are no set frames nor limits to artistic creativity and interpretation of electronic music and electronic sound installations

Mediamatic and DNK-Amsterdam hosted a party to show their support for STEIM in time that we might lose our funding to exist in future. The event took place in front of the Post CS building parking lot. It was a really nice experience to play and hear this kind of electronic music outdoors. One Man Nation and Richard Scott kicked off the evening with a wonderful improv duo of stuttering beats and grooves. dj sniff and Fedde ten Berge debuted their turntable duo with heavy drones and ultra slowed down 4 on floor rhythms. Tok Tek delivered a energetic and frantic live sampling set that brought the crowd to its peak and calling for more at the end of the set. All three performances where highly physical but also beat oriented, which showed another side of STEIM that is rarely recognized. Tok Tek said in his email “I would be working in a super market if it wasn’t for STEIM.” I can say the same for myself. I hope that kind of love STEIM gets is heard by the higher people.

Marc aka One Man Nation

Richard Scott with his Buchala Lighting Rod

Turntable duo by dj sniff and Fedde ten Berge

Tok Tek rocking the party

STEIM’s wonderful sound and light man, Kees van Zelst

DNK DJ Crew

(photos taken by Vivian Wenli Lin)

We often don’t agree with what we are told, but we also listen and believe in change

We touch circuits, hack code, scratch records, play too loud, play too soft, think too hard and think too fast

We have more friends than ever and all eyes are on us

We want to celebrate this with a series of concerts and parties

<3 = heart,

We <3 STEIM, STEIM <3s you