In Spotlight on Sonic Relations I shared my creative findings from the British Council funded Spotlight on Culture artistic and cultural exchange with Grenoble, France. The aim of the event was to inspire artists, academics and other creative workers to create new structures for their work beyond borders. The event began with a sonic intervention: attendees saw the soundmaps and listened to soundscape composition I created in response to the project. The theme was âproductive tensionâ which I felt both internally and externally throughout the week, given that there were many artists and organisations involved with competing interests and that there was political unrest in France as well. This sonic intervention was followed by a panel discussion with EU artists living in the UK on the roles of such cultural exchanges in the post-Brexit era. Roxana Sayyad and Polina Chizhova-Wright both shared their experiences as Europeans having moved to and working the UK. Both echoed the need for international cultural work which is not based on nationalities. The following discussion between the panellists and attendees opened up a dialogue about the role of the arts as a political tool of change, which I hope will continue beyond the event.Â
Photographs by Helen Davison.
Soundmaps and soundscape composition by Markus Hetheier (Industries).
Thank you Dyphons, Paulin AloĂŻse and is33n for playing at FLUFF #12 alongside me. Shout out to Heidi for managing sound as well as Nick from Mirage Bar and Factory International for their support.
Thank you to everyone who came and listened to Manchesterâs queer sonic geographies at the sold out Intangible Sounds event as part of Manchester Histories at HOME in collaboration with the School of Digital Arts (SODA with other performances from Katie Chatburn, The Wyrding Module, Susan O’Shea and Bon Holloway who also took this photograph.
Thank you Gary Fisher for organising Electric Sandwich at The Carlton Club as part of Chorlton Arts Festival and shout out to Goëtia, Quick Drop and PHIA SKY for their exciting and inspiring performances. The whole evening felt quite punk, from helping each other set up and improvising when things go wrong to the energy that was in the room.
Norrisette is an art-pop artist whose work encompasses composition, classical piano, music production, DJing, performance and visual design. She has recently formed her own band to explore new creative and collaborative landscapes, with Ashley Garrod on bass and Matthew Hill on drums, and has also performed as a featured vocalist across Europe.
Industries is an electronic music project by Markus Hetheier. His music explores and subverts musical structures ranging from field recordings and distorted sounds to harmonic melodies and large beats. He is an electronic music producer, DJ, sound artist, workshop facilitator and practice-based PhD researcher at the School of Digital Arts (SODA).
Together, Norrisette and Industries set up FLUFF â a regular queer electronica night in Manchester. FLUFF aims to provide a platform for queer electronic music producers to perform and test out original music to a live audience, as opposed to being a club night, and has kickstarted the careers of many!
‘We are so happy to be a part of this recent artistic venture for Manchester. It will be amazing to meet local innovators and to receive mentorship for our work promoting and supporting the music of upcoming LGBTQ+ artists through FLUFF. We hope that being part of this year’s Factory Sounds cohort will provide us with a platform for our work as performers, music producers and promoters and that we will be able to connect with like-minded musicians for future collaborations both in the studio and on stage.’
Thank you Sacoya x Jade, Voxish, NĂželle and Kaoti for your wonderful perfomances. Thanks to Norrisette for curating this iteration of FLUFF, Jake for taking care of the sound and Fuel Cafe Bar for providing the space and of course thank you to the audience for turning up and celebrating with us.
Thank you Kiss Me Again for inviting FLUFF to play SOUP â it was a dream! Shout out to PHIA SKY who was up for representing FLUFF with me and to Norrisette who brought FLUFF to life with me.Â
If you donât know about FLUFF, hereâs how Kiss Me Again described us: âOur friends at FLUFF have been putting on groundbreaking queer electronica events in the legendary Withington space FUEL for a couple of years now, providing a more live performance focussed platform for electronic musicians from Manchester and beyond. If you havenât managed to make it down before, you really should! Industries and Phia Sky will be representing them at KMA and weâre overjoyed to have them in the basementâ.Â
It was a pleasure to support the great Mary Ocher at The Peer Hat with GC Holmes â thank you SiĂąn Williams and Susan Oâ Shea for the pictures. I did more live mixing of my stems than usual and used the wobbulator by Delia Derbyshire Day to be more playful with music when playing live and it was a lot of fun.
I released Wales, a collaboration with Indigo Jung and Northworks and did a mix themed around German electronic music for Transcen:dance. My music video for A Walk 1featuring Nevsky Perspective was exhibited at the MSARC PGR showcase at Oxford 70. I continued my participatory practice-based research project on queer sonic geographies of Manchester at the School of Digital Arts.
I played live at FLUFF #7 premiering new material and was the opener for System Exclusive at The Castle Hotel promoted by Hey! Manchester. Besides deejaying at Feel Good Club and Sounds from the Other City festival, I also deejayed at The WRD event at Contact.
Photograph by Baaby Belle
See you in 2024 with new music, collaborations and events!
