http://live.nextfestival.sk/

PHOTOS FROM FESTIVAL

mx
smoet
StiX

Peter Rehberg (a.k.a. Pita) (1968, London), laptop player and the founder of the MEGO label in Vienna. He still runs it under the new name Editions Mego.
He has collaborated with: Jim O’Rourke, Christian Fennesz, Dennis Cooper, Gisèle Vienne, Stephen O’Malley (as KTL), Tina Frank, Matmos, Tujiko Noriko, Kevin Drumm, Marcus Schmickler, Michaela Schwentner (aka Jade), Matt “Skitz” Sanders, Russell Haswell, Florian Hecker, Carlos Giffoni, Gert-Jan Prins, Mika Vainio, General Magic, Zbigniew Karkowski, Z’EV, Rosy Parlane, Keith Rowe, Sunn O))) as well as being a member of Mimeo.
In 1999 he received Prix Ars Electronica Distinction Award for Digital Musics, alongside Christian Fennesz.

Z’EV (born Stefan Joel Weisser, 1951) is an American text-sound artist, poet and mystic who is perhaps best known for his work as a catacoustic (reflected sound-based) percussionist. He has worked as a professional musician since 1963, and is regarded as a pioneer of industrial music.
Since 1984, he has been concentrating on performing in a more traditional mallet-percussion style, albeit with highly idiosyncratic and “extended” mallet percussion techniques and his self-made or adapted instruments.Both performance modes have been described as cacophonous when considered in traditional Western musical terms, because of the dense elemental acoustic phenomena Z’EV’s instruments produce. In point of fact, Z’EV doesn’t actually consider the results as “music” per se, but more as orchestrations of highly rhythmic acoustic phenomena.

Mika Vainio (FI), currently based in Berlin, is one half of the minimal electronic duo Pan Sonic from Finland, (the other half is Ilpo Väisänen). Before starting Pan Sonic in beginning of the 90’s Mika Vainio has played electronics and drums as part of the early Finnish industrial and noise scene. His solo works, under his own name and under aliases like Ø, are known for their analogue warmth and electronic harshness. Be it abstract drone works or minimal avant techno, Vainio is always creating unique, physical sounds.
He has released on labels like Touch, Wavetrap and Sähkö and he has been producing with Björk, Alan Vega of Suicide, Keiji Haino and Chicks on Speed.

Hai Nguyen Dinh – composition, video, lights, guitar
Tormod Christensen – samples, keyboard
Anders Hangård – drums

NEXT LIFE’s unique mixture of aggressive doom metal riffs and the virtual worlds of old school game consoles could be easily end up as an exercise in male geekness, their almost theatrical live presentations featuring intense, flickering light effects completely deny that, providing an abstract, almost artsy meta level to the
probably most brutal onslaught of musical mayhem you’ve ever heard! these 20 minutes of pure energy will change your life, promised!

Another commissioned project. Author of concept and video part is Andras Csefalvay, young artists awarded by outstanding Oskar Cepan prize this year. Musically, the piece is conducted by saxophone and keyboard player Miro Toth. He is a founder of experimental audiovisual group called Frutti di mare and also an improvise symphony orchestra called Musica falsa et ficta.

Since 1992, eRikm has extended the field of artistic experimentation on the international scene. Maintaining a constant fusion between thought, instinct and sensitivity, he pursues a simultaneity of practices and addresses the interplay between various compositional modes, relating to and using all languages.

From his early experience as a guitarist through to his later visual work, he is a maverick genre-bender who breaks down anyone’s attempts to conveniently classify him. Quickly recognised as a virtuoso turntablist and sound artist (1996), eRikm has made a longlife habit of crossing all territories deemed “independent”, “institutional”.

DJ SNIFF (Takuro Mizuta Lippit) believes in the instrumental autonomy of the turntable and the musicianship of the DJ. He is a turntable musician working in the field of improvised and experimental music. His music focuses on the live reconstruction and narratization of the phonographically amplified – the music, the sound, the technology and the past. To achieve this, he uses a unique setup consisting of hand-made hardware interfaces and a custom Max/MSP software along with one turntable and DJ mixer. He is also a concert/event curator for electronic music and a researcher of music technology.

While studying Art History and Philosophy in Tokyo, he was active as a DJ in the underground electronic music scene and formed a collective called smashTV productions which organized genre-mixing events such as anti-Gravity and bistro-Smash!. In 2002, he moved to New York to pursue graduate studies in computer music and physical computing at NYU’s ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program). Since 2005 he has been involved with STEIM’s (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, Amsterdam) R&D lab. From 2007 on, he is STEIM’s Artistic Director, curating public events and representing the institution through performances and lectures.

