ANLA COURTIS, BRUCE RUSSELL, HI-ASOBI. 5 February 2011



Anla Courtis’ restless safari across a ton of musical borderlands has seen his founding of the legendary and super prolific Argentinean rock unit, Reynols, and collaborations with a constellation of sonic magi, including Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Damo Suzuki (Can), Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple), Yoshimi (Boredoms), Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls), Glenn Donaldson (Jewelled Antler, Thuja), John Oswald, The Skaters, Christina Carter (Charalambides), Astro (C.C.C.C.), Michael Snow, Pauline Oliveros, The Nihilist Spasm Band, and Yoshida Tatsuya (Ruins). His solo work ranges from extreme, bricolage minimalism through hypnotic guitar blues, to obliterated techno, the chamber skronk of "Unstringed Guitar & Cymbals", and the processed failure punk of “Broken Walkman Research”.

Bruce Russell is an artist, composer and writer based in Christchurch, and is the founder of seminal labels, Xpressway and Corpus Hermeticum. His work has appeared on a panoply of labels, including Smalltown Supersound, Ecstatic Yod, Spirit of Orr, Siltbreeze and Helicopter. His bands, The Dead C and A Handful of Dust have appeared on an equally formidable array of imprints. Russell has recorded with the likes of AMM’s Eddie Prevost, Mattin, John Wiese, RLW, Tetuzi Akiyama and Birchville Cat Motel, and has performed alongside a similar host of like minded, but diverse artists.

Hi-Asobi’s Peter Wright, Antony Milton and David Khan invent a flecked din of sparring drone guitar, ET electronics, malware keyboard bondage and dialled-in choral objection, before departing to play the fabled Lines of Flight festival in Dunedin.

JASON KAHN, RICHARD FRANCIS, ANTONY MILTON. Saturday 29 January 2011



Jason Kahn is a Zürich-based artist from New York, who utilizes electronics, percussion and feedback to scope out commotions of crystalline and carbonated sound. His work has been described as “thrilling, disorienting, and quite startlingly gorgeous” (Dusted), and “discreet, delicate, and rewarding” (Tiny Mixtapes), and he has performed and recorded alongside an intercontinental panoply of musicians, including Arnold Dreyblatt, Christian Marclay, Kevin Drumm, Z'ev, Sainkho Namtchylak, Jason Lescalleet and Otomo Yoshihide, while appearing in solo and group exhibitions at galleries in Delhi, South Korea, Switzerland, USA, Belgium, France, Denmark, Germany, Spain and Australia.


Auckland artist, Richard Francis’ zoned tone generations range from amoebic electronic agitation to ballistic psych abstraction and have appeared on record labels such as Korm Plastics, Digitalis, Students of Decay, Room40, American Tapes, Last Visible Dog, and his own CMR and 20City, alongside co-luminaries like Hair Police, Wolf Eyes, Tarantel, Hush Arbors, James Blackshaw, Volcano the Bear, Tom Carter and Pocahaunted.


Antony Milton’s countless excursions into the dominion of eldritch folk and pop have included the curation of the PseudoArcana label (CJA, Birchville Cat Motel, The Skaters, Edward Ruchalski), a myriad of collaborative appearances in groups such as Claypipe, Black Boned Angel, The Stumps, Sunken and MRTYU!, and work for labels like Last Visible Dog, Music Fellowship, Tipped Bowler, Deserted Village, Black Petal, Humbug, Haamumaa, Root Don Lonie and Jeweled Antler.


KUTOMO (FIN), WITCHUALS. 28 January 2011



Kutomo’s Veli-Matti Ikavalko is a Brisbane-based artist from Finland, whose collaborative co-conspirators include the likes of Larkin Grimm (Young God Records, ex-Dirty Projectors), Keijo and the Free Players, and Jani Hirvonen (Uton, Hevoset). His work as Kutomo melts between ceremonial cabin floor folk and medieval-like keyboard reflection, and invokes the psychic liturgical serenity of Hildegard of Bingen via the animist counterpoint of Meredith Monk. His work has appeared on Bedroom Suck (Blank Realm, Kitchen's Floor), Dala Horse (Richard Moult) and Jozik (Hobo Cubes, Bjerga/Iversen).

Witchuals: Devotion doesn’t set with the sun.

