WET SOUNDS TOURS UK

27 January – 26 March 2011
Bangor, Newcastle, Brighton, Oxford, Glasgow, Birmingham, London

The world’s only underwater sound art gallery is setting off on the third tour of the UK in January 2011. Wet Sounds transforms public swimming pools into listening galleries in which the public can experience a range of live performances, music, and specially commissioned and selected sound art pieces, while swimming or floating in the water, with ears submerged, and absorbed in sound. Wet Sounds is a deep listening experience. The swimming pools are divided in two: one sound system is used underwater, and another above, and lighting is specially designed for the events,transforming the pools and creating an immersive environment.

REVERSE SOUND ART GALLERY AND SPECIAL PERFORMANCES

Wet Sounds brings a variety of audio experiences to a wide audience in a unique setting. The new tour will present both open access and special events. For the open events (accessible to the public at a price of regular pool admission), curator Joel Cahen has created ReVerse, a sound art gallery of works by international artists. Cahen plays a live collage, mixing recorded environments, film soundtracks, sound fx, dialogue and sound textures to create a rich cinematic soundscape.

Within this mix he will include works especially made for Wet Sounds, by artist including Jessica Rowland (UK), Liam Quinn (UK), Daniel Blinkhorn (AU), Julius Holtz (D), Riz Maslen (UK), Jurgen Hall (D) and Philip Mantione (USA). The concert‐events will bring together a range of internationally renowned artists, including Pierre Henry (who contributed significantly to the development of Musique Concréte in the 1950s and has created a new work Analogy for the tour), Mira Calix & Andrea Parker, Eric La Casa, and Nurse with Wound.

A HISTORY OF SOUND ART

Parallel to the swimming pool installations, Wet Sounds will present an eighty‐minute audio composition which weaves through different sound works throughout the century with narratives and ideas from some of the prominent artists in the field. It is an insightful retrospective into the craft of sound and its development as an artistic practice, from Edison's first sound film in 1895 to today. Composed and arranged by Dr J Milo Taylor and mixed by Joel Cahen, the work positions sound art practice in an informative and engaging listening session hosted by a number of contemporary art institutions in tour cities, including Modern Art Oxford and Whitechapel Gallery. A publication mapping the development of sound art over the last 100 years will accompany

the presentation.

In the 2011 tour, Wet Sounds will go to:

Bangor (with Bangor Sound City festival), 27‐28 January
Newcastle, 5‐6 February
Oxford, 13 February
Glasgow (with Glasgow Film Festival), 19‐20 February
Brighton (with Brighton Science Festival), 2 March
London, 6 March
Birmingham (with Fierce Festival), 26 March

BANGOR
in collaboration with Bangor Sound City
Thursday, 27 January 2011, 7‐9pm
Performances by Joel Cahen, Chapparall Andrew Hodges, and ReVerse, the sound art gallery.
Bangor Pool, Garth Rd, Bangor LL57 2SD
Prices as per regular pool admission, no booking required

Friday, 28 January 2011, 8‐10pm,
Performances by Nurse with Wound, Joel Cahen, Graham Bowers, Andy Lewis
Underwater performances by Dawns i Bawb and Megan Broadmeadow
Bangor Pool, Garth Rd, Bangor LL57 2SD

Tickets: £10 / £7, 01248 382141, www.pontio.co.uk
Tuesday 25 – Friday 28 January 2011, 12.30‐4‐30pm

A History of Sound Art
Bangor Museum, Ffordd Gwynedd, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 1DT
Free

NEWCASTLE

Saturday, 5 February 2011, 2.30‐4.30pm
Performance by Joel Cahen, and ReVerse, the sound art gallery.
City Pool, Northumberland Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 8SE
Prices as per regular pool admission, no need to book

Sunday, 6 February, 5‐7.15pm and 7.45‐10pm
Performances by Mira Calix & Andrea Parker‐ Freaky Bitches, Cheap Machines and Joel Cahen.
City Pool, Northumberland Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 8SE
Tickets: £12/£10 www.wetsounds.co.uk

OXFORD

Sunday, 13 February 2011, 4.40‐6pm
Performance by Joel Cahen, and ReVerse, the sound art gallery.
Temple Cowley Pool, Temple Road Cowley, Oxford OX4 2EZ
Prices as per regular pool admission

Saturday, 12 February 2011, 4.40‐6pm
A History of Sound Art – a talk by Joel Cahen, and listening session
Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP
Free, booking recommended

GLASGOW
in collaboration with Glasgow Film Festival
Saturday, 19 February 2011, 2‐4pm
Performance by Joel Cahen, and ReVerse, the sound art gallery.

