Mirt / Maja Ratkje / Sultan Hagavik
EASTERN WAVES ON TOUR is Supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants and co-financed by the Polish funds
Over the last five years Bôłt Records became a leading label in Polish experimental music. The focus on the rich yet unexplored tradition of Polish avant-garde music together with insights into the new scene proved fruitful. Among the label’s main projects is “Polish Radio Experimental Studio”, series of albums combining re-mastered and de-noised archival recordings from the Studio and its new re-interpretations by world famous musicians such as zeitkratzer, John Tilbury, Thomas Lehn, Lionel Marchetti and many others.
Now, in the framework of EASTERN WAVES project organized by Foundation 4.99, the young generation of polish experimentalists, Mirt and Sultan Hagavik as well as the Norwegian voice virtuoso Maja S.K. Ratkje join in to shed the new light on the history of Polish and Norwegian cooperation within boundaries of electronic music.
Program-
MIRT, Solitaire (ca. 30 mins)
A solo composition being a re-interpretation of the legendary piece “Solitaire” by Arne Nordheim. Mirt’s departure point were various ways of slowing down the original piece of the Norwegian electronic master. The new material revealed number of emerging details appearing only for seconds in different moments of the process. They became the focal point of Mirt’s interest while preparing the new re-interpretation and resulted in an ephemeral piece displaying unexpected planes in the clearly recognizable original.
MAJA S.K. RATKJE, Dialogue with Eugeniusz Rudnik (45-60 mins)
An open framework to improvise in search of bridges between the tape music of the legendary Polish composer, sound engineer and the father of Polish lo-fi ambient Eugeniusz Rudnik and live electronic and voice music of Maja S.K. Ratkje. Her approach underlines his non-idiomatic use of field recordings and voices as well as intuitive, highly original and instantly recognizable sound world. Ratkje created beautiful and full of surprises landscape full of ambiguous vocalizations, bells, chimes and whistling juxtaposed with sinusoids and noises.
SULTAN HAGAVIK, KØSMØPØLEX FORTE (30-45 mins)
Crazy improvised tornado based on samples taken from the archives of Polish Radio Experimental Studio. Tape duo Sultan Hagavik made its own statement in approaching the archive, far from its classical composers’ methods and close to its science-fiction film soundtracks tradition. Their performance pays tribute to an ever paradoxical history stretched between its high-brow ambitions and popular uses.
EASTERN WAVES on TOUR: ARTISTS INFORMATION
MIRT
Musician and graphic artist. Creates solo and in collaborations, member of Brasil and The Gallowbrothers Band (formerly One Inch of Shadow). With both bands recorded 11 CDs (on labels such as Last Visible Dog, Nefryt, MonotypeRec) and included a lot of tracks in compilations all around the world. Conducts label cat|sun, and along with Jakub Mikołajczyk – MonotypeRec. Graphic designer in Bocian Records. He was also editor-in-chief of the magazine M|I. With Marcin Łojek (Mantichora) & Krzysztof Sobolewski he runs Modularne.info – polish blog about modular synthesizers & XAOC Devices – small butique company developing modular synths.
His solo music is sometimes gentler than field recordings, which he likes to use. Sometimes repetitive but it can also be characterized by subcutaneous rapacity. Usually the sound is based on analog synthesizers, guitars, trumpets and acoustic instruments that he likes to electrify and process. Mirt also likes to think that his music oscillates between an organic lo-fi, ambient and psychedelia in the broadest sense of the word.
Mirt released 6 solo albums (for MonotypeRec, Nefryt, Foxglove/Foxy Digitalis and cat|sun). On stage and in the studio he appeared among others together with TER, Hati, Wolfram, Tomasz Gadomski, Black Forest / Black Sea, Ray Dickaty, Angelica Castelló, Johanes Frish, Ralf Wechowski.
More: https://soundcloud.com/mirt-1
MAJA SOLVEIG KJELSTRUP RATKJE
Composer and performer, finished composition studies at the Norwegian State Academy of Music in Oslo in 2000. Her music is performed worldwide by performers such as Klangforum Wien, Oslo Sinfonietta, The Norwegian Radio Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Fretwork, TM+, Cikada and Bozzini string quartets, Quatuor Renoir, crashEnsemble, Pearls for Swine Experience, Torben Snekkestad, Marianne Beate Kielland, SPUNK, Frode Haltli, POING and many more. Portrait concerts with her music has been heard in Toronto and Vienna, she has been composer in residence at festivals like Other Minds in San Francisco, Nordland Music Festival in Bodø, Avanti! Summer Festival in Finland, Båstad Chamber Music Festival and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
Ratkje has received awards such as the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris for composers below 30 years of age, the Norwegian Edvard prize (work of the year) twice, second prize at the Russolo Foundation, and in 2001 she was the first composer ever to receive the Norwegian Arne Nordheim prize. Her solo album «Voice», made in collaboration with Jazzkammer, got a Distinction Award at Prix Ars Electronica in 2003. In 2013 she was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize for her vocal work.
Ratkje is active as a singer/voice user and electronics performer and engineer, as a soloist or in groups such as SPUNK. Other collaborations are with Jaap Blonk, Joëlle Léandre, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Stephen O’Malley, Lasse Marhaug, POING and many more.
More: http://www.ratkje.com/
SULTAN HAGAVIK
Wrocław based cassette tape duo and two classically trained composers. Emerging from one of the most interesting music scenes in Poland they stand for the new generation – well educated, uncompromising, funny and serious, provocative and fancy. Nothing is sacred for them, starting with classical symphonies (the opening and closing pieces) slowing up and down with no remorse, pierced with dadaistic soundbites played at various speeds, continuing with pop pieces warped and bastardized beyond recognition, samples from movies, speech slowed down or sped up according to the authors’ whim, bloodcurdling screams repeating and suddenly cut, Arabic music laced with glitches and noises, compositions with barely any skeleton or structure filled with crackles and tape hiss.
As they want to introduce themselves: „Duet playing record. It was Parella fondegi Jack Nicholas Laskowski and Sotomskiego In July 2011, Wroclaw, in very difficult conditions, when set PRECISIO. Since that time, I spent two and a half years album (“Eight beautiful melodies”, “nine symphonies” and “g”) and earn 34 APAGADA Li Espectacle review the current phase of the song “Passio – About · Parella Biniimashir shit.” Sultan Hagavik cooperates with the Wrocław lead before a drag queen as a shepherd and a plastic Måggda artist. Jobs Surkonwencjonalnej fill in the name of the mini Disseny Trends LIVE from pop to punctualism”