Proton på Alice: Techno-feminisme og stemmer fra det hinsides.

I årevis har musikagenturet Proton overrasket det danske publikum med grænseoverskridende musik fra hele kloden, og i år har de sammensat den sidste aften på G((o))ng Tomorrow. Her kan du opleve nyt fra danske-honduranske Xenia Xamanek, kinesiske object blue og italienske Marta De Pascalis.

Folkene bag Proton har rødder i den banebrydende og prisvindende Phono Festival i Odense, ligesom de står bag talrige eksperimenterede klubshows i København gennem de seneste fem år. I 2018 blev Proton også et booking-agentur, som arbejder for at bringe kreativ musik fra Danmark ud til et internationalt publikum.

Xenia Xamanek

Dansk-honduranske Xenia Xamanek er komponist, lydkunstner og musiker. Hun skaber elektroniske kompostioner i sin idiosynkratiske stil der rummer særegne klange og beats, og tit er stemmen udgangspunktet for værkerne.

Efter eget udsagn har hun “en ømhed for det, der falder lidt ved siden af”, og hendes værker involverer bl.a androgyne og artificielle stemmer, ASMR og samarbejder med personer med stemmer, hvis integritet samfundet stiller spørgsmålstegn ved.

På G((o))ng Tomorrow præsenterer Xenia Xamanek et nykomponeret kvadrofonisk værk for stemmer, blæsere og synthesizere med tilhørende videoprojektion. Også her vil det, der falder lidt ved siden af, eller ligefrem svæver frit i rummet, spille ind i det musikalske udtryk.

– For tiden er jeg ret optaget af det paranormale og tænker meget på spøgelser. F.eks ideen om, at man vil kunne høre en stemme fra en afdød – at kunne fange en stemme, som ikke har en krop, er spændende. Samtidig har jeg en stor kærlighed til science-fiction og oplevelser, der udfordrer vores gængse opfattelser af, hvordan tingene hænger sammen.

Det nye værk bliver en form for digtning over latinamerikanske legender og myter om spøgelser som f.eks. La llorona, fortællingen om en kvinde, forladt af sin mand, hvis børn forsvinder. Hun leder efter sine børn indtil hun dør af sorg, dømt til at gå hvileløst, grædende rundt og lede efter dem i al evighed, mens hun kalder “donde estan mis hijos?”.

Xenia Xamanek debuterede i 2015 under navnet Equis med kassetten ‘Men’s Health’ og har efterfølgende turneret i blandt andet Japan, ligesom hun har indgået i adskillige tværkunstneriske konstellationer om stedspecifik lydkunst og audiovisuelle performances. I november sidste år debuterede hun under eget navn med albummet ‘Envase’.

object blue

Den kinesisk-fødte, Berlin-baserede producer og DJ object blue’s eksperimenterende lyduniverser har altid live-oplevelsen for øje.

Siden hun sidste år blev udpeget af FACT Magazine som én af 10 techno- og house-producere, man bør holde øje med, er hun fortsat med at præsentere en bred vifte af musikalske performances bestående af live-techno, eksperimenterende installationer og dj-set.

Hun er flere gange blevet betegnet som ‘technofeminist’, og som hun selv sagde det i et interview med kunstmagasinet Cuntemporary sidste år:

– To put it simply: I love techno and I love feminism. To go even further, the term also encompasses a vision of the world in which technology is a tool for our liberation.

I marts 2019 udgav object blue sin debut-EP ‘Do you plan to end a siege?’ på Tobago Tracks.

Marta De Pascalis

Italiensk komponist bosiddende i Berlin. Marta De Pascalis er kendt for sine fortættede lydcollager af glødende melodiske fragmenter og vibrerende bas.

Hendes kompositioner udspringer af improvisatoriske opdagelser bygget op om bånd-loops, hvor gentagelsesmønstre skaber en fortættet, dynamisk og næsten rensende oplevelse. Læg hertil hypnotiske, minimale synth-figurer, der hvirvles ind og ud mellem hinanden for siden at opløses i kaotisk virvar. Alt sammen med inspiration i en serie af Marta De Pascalis’ fars malerier fra 1970’erne.

Marta De Pascalis har udgivet albummene ‘Quitratue’ (2014) og ‘Anzar’ (2016), og sidste år præsenterede hun sin seneste komposition ‘Her Core’.

In English:

Techno feminism and voices from the beyond. For years, the music agency Proton has surprised the Danish audience with cutting-edge music from around the globe, and this year the team have put together the last night on G((o))ng Tomorrow. Here you can discover new works from Danish-Honduran Xenia Xamanek, Chinese object blue and Italian Marta De Pascalis.

The people behind Proton have their roots in the groundbreaking and award-winning Phono Festival in Odense, and they are behind several experimental club shows in Copenhagen over the past five years. In 2018, Proton also became a booking agency, aiming to bring creative music from Denmark to an international audience.

Xenia Xamanek

Danish-Honduran Xenia Xamanek is a composer, sound artist and musician. She creates electronic compositions in her idiosyncratic style that contains distinctive sounds and beats, and often with the voice as the starting point for the works.

In her own words, she has “a soft spot for what falls slightly outside the lines”, and her works involve, among others, androgynous and artificial voices, ASMR and collaborations with people with voices whose integrity the community calls into question.

On G((o))ng Tomorrow, Xenia Xamanek presents a newly composed quadrophonic piece for voices, horns and synthesizers with accompanying video projection. Here, too, what falls slightly outside the lines, or even hovers around in space, will play into the musical expression.

– At the moment I’m pretty drawn by the paranormal and think a lot about ghosts. For example, the idea that one will be able to hear a voice from a deceased – being able to catch a voice that does not have a body is exciting. At the same time, I have a great love for science-fiction and experiences that challenge our usual perceptions of how things are connected.

The new piece is a form of poetry concerning Latin American legends and myths about ghosts such as ‘La llorona’, the tale of a woman abandoned by her husband whose children disappear. She looks after her children until she dies of grief, doomed to go restless, crying around and looking for them forever, calling “donde estan mis hijos?”.

Xenia Xamanek debuted in 2015 under the name Equis with the cassette ‘Men’s Health’ and has subsequently toured in Japan, among others, as well as being part of several cross-artistic constellations on site-specific sound art and audio-visual performances. Last November, she debuted under her own name with the album ‘Envase’.

object blue

London-based, Beijing-raised object blue is a producer who combines experimental sounds with techno, focusing on their potential as live performances.

Named as one of the 10 techno/house producers to watch in 2018 by FACT magazine, she continues to perform a diverse range of music across the UK, including live techno, experimental installations and DJ sets.

She has been referred to as a ‘technofeminist’ several times, and as she said it herself in an interview with the Cuntemporary art magazine last year:

– To put it simply: I love techno and I love feminism. To go even further, the term also encompasses a vision of the world in which technology is a tool for our liberation.

Her debut EP ‘Do you plan to end a siege?’ was released on Tobago Tracks in March 2019.

Marta De Pascalis

Marta De Pascalis is an italian composer living and working in Berlin. Her solo works employ analog synthesis and tape loops, incorporating free playing into steady, repetitive patterns inspired by a series of paintings from her father which date back to the 1970’s.

She creates densely layered collages of glowing melodic shards and growling bass lines, her hypnotic minimal synth figures warping and whirling around each other before dissolving into entropic oblivion. For her compositions she uses improvisation on a tape-loop system, in which patterns of repetition create a sense of a dense, dynamic and cathartic distance.

Her latest piece ‘Her Core’ was published in spring 2018.