Contemporary Music Network

We have become Sound and Music
We have moved and merged with British Music Information Centre, Society for the Promotion of New Music and Sonic Arts Network to create the brand new organisation, Sound and Music. Our new contact details are as follows:
Sound and Music Somerset House Third Floor, South Wing Strand London WC2R 1LA
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7759 1800 Email: [email protected]
Our new website is www.soundandmusic.org - do visit, register and create your own profile. Please note that this myspace page is no longer being updated.
To view the new Sound and Music team, visit: www.soundandmusic.org/about/team
Recent projects
Fertilizer Poland
One of the UK’s leading boutique festivals, Fertilizer, is back and on tour for the first time in its history. Prepare to be wowed by the sights and sounds of Poland’s underground.
Sing Sing Penelope are sure to impress with their modern electro-acoustic style. Polish underground supergroup, Contemporary Noise Quintet , convincingly blend energetic jazz with cinematic themes, whilst the inventive Jacaszek create a transcendental blend of recorded sound and live acoustic instruments. More details coming soon... Na Zdrowie!
Phrased and Confused
Phrased and Confused takes words and music and mixes them into a delectable sensation for music lovers and spoken word fans alike. For this national tour, supported by Sound and Music/CMN, we've combined the blissed out orchestral pop of Canadian Nu Folkers Woodpigeon with the Byronesque Murray Lachlan Young.
Throw in the beautiful and haunting sounds of Aoife Mannix & Janie Armour with the up and coming Dead Poets and even if we say so ourselves you have one hell of a line up. They'll be performing their own stuff and working together so expect new words, new tunes and new takes on vintage stuff from four very different acts all performed in a relaxed, intimate gig setting.
'Absolute dynamite....both of your flows are impeccable' Stephen Merchant, 6 Music on Dead Poets
Sublime Frequencies Tour
With Omar Souleyman and Group Doueh
Plus Sublime Frequencies DJs and Films with Alan Bishop, Hisham Mayet an Mark Gergis
This is the first ever Sublime Frequencies tour, unleashing their thrilling and unabashed ethos onto the live stage. It brings to the UK, two live acts who have released albums on the label; Group Doueh (from the Western Sahara) and Omar Souleyman (from Syria) plus SF DJ sets, and on certain dates, film screenings and talks. This is a rare opportunity to see two maverick and genuinely excellent groups, from vastly different traditions and influences, playing on the same bill. Street-level folk-pop, over-driven psychedelic meditations, desert blues and Syrian party bangers are all exposed via this once in a lifetime SF tour experience.
Representing the label for the tour are Alan Bishop, Hisham Mayet and Mark Gergis. Bristol based, Qu Junktions are the producers, with the support of Sound and Music. This is an artist run enterprise bringing music and culture and message to those interested.myspace.com/sublimefrequencies2
Tunng with Tinariwen (trio)

TUNNG play a mesmerising mix of folky acoustics and busy electronica, overlaying electronic crackles, gorgeous harmonies, bewitching mantras and synthetic beats that are reminiscent of early Beta Band, 'The Wicker Man' soundtrack and Four Tet.
The hypnotic rhythms and trance-like melodies of Tinariwen, the much-lauded purveyors of desert blues, are as intoxicating as they are unsettling. With galloping rhythms, desert wails and, of course, electric guitar - up to four guitars snarl, burr and howl to create the spacious interlocking desert blues groove that is this group's calling card. Eerie call-and-response vocals draw listeners in as well, conjuring up visions of a night around the campfire in the open desert air.
So it's no surprise that when the two bands came together earlier this year, to record a session for BBC Radio 3's Late Junction, the results were startling. They recorded a beautifully fluid set with a sense of space and ease; fragments of vocals, languages, riffs and melodies weaving together effortlessly. This unique tour offers an opportunity to experience the collaboration live, a spellbinding prospect for fans of either band, and for anyone with open ears.
Read the The Times review here
Matthew Bourne presents Songs from a Lost Piano
Broken, battered and bereft, Matthew Bourne breathes life into the skeletons of 6 discarded pianos.
Calling on ghostly memories of hymns, music hall songs and pub sing-a-longs, the brilliantly maverick pianist Matthew Bourne breathes life back into some of Yorkshire’s forgotten instruments. He brings with him discarded gems from his search, including the decaying elegance of an upright passed down from mother to daughter, a legless carcass from a Wesleyan Methodist chapel and the faded glamour of a white cocktail grand.
Joined by his band featuring two striking vocalists, Andrew Plummer and Seamint To, Bourne becomes the ringmaster of his archaic orchestra, taking inspiration from their sonic peculiarities and eventful lives.
Accompanying the staged performance is an atmospheric exhibition of the pianos Matthew met along the way. Photographer Benjamin McMahon followed Matthew over hill and dale, taking portraits of pianos and people and capturing their relationship.View photos on our Flikr site here
Read The Times feature on the project here
David Thomas Broughton, Sam Amidon and Doveman

Comparable to legends like John Fahey and Nick Drake, as well as contemporaries Antony and the Johnsons and Neutral Milk Hotel, even these comparisons don't fully convey the scope and beauty of Broughton's sound. Using simple tools - an acoustic guitar, some looping pedals, a cheap drum machine - Broughton has created a distinctive statement of purpose and artistic intent.
For this tour he is joined by friends and collaborators Sam Amidon and Doveman, two singular talents from across the pond. Haunting performances will drift, interweave and interrupt each other, in a continues flow of instrumentation, experimentation, lyrical delicacy and magical layers of guitar, banjo, piano and fiddle-playing, looping and samples
myspace.com/davidthomasbroughton
http://www.localism.org.uk/index.php?id=225
Powerplant

For five nights, the Victorian leisure gardens of Calderstones Park, Liverpool will be transformed into a bewitching nocturnal world with one of the largest audio visual installations ever to come to Liverpool.