EVAN PARKER (1944) is a British free jazz saxophone player. He has recorded dozens of albums solo or as a group leader, and has recorded or performed with Peter Brotzmann-including Brotzmann’s epochal “Machine Gun” in 1968, Derek Bailey, Keith Rowe, Joe McPhee and many others. In recent years, he has expanded beyond free jazz, working with the dub music oriented Jah Wobble and the adventurous drum n bass duo Spring Heel Jack.

Parker is one of rather few saxophone players who has extensively recorded and performed unacompanied, and has developed a unique, idenitifiable approach. One critic has written that Parker’s solo performances “reveal also the mechanical possibilities for the instrument that weren’t even considered before he came along — things like playing in all three registers of the instrument at the same time.

GRUTRONIC are four musicians from diverse backgrounds working collaboratively in a unique electronic idiom. They combine electronic and acoustic sound to create unique textures and give them compositional direction. This process involves the creation of a complex, shifting soundscape. They employ a hands-on physicality to electronic instruments, understanding that input, control and exchange of human energy are what gives sound, form, soul and a human reason for being. Grutronic bring many different influences to the music, contemporary classical, free jazz, improvisation, funk and abstract electronica.

In their gigs they normally perform as a quartet and often also invite an acoustic guest soloist to make a quintet. The guest can attempt to penetrate the Grutronic world of slippery bendy electronic improvisation, or they can choose to take the music where they want and the band will try to support their vision. In the past Grutronic have done this with Evan Parker, shakuhachi master Clive Bell, Orphy Robinson, Paddy Steer (Homelife), Alice Kemp and others.

Benny Nilsen (1975) a.k.a. Hazard and BJNilsen has been active with experimental music for over 20 years. For the past 10 years he has been releasing albums on Touch, making music and sound design for documentary film, television and commercials. He is focused on the sound of nature and its effect on humans, field recordings and the perception of time and space as experienced through sound, offten electronically treated.

BJNilsen has ollaborated with Chris Watson, Hildur Gudnadottir, Philip Jeck and Stilluppsteypa amongst others.
He is collaborating with various artists, resulting in some compact discs detailed below and also is a member of freq_out, a collective curated by CM von Hausswolff.

Mario de Vega (1979) studied linguistics and scenography. He presented several performances and sound works in various spaces of the town of Mexico City. He also composed the sound for theater productions and did sound improvisations from musical samplins. With the duo Fartha he produced a compact disk.

http://www.mariodevega.info

TONY BUCK (1962) is regarded as one of Australia’s most creative and adventurous exports, with vast experience across the globe. He has been involved in a highly diverse array of projects. Apart from The Necks, he is probably best known as leader of hardcore/improv band PERIL. After having graduated from the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, he became very involved in the jazz scene in Australia, often touring with visiting international artists such as Vincent Herring, Branford Marsalis and Ernie Watts. Following time he spent in Japan, where he formed Peril with Otomo Yoshihide and Kato Hideki, Tony moved to Europe and has involved himself in many projects there, including the development of new “virtual” midi controllers at STEIM in Amsterdam. Tony has played, toured or recorded with, among others, Jon Rose, John Zorn, Tom Cora, Phil Minton, Keiji Haino, The Ex, Peter Brötzmann, Han Bennink, Shelley Hirsch and Ground Zero.

MAGDA MAYAS (1979) lives in Berlin. Her music is harmonically open with a focus on flexible and (fast) changing structures. She combines the keyboard and the inside piano in her clear sound explorations. Magda Mayas has appeared internationally as a solo performer and with her various ensembles: Quartett (Mayas/Nutters/Olsen/Galvez), duo with drummer Tony Buck and with the trio Phono Phono (Michael Renkel guitar/electronics and Sabine Vogel flutes/electronics). She is a member of n-collective, an international network of musicians, improvisers and composers founded in Amsterdam in 2001 and has appeared in various festivals, such as the Festival of Exiles (2003 and 2004) and the Total Music Meeting (2005). She is also a curator of Tasten – Berliner Klaviertage, an international festival for contemporary composed and improvised piano music. She has performed with with Johannes Bauer, Christoph Kurzmann, Andy Moore, Tristan Honsinger and Michael Moore.

CHRISTINE SEHNAOUI (1978) Born and living in France, but of Lebanese origin. After discovering improvised music in 1997 Christine decided to start her own autodidact study of sound experimentation on the alto saxophone. She now plays in various regular ensembles and with a number of musical partners, including Sharif Sehnaoui, Michel Waisvisz, Stéphane Rives, Quentin Dubost, Agnès Palier, Sebastien Bouhana and Mazen Kerbaj. For the past few years, she has been working in the field of Buto and contemporary dance. She also undertakes ongoing research into musical pedagogy and realizes concerts for children and projects in schools. Sehnaoui co-organizes an annual festival of improvised music – Irtijal – in Lebanon. She is co-curator of “LAPS” project, a one-month production residency around sound, reception and transmission.