BEK Studio Sessions #3: Helene Rickard and Gareth Morris
Published
Do you remember the last time you heard a new musical genre for the first time, a totally new sound universe, or a surprising combination of sounds that you thought would never work together? We want to cultivate that moment with BEK Studio Sessions.
Thursday November 7th Helene Rickhard (NO) and Gareth Morris (UK) will present the results of their collaboration during the third edition of Studio Sessions at BEK.
Video documentation by Paul Johannessen
Presentation
Thursday November 7th at 22:00
Helene Rickhard (NO / Camp Cosmic) & Gareth Morris (UK / 8bitpeoples)
DJ Niilas (NO)
Lampemannen Bar,
Strandgaten 197, 5004 Bergen
More info in the Facebook-event here.
Helene Rickard (NO / Camp Cosmic)
Helene Rickhard has been making synth waves across Oslo over the past few years. With a penchant for enchanting melodies crafted from ancient electronic circuits and a primal rhythmic instinct, she’s garnered a reputation as one of Oslo’s more idiosyncratic DJs. Eighties synth wave, minimal wave, new world ambient and cosmic disco constitute her sets with her unique flair for the unusual and esoteric underpinning and thrives in the more obscure corners of early synthesiser music.
Helene is one of the initiators of Oslo´s “Camp Cosmic” a bi-regular clubnight that highlights the dark corners of the synth wave genre, and recently played Jægers Boiler Room weekender.
Gareth Morris (UK / 8bitpeoples)
Gareth Morris aka gwEm, creates his chiptune music using the maxYMiser software he wrote for the 1980s Atari ST homecomputer and talks excitedly about the artistic freedom the chiptune scene gives him; – “chiptune music gives me the carte blanche to explore any genre I want, while still remaining under the umbrella of the friendly chip music scene”. His extensive back catalogue of material bears this out, with drum’n’bass, punk, heavy metal, garage, electro, folk, house, grime, dad rock, happy hardcore and dubstep.
gwEm’s releases can be found on a number of net- and physical labels including Astralwerks, Cheapbeats Tokyo, 8bitpeoples, micromusic, Shitkatapult and Muller. Collaborations with fellow London based artists, grime MC Appljuice and jazz drummer/jungle MC Counter Reset.
BEK Studio Sessions
BEK Studio Sessions is a new series of artist residencies, initiated and organised by BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Art. During sessions of 10 days, BEK’s sound studio will be occupied by one local and one international musician. Together, they will develop and perform either a sound art piece, or experimental music. Two musicians/composers from differing genres will be invited to BEK so that they can collaborate and create a new composition, informed by their diverging musical backgrounds. The artists that we have chosen to invite will not have collaborated before, but they will have an interest in one another’s music. Their task is to develop a new, unique and experimental composition, which will be created and performed using various forms of both classical and modern technology.
With this new model for collaboration and production, BEK intends to give musicians the possibility to expand and create a new piece of music, with the help of experimental means. BEK Studio Sessions is a call to encourage the use of experimental methods of composing and/or instruments. It creates room for experimentation within both classic and newly established genres.
For the first Studio Session, BEK Studio Session #1, we invited two artists that both have a knack for electronic experiments and loop- and sample based music: Tom Verbruggen, aka toktek, and Eva Pfitzenmaier. See documentation of their collaborative performance here.
Studio Sessions # 2 was a meeting between composer and sound artist Tine Surel Lange (NO), and musician and sound designer Adam Parkinson (UK). See the interview with them and the documentation of their live performance here.
In the autumn of 2017, we produced a test version of BEK Studio Sessions, called BEK Sound Lab. Carsten Aniksdal and James Welburn performed a new piece that ended with a groundbreaking and hard hitting concert for Prøverommet at Landmark. See documentation of the results here.
BEK Studio Sessions is organized by Marieke Verbiesen for BEK, and is supported by Bergen Municipality and Norwegian Arts Council. BEK Studio Sessions is part of BEK’s programme for Future DiverCities, where we invite artists to develop new expressions and projects together. Future DiverCities is supported by Creative Europe.