Unknown Devices in the Atrium, LCC

“LMC was one of the major forces in the development of improvised music and sonic arts. LMC history is particularly richly textured, not only because it contains important evidence (audible, visual and textual) of early improvised music and sonic arts activity in the UK, but also because it intersects with other initiatives of self-determination, collective politics and critical art practice in the 1970s, such as radical publishing, feminism, structural film, dance, performance art, and sonic ecology, along with organisations like Music for Socialism and the post-punk explosion of independent record companies and promoters.” – David Toop

Unknown Devices: the Laptop Orchestra with David Toop. 10 min film excerpt from 30 min performance at CRISAP, LCC London in May 2009. Performed for the opening of Sound Traces, an exhibition of the London Musicians’ Collective legacy. Filmed and edited by Mika Kioussis

Watch out for me punishing my guitar about halfway through the video!

I’m also briefly in this video..

David Toop – Making Sounds from Expression Design on Vimeo.

The documentary is titled ‘Living Edens: Yellowstone (America’s Sacred Wilderness) and focuses on a recent experiment to re-introduce wolves back into Yellowstone, restoring the natural equilibrium between the animals.

High in the American Rockies, Yellowstone Park is a place of extraordinary landscapes and geysers. Created by the largest volcanic explosions in the planet’s history, it became the world’s first national park. With the return of wolves, it has become a world-class wildlife sanctuary, the best place to see wolves and grizzly bears chasing elk.

The score uses a mixture of blues and slide guitar, appalachian orchestral arrangement and native american sounds.

View the documentary in full here

Live improvisation at Moving East CI jam

Having developed an interest in dance (contact improvisation and butoh), I was asked to play an improvised set at Moving East. Following the workshop there is a 4-hour period where dancers can explore themes from the workshop and their own ideas, often accompanied by live music.

I recorded the second of these live improvisations. I used an electric guitar with effects and loops, along with various homemade percussions, an SM57, and a metal salad bowl with contact microphone attached.

These are edited tracks from the session. Enjoy, and if you feel compelled to dance around your living room please feel free…..

Debut album ‘Stem the Tide’ released on Sacred Cow records (2008)

Gigs across London including Fopp records and Badge of Friendship DIY Festival at the ICU, London, 2007.

Some press for the album:

KOE – Stem The Tide (Sacred Cow)

Instrumental post-prog guitar musical adventure for fans of Isis, Godspeed, Red Sparrows and such. Raw edged and full of spirited bite, Stem The Tide is played with the heart and passion that far too often is lost in the technical over-slickness of others. Colour, adventure, tempo changing light and shade, a live raw (not too raw) warmth and a real feel. Sometimes considered and dark, minimal and slowly paced, sometimes chopping and changing, euphoric and touching on the epic when they need to, experimental when they feel that’s right. Koe aren’t doing anything remarkable different here, what they are doing they’re doing just right and in these overcrowded instrumental post rock times when every crusty indie kid with a guitar and a Don Cab album thinks they can do it, Koe have made an album that is more than worth your time and their effort. Koe have a punk/metal bite when they need it, they take you all over the post-rock spectrum without every letting you down and leaving you with a feeling that they’re just copying others.. Koe can touch your emotion, they can sooth, they can lift… This is a good album, this is a sometimes very impressive album (neat artwork as well, the front over art deserves a mention). Koe are a London based international collaboration with members from France, Slovenia, Japan and the UK and this self released DIY album is well worth tracking down. Recommended. –

DEMO OF THE WEEK

KOE – Three rather fine and rewarding post/math rock instrumental pieces from a new London based band. Three clever (not too clever), challenging, rewarding, easy of the ear pieces, three warm and highly enjoyable relaxing pieces of heavy-edge post rock. Sometimes less is more, and for now this is all we need to say – highly recommended musical warmth – www.myspace.com/koeband (nice artwork/packaging as well)

QRO Magazine (7.2)

The multi-national Koe draw from a wide array of strains in post-rock on their debut LP, Stem the Tide. Based in London but including members from Slovenia and France, it isn’t surprising that the three-piece doesn’t stick to one method of post-rock. And while some ways are certainly better than others on Stem the Tide, Koe delivers.

Unfortunately, Tide opens on maybe its weakest track, “Song2”. A bit simplistic, more rock-grind than post-rock, “Song2” points out that Koe’s weaker side is their harder side. The following “Nineflower” is definitely more meaningful, but still loses itself in the grind at times. The other instances where the band returns to this bass-heavy rock are better, but middle track “Kruh” is too intricate, later piece “Test transmission” is a confused chop-attack, with only the preceding “Leech” getting better with rhythm.

Thankfully, Koe spends more time in the higher altitudes of post-rock, and this is where they really flourish. It starts with “Quan”, an ominous glide that is best when it explodes. That is followed up by the even better “SlapghOst”, which is more atmospheric in its haunts, and possesses a distorted radio voice in the distance. Other times, Tide goes even more removed, like the softer haunted house “testo”, or the growing far static “Iloveyouverymuch”. But the pinnacle has to be the prior “Waiver”, whose flow and glide has just the right level of post-rock touch, and goes wonderfully into the expanse.

Stem the Tide finishes with the epic, eleven-plus-minute “Tire pas…”, which tells a whole story without words, a whole life. Koe might do some things better than others, which can be frustrating at times, but there’s nothing Stemming their Tide as they are carried along the waves of post-rock.