Category: Festival

Supersilent, described as the stylistic intersection of Miles Davis, Tangerine Dream, Sonic Youth and Stockhausen has been collaborating with influential bassist/producer/composer John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin, Them Crooked Vultures) on a new project that takes the group to a complex and intensely powerful sonic space. The group performed at the Hafensommer Festival in Würzburg on August 1, 2012.  Check out the photo gallery on the official Hafensommer blog (and look for a shot of JPJ, pick in mouth, controlling Kyma from his iPad).

In an interview with the Main Post, JPJ revealed to the interviewers that he had attended kindergarten in Würzburg, so this was something of a homecoming for him.

As critic John Kelman wrote of the collaboration at All About Jazz:

It sounded, in fact, as if they’d been playing together for years, as Jones moved around the neck to create, deep, visceral and snaking lines beneath Sten’s sonic manipulation, Storløkken textural excursions and otherworldly electronic melodism, and Henriksen, who moved from kit to trumpet growl to falsetto and harsher to pocket trumpet (…) All of Which makes Supersilent a unique experience (…) a definitive moment in the history of the festival (…)

Prepare for possible disruptions in the Earth’s magnetic field in the vicinity of Barcelona on June 15 2012 when Supersilent joins forces with John Paul Jones at the Sonar festival for a live performance that may feature as many as four Kyma systems on stage!  Be prepared for wormhole effects as the electronic improvisers start spinning their dense clouds of sci-fi jazz and colliding super-massive visceral sound objects into each other.

In the words of reviewer, David Broc at playgroundmag.net: “…those who found a way through the thick jungle of dark drones, schizophrenic bass lines and undefinable structures, found themselves in one of the most intense moments of the day. ”

John Paul Jones, one of the earliest discoverers of Kyma, has been composing, producing, and performing with Kyma and influencing its development for nearly two decades.  Jones has been working with Helge Sten for the past 3 years, and together they’re taking Kyma into dangerously powerful new sonic territories; last year, the Kyma meme infected two more members of the group: StÃ¥le Storløkken (keyboards, synth, electronics) and Arve Henriksen (trumpet, voice, drums, electronics), so at this point it’s on the verge of a pandemic.

Helge Sten will be in Paris on 30 March 2012 performing as Deathprod for the first time since 2003 as part of the 8th Présences électronique festival, envisioned by ina GRM, the Centquartre and Radio France.  Deathprod is performing on Friday night at 21h30 in the main hall following acousmatic pieces by composers Arne Nordheim, Francesco Giomi, and Martin Tetrault.

Sten will be performing live, featuring pieces from Morals & Dogma and Nordheim Transformed. All pieces have been ported over to Kyma from various older samplers and updated to quadraphonic presentation.

Présences électronique is free and open to the public!