Glasgow Club, North Woodside Pool, 10 Braid Square, Glasgow G4 9YQ
Prices as per regular pool admission, no need to book
Sunday, 20 February, 5‐8pm
Performances by Eric La Casa, Adrian Moore and Joel Cahen.
Glasgow Club, North Woodside Pool, 10 Braid Square, Glasgow G4 9YQ

Tickets: £12/£10 www.wetsounds.co.uk and www.glasgowfilm.org

Date and time tbc.

A History of Sound Art – a presentation by Joel Cahen, and listening session
Transmission Gallery, 28 King Street, Glasgow,G1 5QP
Free

BRIGHTON
In collaboration with Brighton Science Festival

Wednesday, 2 March, 8‐10pm
Performances by Joel Cahen and ReVerse, the sound art gallery.
King Alfred Pool, Kingsway, Hove, BN3 2WW

Prices as per regular pool admission
Date and time tbc

A History of Sound Art
Phoenix Brighton, 10–14 Waterloo Place, Brighton BN2 9NB
Free

LONDON

Saturday, 26 February, 6‐8pm

Performances by Joel Cahen, and ReVerse, the sound art gallery.
York Hall, 5‐15 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PJ
Prices as per regular pool admission, no need to book

Sunday, 6 March, 8+9.30pm

Performances by Pierre Henry, Joel Cahen, Ryan Styles, Tai Shani, Simon Whetham
York Hall, 5‐15 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PJ

Tickets: £25/£20 www.wetsounds.co.uk

Tuesday 1 – Sunday 6 March 2011, 11am‐6pm
A History of Sound Art
Whitechapel Art Gallery, The Reading Room, 77‐82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX
Free

BIRMINGHAM
in collaboration with Fierce Festival

Wednesday, 26 March 2011, 8‐10pm

Performance by Joel Cahen, and ReVerse, the sound art gallery.
Moseley Road Baths, Moseley Road, Balsall Heath, B12 9AN

Date and time tbc

A History of Sound Art – a presentation by Joel Cahen, and listening session
VIVID, 140 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham B9 4AR
Free

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Nurse With Wound (Steven Stapleton and Andrew Liles) is a group formed in 1978, and has released over 40 full‐length titles. Stapleton's fondness for dada, surrealism and absurdist humour are demonstrated in much of the group’s work which retains a distinctive and recognizable aura, while drawing on a wide assortment or genres, including cabaret music, nursery rhymes, John Cage, or The Beach Boys.

Graham Bowers is a musician, composer and artist. His approach to musical composition developed out of his life‐long fascination with ‘associative listening’ and evolved into a genre of music which he describes as ‘Sound Theatre’.

Dawns i Bawb is an umbrella organisation for community dance in North West Wales which works with local people, amateur and professional dance practitioners to encourage dance in the area. In Bangor, Dawns i Bawb will create a special underwater dance performance.

Andrew Lewis is a composer, principally of electroacoustic music. He was one of the original members of BEAST (Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre). In 1993 he joined the staff in the School of Music at Bangor University, where is Professor, Head of Composition and Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studios. He also directs Electroacoustic WALES, which acts as a focus for the creation and dissemination of electroacoustic music in Wales and beyond.

Chaparall Andrew Hodges is a musician and sound artist, who maps, patterns and creates fantastic continuous sound textures. For Wet Sounds, he performs Watercycles – an improvised sound work, in which two musicians create an unfolding audio story of the transition from vapour to water and then ice.