YEK KOO, LA LAKERS, PURPLE PILGRIMS. 23 January 2011



Yek Koo's chanson mirages and supernatural lap-steel exaltation is the musical invention of Metal Rouge’s Helga Fassonaki, whose siren conduct has been compared to the work of artists such as Christina Carter, Heather-Leigh Murrary and Fursaxa. As Stunned Records writes, Fassonaki's 'lone voice etches straight to dictaphone the vibrations which have been petrified far too long in mere stone & silicone. Identity awoken in a night of raw fidelity, this oracle’s expression inhabits trance tones and punk-chant poesis'. Her music has appeared on labels next to Steven R. Smith, Sun Araw, CJA, Hush Arbors and Charalambides’ Tom Carter.

Purple Pilgrims is the duo of Clementine and Valentine Nixon. Their ethereal choral summons and tolling guitar noir unfolds across a moony dwelling of sound, transmitting the sisters’ melancholic folk songs.

LA Lakers: Can You Stand the Rain

METAL ROUGE, ANTONY MILTON, ADAM WILLETTS. 22 January 2011



Andrew Scott and Helga Fassonaki’s Metal Rouge channels what the couple call the ‘forward motion of ecstatic jazz and drugged stasis of NYC loft minimalism circa ’66’, invoking their magical tumult and doomy elation through a vivid moiré of uplifting guitar confusion and requiem-like, choral unease. Based in LA since 2006, they have recorded albums for Digitalis, Stunned, Not Not Fun and their own newborn Emerald Cocoon. They have also toured the US extensively, playing at Root Strata’s renowned On Land festival alongside the likes of Grouper, Oneohtrix Point Never, Charalambides and Daniel Higgs; and Not Not Fun’s Neon Commune, next to Pocahaunted, Pukers, Robedoor and Foot Village.

Antony Milton’s countless excursions into the dominion of eldritch folk and pop have included the curation of the PseudoArcana label (CJA, Birchville Cat Motel, The Skaters, Edward Ruchalski), a myriad of collaborative appearances in groups such as Claypipe, Black Boned Angel, The Stumps, Sunken and MRTYU!, and work for labels like Last Visible Dog, Music Fellowship, Tipped Bowler, Deserted Village, Black Petal, Humbug, Haamumaa, Root Don Lonie and Jeweled Antler.

Adam Willetts is a musician from Christchurch, whose synthesizer zones slip from babbled reverie to staccato rapture. He has performed and recorded in New Zealand and internationally, alongside musicians such as John Wiese, Tomutonttu, High Places and Dan Deacon.



ORCHESTRA OF SPHERES, REUBEN DERRICK & IRD. 14 January 2011



Wellington's Orchestra of Spheres’ limitless funk and cosmic highlife explorations are inspired by what they call 'the hypnotic beats of Kuduro, repetitive minimalist Bornean sape music, free jazz and improvised music, and the celestial chimes of gamelan’, but the group stake out their own territory with their prismatic minimalism, soukous-like dizziness and eminent boogie.

A graduate of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music, Reuben Derrick has appeared in the 20+ member ensemble, Splinter Orchestra, alongside leading Australian experimentalists, Jon Rose, Martin Ng, Jim Denley, Nylstoch, xNoBBQx’s Matt Earle and Robbie Avenaim, at NSW’s The Now Now Festival, with Lucas Abela, Sean Baxter and The UNAUSTRALIANS, while also playing with Greg Malcolm in the trio, The Crust. He is joined by percussionist and electronics witch, Rory Dalley.



FABULOUS DIAMONDS. NZ TOUR. 11 - 18 December, 2010




HSP is pleased to present the NZ tour of processional dub and crypt punk diviners, FABULOUS DIAMONDS from Melbourne, Australia.

Following their US excursion alongside Pigeons and Wet Hair, and their sophomore LP on Siltbreeze (Times New Viking, Sic Alps, US Girls), the duo’s heavenly garage anthems, liminal haunt funk, and transfixing, psychedelic mantras are poised to captivate audiences around the country in mid-December.