Presented by the Liverpool Culture Company as part of the 2008 European Capital of Culture programme, Powerplant takes over the Park for some magical botanical activities in which sound and light are used to create glitchy insects, dramatic weather, mechanical plants and the sound of the earth’s energy.
Planetarium of the Soul
A Brand New Happening: A collaboration between Clinic and animator Clemens Habicht
In A Brand New Happening, Liverpool's gnostically psychedelic Clinic play live in a specially commissioned collaboration with animator Clemens Habicht in which Clinic use their group anti-identity of trademark costumes and masks to blur the boundaries of performance as they interact with live animation projected onto their performance.
The result is the creation of a unique on stage environment that dissolves our perceptions, as the band soundtrack themselves soundtracking the animation unfolding around them
clinic website
Murcof - 'Oceano'
with ensemble BCN 216 & visuals by Flicker
Originally from Tijuana, Mexico, and now resident in Barcelona, Murcof (aka Fernando Corona) has composed a new suite of music entitled Océano for this tour, his first in collaboration with live musicians. Brass and string parts will be performed by Sergi Claret (viola), Juan Antoni Pich (cello) and Gerard Costes (trombone) from the highly regarded Spanish ensemble BCN 216.
Every bit the contemporary composer, Corona uses technology to create monumental music with a deeply resonant spiritual undertow, drawing on minimalism, classical phrasing and haunting textures to move the mind and the heart. Each night, Rod Maclachlan will conjure the visual environment Flicker using arcane projection techniques and choreographed lighting to transform base materials of dust, water and organic matter into mesmeric otherworldly imagery. Océano promises to be be a truly overwhelming live experience.
fact magazine preview
Kill Your Timid Notion
A step across the border between sound & vision
Your eyes see what, 10 or 15 images a second? That's 10Hz. Your ears can hear 15,000 Hz. Surely there must be something interesting in this incongruity?
Kill Your Timid Notion is one of Europe's leading festivals of music, sound, film and image. It's about exploring the different ways we navigate the borders, disparities and similarities between what we hear and what we see. Involving some of the great experimental artists, musicians and filmmakers of our time, and some of the not too distant future. The programme features film being developed as it's projected, 3D celestial pulsations, visual harmonics, audio/video feedback loops, celluloid manhandled with sandpaper and much more besides....Featuring live immersive performances and film screenings from Ken Jacobs, Keith Rowe, Bruce McClure, Paul Sharits, Metamkine, Hollis Frampton and others
www.arika.org.ukConcrete and Glass Festival
CMN was proud to present a number of acts as part of the first ever Concrete and Glass Festival, an innovative music and contemporary art event which took over 30 alternative-site exhibitions, 18 music venues, and numerous local gallery spaces in the renowned creative cauldron of London's Shoreditch on 2 and 3 October.
With 18 venues taking part in Concrete and Glass, the musical line up was as diverse as each setting, with well-established names nestling next to the most exciting up-and-coming acts.
The line-up was curated by Tom Baker - who under his Eat Your Own Ears banner has promoted the likes of Danger Mouse (aka Gnarls Barkley) Four Tet, Bloc Party, Peaches, The Kaiser Chiefs, Maximo Park, Mercury Award Winners Franz Ferdinand and Antony and The Johnsons.
The art strand was overseen by Flora Fairbairn; an established curator, who routinely collaborates with architects and developers to transform disused spaces into thriving exhibition spaces. Concrete and Glass featured over 30 projects in disused warehouses, outdoor spaces and empty shops in collaboration with curators, artists and galleries at it's centrepiece, Heart of Glass; a project organised in association with the Contemporary Art Society.
Concrete and Glass
Approximately Infinite Universe
Raw sound magic from Finland and the US
Featuring special commissions and unique collaborations from the Finnish underground, including, the haunting Islaja, the beautifully disorientating Kemialliset Ystavat, the epiphanies of Es and the genius collages of Tomutonttu (Jan Anderzén) - most represented by the influential and exploratory label Fonal.
Each will join forces with an uncompromising host of Americans, including the home-recorded acid folk of Fursaxa; freak goddess Samara Lubelski, the ‘Terry Riley-fused with Kate Bush’ impossibility of Axolotl, the ‘coal-powered spacecraft from some steampunk parallel universe’ that is Blevin Blectum and the occult trance duo Skaters .
Approximately Infinite Universe
Read Fact Magazine's review here
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
with Bass Clef
CMN is thrilled to present the first UK tour by New York's Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. This band have to be seen and heard to be truly experienced. Formed of 8 brothers, all sons of Phil Cohran, former trumpeter with Sun Ra's Arkestra, and drummer 360 (the only non-blood relative), they deliver a unique and exhilarating sound, mixing jazz, funk, afropop, funk, soul and R&B with a powerful hip hop sensibility.
After building a fearsome repuration in the US for their guerilla gigs on the streets of Chicago and NY, the bands have been touring clubs and venues around Europe, most recently storming the UK on dates with Mos Def.
They are joined on tour by Bass Clef, another true orginal and festival favourite. Hailing from Bristol's eclectic dubstep scene, the Bass Clef experience is not to be missed, featuring trombone, pirate flags and a maelstrom of hand-percussion.
www.hypnoticbrass.net
www.myspace.com/bassclefbass