Cheap Machines (Philip Julian) has been an active part of the experimental music underground since the late 1990’s. His studio recordings and live performances have focused on the use of analogue electronics, particularly analogue synthesizer, feedback, contact microphones, objects and surfaces and computer based works. For Wet Sounds, Julian will present the work Photic Ellipse, in which one set of low frequencies is played underwater, and another above the surface, creating an immersive experience for the listener.

Eric La Casa is a French sound artist and composer, who uses sound as a visual substance to create a tapestry of sound environments. The sounds are cinematic and evoking, and their original ‘meanings’ are transmuted into a rich and strange abstract narrative. “…Listening becomes tied up in the surfaces of the world. Recordings, sonic readings, open out into a

musical form which reactivates a perception of that which surrounds us, whether visible or not.”

Adrian Moore is a composer of electroacoustic music. He directs the University of Sheffield Sound Studios (USSS) where researchers and composers collaborate on new musical projects. Moore’s research interests are focused on the development of the acousmatic tradition in electroacoustic music, signal processing, and human‐computer interaction in music. His music has been commissioned by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), the Institute International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB) and the Arts Council of England.

Pierre Henry is a French composer and the pioneer of musique concrete, a genre of electronic music. Henry began experimenting at the age of 15 with sounds produced by various objects, and became fascinates with the integration of noise into music. He studied with Olivier Messiaen and Félix Passerone at the Paris Conservatoire from 1938 to 1948. Between 1949 and 1958, Henry worked at the Club d'Essai studio at RTF, founded by Pierre Schaeffer. During this period, he wrote Symphonie pour un homme seul, in cooperation with Schaeffer. He also composed the first musique concrète to appear in a commercial film, and scored numerous films and ballets. Among Henry's best known works is the experimental 1967 ballet Messe pour le temps présent, written with Michel Colombier, and one of several cooperations with choreographer Maurice Béjart featuring the popular track Psyché Rock. Henry will compose a new work for the London Wet Sounds performance.

Simon Whetham produces episodic and dramatic works, composing from field recordings he has gathered. Simon has worked with Scanner and Francisco Lopez, his work taking him to Mongolia, Brazil and Estonia amongst others. Simon’s work is published by Touch Music. For the London installation Simon will recreate Alvin Lucier’s seminal work I am sitting in a room. The work will work towards finding the resonant frequencies of the swimming pool itself.

Sound travels four times faster in water than it does in the air. Wet Sounds allows the audience to perceive sound not only through the ears, but through the entire body. The activity promotes relaxation, concentration, and openness.

People hard of hearing have a chance to experience sound in a way previously unavailable to them – sound textures are heard clearly and detailed underwater through the skull and bones.

Wet Sounds is a production of Newtoy, and is created and curated by Joel Cahen, himself a sound artist. Cahen’s interests and artistic practice centre around sound collage created from recorded environments, film soundtracks, and sound effects. Cahen presents a weekly show Sound Soup on Resonance FM, and works composing sound for film and in collaboration with other sound artists, and performers.

This is the third UK tour of Wet Sounds, following tours in 2008 and 2009, as well as tours in Scandinavia (2009) and Normandy (2010). Over the last three years, Wet Sounds has staged unique performances and events with a range of internationally‐renowned artists an groups, including Nurse With Wound, Francisco Lopez, Leafcutter John, Cluster, and has presented its programmes in collaboration with many international arts festivals, including AV Festival, ISEA Ruhr 2010, Insomnia Tromsø, Nu Musik Stavanger, Ultima Oslo, and Helsinki Festival.

Sponsor(s) : The Wet Sounds tour is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, PRS for Music Foundation, Newcastle City Council, Tower Hamlets Council, Oxford City Council, and is organised in collaboration with Bangor Sound City festival, Glasgow Film Festival, Fierce Festival (Birmingham), Oxford Brookes University, and Brighton Science Festival.

Website: http://www.wetsounds.co.uk

The Wet Sounds tour is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, PRS for Music Foundation, Newcastle City Council, Tower Hamlets Council, Oxford City Council, and is organised in collaboration with Bangor Sound City festival, Glasgow Film Festival, Fierce Festival (Birmingham), Oxford Brookes University, and Brighton Science Festival.

Email: wetsounds@newtoy.org
Website: www.wetsounds.co.uk