City-wide Bristol New Music festival starts this week

Following the announcement that Bristol New Music (BNM) would be returning to provoke the ears in a multitude of ways, the full programme is revealed; including Sarah Davachi, Coby Sey with London Contemporary Orchestra, renowned Chicagoan clarinettist Angel Bat Dawid and Tara Clerkin Trio among the names announced today.

Taking place across the city, from residential neighbourhoods to a world-famous concert hall, secret underground locations to Bristol’s respected art galleries, the full programme explores the furthest reaches of new music.

Expanding on the first wave of artists including Mica Levi, Hezarfen Ensemble and DJ Marcelle, BNM has released all events with tickets on sale via Headfirst.

In a coup BNM have secured a rare UK show by Sarah Davachi, the talented Canadian ‘drone’ artist, whose work explores the close intricacies of timbral and temporal space. She has released a prolific 20 albums over the last decade, building a following with new music, experimental/ambient and post-classical audiences. She has collaborated with the likes of Grouper, Apartment House and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with appearances at the world’s leading concert halls. This final gig on Sunday night, which sees Sarah prepare a special set for piano and electronics, promises to be a highlight of the weekend.

Musician, producer and DJ Coby Sey experiments with live instrumentation and electronic-based productions, melding sounds with introspective lyrics and heavy dub dancefloor energy. This new collaboration, as premiered at a sold out Southbank Centre Purcell session in Dec 2021, sees Coby material new and old ambitiously arranged for a strings and percussion ensemble from the LCO (London Contemporary Orchestra)..

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Eccentric Melodies is a free drop-in concert at the Arnolfini, with works by Oliver Knussen, Harrison Birtwistle, Elliot Carter and the hugely talented Charlotte Bray. From across the border, Wales’s relatively young (2018) contemporary music ensemble, Uproar, was set up to bring the best international classical music written today to audiences across the country. Led by conductor Michael Rafferty, their programme, Professor Bad Trip, features three new homegrown commissions alongside three celebrated international works by pioneering post-spectral, electroacoustic composers (Murail, Romitelli, Saariaho). Ligeti Quartet present a special concert of Georg Friedrich Haas’s third string quartet with players and audience together in total darkness.

Showcasing some of the most exciting local talent, BNM features some of Bristol’s most distinctive and innovative artists. Producer Surgeons Girl - who specialises in audio-visual performances and has a love of analogue synths - will be performing a live soundtrack to 1922 legendary silent horror film Nosferatu at Spike Island (tied in with their current exhibition, Nosferasta - a Rastafarian vampire film by Brooklyn based filmmakers Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer.

Sound artist, musician and composer Shirley Pegna - a member of the renowned BEEF Collective (Bristol Expanded & Experimental Film) - explores the effect of sound on matter. For BNM she has created a performance-installation entitled Earth Din for the Arnolfini, and will be collaborating with Welsh violin player Angharad Davies and Cambridge-based composer and improviser Dominic Lash.

Channelling the spirit of Bristol’s soulful, downtempo lineage but with a darker, more dubbed-out DIY ethos, Jabu is an electronic/vocal trio comprising vocalist/lyricists Alex Rendall and Jasmine Butt, and producer Amos Childs. Born out of Bristol’s DIY circles, and particularly 2010s label and promoters Howling Owl, Tara Clerkin Trio features singer Tara plus Pat Benjamin and Sunny-Joe Paradisos. With carefully woven textures of delicate sounds, “Drifting from dubby minimalism to smudged acid jazz Tara’s stark and tuneful voice acts as the vehicle for her concise poetic lyricism” (The Wire). A release on World Of Echo and festival shows on the cards in Europe this summer, sees this homegrown talent on the move.

Sonic experimenters Copper Sounds showcase their new installation in the GlassRoom of St George’s, a series of sculptural ceramic vessels each produce their own sound depending on the form, size and type of clay. The second wave of the programme features two of Glasgow’s finest. Prolific, multidisciplinary artist Helena Celle releases on respected underground labels such as Night School and Kit, as well as via her own Patreon account. Bringing her fascinating multi-layered experiments in rhythmic electronics, Helena’s BNM show will be a solo performance using iPad, effects processor, and microphone. Fellow Glaswegian, Joanne Robertson - visual artist, musician and poet – works at the avant-garde fringe of the femme-folk tradition. known for several solo releases as well as frequent work with her friend and close collaborator Dean Blunt. Her newest release is an album and art project with London-based artist Sidsel Meineche Hansen - “an insane mix of songs and aktion” - The Wire

Polish composer, producer and visual artist, Wojciech Rusin’s mesmeric sound draws inspiration from alchemical and gnostic texts, early renaissance choral music and Eastern European mythologies. Acclaim for his 2020 release The Funnel, festival commissions including for Rewire in The Hague, and a ‘genius followup’ (Boomkat) album out on AD93 last month, see his career taking off. For BNM he performs as a trio with harp and voice.

No Home is the fiercely personal/political DIY punk solo project of Charlie Valentine, borne of the London community of punk artists of colour represented by collectives such as Decolonise. Their stripped-down vocals, raw lo-fi electronics and guitar strings, have been released on various EPs and albums over the past five years.

For full info visit www.bristolnewmusic.org