On October 2, the renown electronic music producer Tom Jenkinson a.k.a. Squarepusher will play at the Skaņu Mežs festival for adventurous music and related arts in Riga, Latvia. He will present his latest audio-visual show, based on musical material from his new album Damogen Furies. The concert will take place at the “Palladium” concert hall, on the first day of the festival.
Tom Jenkinson’s compositions draw on a number of influences including drum and bass, acid house, jazz and electroacoustic music. His recordings are typified by a combination of electronic sound sources, live instrumental playing and digital signal processing. Most of his recordings have been published by Warp Records, and he – alongside Autechre and Aphex Twin – is considered to be one of the giants of this historically important label. On April of 2015, Squarepusher released his latest recording Damogen Furies, of which critic Josh Hall writes the following:
“Squarepusher’s legacy is unassailable. From his early releases on Rephlex and his residency at the Blue Note, through his aggressive interpretations of ensemble jazz, the peerless Music Is Rotted One Note, his musique concrète experiments, and the boundary-warping drum ‘n’ bass with which he is synonymous, Squarepusher has tilted ever forwards.
The techniques and craftsmanship that he has honed over the course of his career have become some of his signal qualities. He has spent the last decade creating and refining his own unique software system, and this album is the first to be made using that system exclusively. It is the culmination of years spent experimenting with and hacking hardware and software, having long since abandoned the limitations of out-of-the-box offerings. Squarepusher has remained truly experimental in part because he has rejected those limitations, choosing instead a compositional process that places the act of building instruments at its heart. On Damogen Furies we hear a truthful, unembellished representation of how those instruments sound.
Damogen Furies is a record that has the brutal energy and vivaciousness of a debut. It sees the peak and confluence of the preoccupations that have emerged throughout Squarepusher’s career, approached with the antagonism and audacity of an artist who still believes in the power of the intervention.”
See the video below to get a taste of what Squarepusher’s performance will be like:
Other acts of Skaņu Mežs’2015 include the live show of James Holden, Powell, Rrose, Frederic Rzewski, Peter Brötzmann, SHAPE platform acts and many more.
Skaņu Mežs’2015 will take place at the “Palladium” concert hall (October 2) and music hall “Daile” (October 9 and 10). The tickets to the festival can be purchased at www.bilesuserviss.lv. Tickets to October 20 cost 20 EUR, whereas tickets to October 9 and 10 cost 15 EUR each. A three-day ticket to the festival can also be purchased for 30 EUR.
Squrepusher’s performance at Skaņu Mežs festival is a part of the project “Experimental Music Lighthouses”. The project will take place between November 1 2014 – October 31 2015 and will be available to the greater public in October 2015 during the Skaņu Mežs festival in Latvia, as well as at the Insomnia festival in Norway shortly thereafter. The aim of the project is to promote a four part cooperation between Skaņu Mežs and Insomnia. This includes, amongst other things: the production of a Latvian/Norwegian composition; an exchange of Latvian and Norwegian musicians between the programs of the festival; creating a mutual festival program; the exchange of new compositions between Riga and Tromsø with the help of artists’ residencies. The unique soundscapes of both cities and their symbiosis is the emphasis of each of the exchange.
The project is co-financed by the European Economic Area’s (EEA) Financial Mechanism programme “Conservation and Revitalisation of Cultural and Natural Heritage.” The grant is made up of 84.236,74 EUR from the EEA (consisting of money from Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), an allocation of 14.865,31 EUR from the Latvian national budget and 15.625,95 EUR of Skaņu Mežs’s, own means.
Skaņu Mežs’2014 is supported by EU programme “Creative Europe”, Riga City Council, Latvian State Endowment for Arts (VKKF) and others. Skaņu Mežs is a member of ECAS – European Cities for Advanced Music association for experimental music festivals as well as the SHAPE platform for innovative music and audiovisual art.
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