Industrial improvisation & electroacoustic sound design.

Contagious is a feminist avant-garde electronic music trio of Berlin-based musical agitators & organisers, Andrea Neumann, Sabine Ercklentz and Mieko Suzuki. With a wild & heavy approach to improvisation and electroacoustic process, the trio evolve as an entangled life form that pulses & distorts in brutal sounds & movements:  a heady mesh of industrial noise, fractured rhythms, surged electronics & soaring trumpet alarm calls.

They are making a rare visit to the UK to mark the release of their second album ‘Being’, out on Rabih Beaini’s Morphine Records, which includes significant collaborators Valentina Magaletti, Sofia Jernberg and Andrea Belfi.

Angharad Davies is a Welsh violinist based in London working in free improvisation, composition and performance. With an explorative approach informed by classical learning, Angharad stretches the violin through close listening, expanded techniques & electroacoustic methods. Angharad has brought a distinct energy to countless collaborations, projects & recordings including with John Butcher, Tisha Mukarji, Tarek Atui, Tony Conrad, Rie Nakajima, Richard Dawson & Eliane Radigue amongst many others.

Between the industrial columns of HALT. & Contagious, Angharad presents her long form work Solo Violin and Four Bass Amps. The placement of this piece in the programme expands on the themes of industrial decay, sound as a living organism and a shared approach to tension & release that courses through the evening. Here Angharad is melding acoustic practice - scratched utterances, long drawn bows, metallic degradation and the deeper sonorities of the violin with a shifting electronic backdrop that enshrouds the audience in sound & stretched time. ‘Solo violin’ invites an active confrontation, at times unsettling, at others restorative. In the unravelling of both music & instrument, Angharad reaches towards a state of unknowing, the sound of acoustic decomposition. 

“[Solo Violin and Four Bass Amps] like witnessing an act of self-destruction, the infliction of discomfiting chaos out of which came a new calm” Kate Molleson, BBC Radio 3

HALT. are a Birmingham-based electronic duo formed by lifelong friends Craig Earp and Nathan Shwalbe. Working across ambient, drone, IDM, and techno, their sound is defined by dense textures, slow-building tension, and a distinctly cinematic unease. Shaped by the industrial landscapes of their home city, HALT explore themes of memory, ritual, and the subconscious, creating immersive electronic works that blur the boundaries between abstraction, rhythm, and sound design. For a special debut collaboration, artist Mark Murphy joins on live visuals.