Sonic Pattern

Leafcutter John

For AlgoMech 2017, Leafcutter John will perform new work developed in Sheffield in the run up to the festival. He'll be spending time in the fabrication lab in Access Space, developing mechanical sequencer mechanisms using rotating discs and optical or magnetic sensors to create rhythmic and harmonic patterns. Be the first to hear the results..

Sarah Kenchington
Sounds from the Farm yard

This performance by the  Pedal Powered Orchestra, (ridden by Sarah Kenchington), will use mechanically enhanced acoustic instruments to evoke the pastoral/industrial ambience of an intensive dairy farm. This comes from the notion that  the sounds produced in the making of the instruments as well as those that are present in the environment where they are kept, have become intrinsically connected to the sounds they now make. In the same way that people talk about the flavour of whisky being influenced by the ground that the water runs through, this idea suggests that the sonic environment has infiltrated the musician and instruments alike.

Naomi Kashiwagi
Fever (Variations for Gramophone and Turntables)

Fever (Variations for Gramophone and Turntables) incorporates gramophonic variations on Fever by Peggy Lee (1958) that are improvised upon in the live performance of this work. This performance begins with playing Fever on a gramophone and then sampling and extracting inherent musical fragments from the 78rpm shellac record of Fever, using tactile techniques, groove hopping and mechanical beat making. The performance feverishly progresses by layering composed variations of a gramophonica remix of Fever (shellac record re-appropriated with electrical tape- file submitted) using Logic Pro, DIY-styluses cut at 45rpm and played on record turntables and live looping using a loop pedal.

Camilla Vatne Barratt-Due and Alexandra Cardenas
All That I Want Is Another Baby

Found accordions once belonging to enthusiastic part-takers in the accordion clubs, spread around Germany, pop up from time to time as a hidden trash.

These instruments are rarely being played. Severally out of tune, they lay around in large amounts and dust into junk. In “all that i want is another baby”, we turn these instruments inside out, giving access to a sound concealed inside the retro mechanics that normally covers up the instruments holes and reeds. Letting air into these sounding parts, we find ways of playing the instruments bypassing the human hand. Letting the trashy instruments sound out by preparing them to play chords and clusters that lay outside the instrument’s idiomatic base.

Peter K. Rollings
Experimental Sonic Machines

Handmade machines generate post-punk basslines and rhythms, controlled by Peter K. Rollings, and joined by Ernie, the robotic drummer..