Likened to a lysergic union of Lee Perry, Terry Riley, Suicide, Silver Apples and Young Marble Giants, what Pitchfork calls Fabulous Diamonds’ ‘part pagan sleepover incantation’ and ‘lush and trippy’ minimalism is a UFO potion of radiant synth arpeggia, lock-groove futurist-Baroque riffage, celestial chant and post-disco percussive clatter that has a disquieting, modal beauty and entrancing, cosmic unease. This is the duo’s first NZ visit. Presales available from undertheradar.co.nz


Tour Dates:

Auckland Friday 10 December, Wine Cellar with Sam Hamilton and The Gladeyes.

Wellington Saturday 11 December, Happy with Diana Rozz and Orchestra of Spheres.

Christchurch Saturday 18 December, HSP with Witchuals and Luxury.

FREE CHOICE DUO, LA LAKERS, GOD DESTROYER. 17 December 2010



Free Choice is the electronic synthesizer duo of Fabulous Diamonds' Jarrod Zlatic and artist, Jessica McElhinney. Their music is stationed in gooey passages of rococo drone, bell-effect elevation, and hypnotic keyboard luster. It’s educated in the minimalist exaltation and hyaline almost-disco of Terry Riley but splits for its own elatedly alien haunt.

LA Lakers: Reenactment of the Myoclonus Lagoon Battle Salsa in the Village of the Apparition Gala Xenogloss.

God Destroyer is the ambient music project of James Sullivan and Alex Donnithorne.

MONOPOLY CHILD STAR SEARCHERS & DOLPHINS INTO THE FUTURE. COAST TO COAST TOUR. 2 - 18 December, 2010



HSP is pleased to present the Oceanic voyage and tour diary of US and Belgium travelers, MONOPOLY CHILD STAR SEARCHERS and DOLPHINS INTO THE FUTURE.

Monopoly Child is The Skaters’ and Pacific City Vision’s Spencer Clark. His ornate, hallucinatory environments are enacted through a Xerox mirage of celestial horse gallop, mizmar-like horn melisma and avian vocal Interpretation. His live performances have been likened to a mix of temple inauguration and 50's Ethnic Folkways bootleg, and his myriad of recorded artifacts surf from devotional pyramid drone and celestial bamboo ritual to the tropical romance audio novel of his most recent vision, ‘Make Mine, Macaw’.

Courtesy of the Ancient Skywatchers of California and Shamans for Levitated Coconuts, amongst other distant bureaus, Clark’s cosmic accretion of tapes, CDrs and LPs have appeared on labels like Old English Spelling Bee, Heavy Tapes, Eclipse and New Age, and he has collaborated and performed with artists such as Tomutonttu, Sonic Youth, Deerhoof, Nurse With Wound, Charalambides, Melvins and Wooden Wand.


Dolphins into the Future is the Antwerp-based, Cetacean Nation Communications and Taped Sounds ambassador, Lieven Martens. Forming his music through a process of ‘automatic writing instigated by dialogues with the cetacean world’, Martens’ warbly and effervescent sonic ecosystems abound with the attuned aquatic energies and tranquility of liquindi percussion, echolocative synth gurgle, Polynesian cantata and tape-collage swirl.

Martens has released music on Kraak, Not Not Fun, Release the Bats, and his own evolving imprints, which have also played host to an array of artists such as, Oneohtrix Point Never, Orphan Fairytale, Kraus, J.D. Emmanuel, Emeralds’ Steve Hauschildt and James Ferraro. Dolphins’ radiant musical glare and calming ascension emerges from an innerspace of reflective elation and Higher Intelligence.


Thanks to Kraak, High Reflections, Obedient Atom, Adam Art Gallery, Happy, Disembraining Machine, Micronations, and Altmusic NZ for their support. Tickets for NZ events are available from undertheradar.co.nz


TOUR DATES:

Melbourne Thursday December 2nd, Sunshine & Grease with Mouving and Tim Coster

Brisbane Friday December 3rd, The Old Museum with Sun of the Seventh Sister, Botski, Nicola, Spamicide

Sydney Saturday December 4th, Serial Space with Ben Byrne and Pimmon

Christchurch aquarium/temple installation and culminating performance Saturday December 11th, HSP with LA Lakers


Dunedin Sunday December 12th, Chicks Hotel with LA Lakers

Wellington Thursday December 16th, Happy with I.Ryoko and Sign of the Hag

Auckland Saturday December 18th, Wine Cellar with Octopus




RICHARD BRYANT - WALKING AND TURNING AT DIFFERENT LENGTHS. 23 November - 4 December, 2010