Open|Forms Festival

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September 7th

At Boot122, Nijverheidskade 12, Utrecht

With:

  • Mahu
  • Dyade
  • M4
  • Speelgoed Bende
  • Allert Aalders

Mahu Sonic Storytelling

Will technological advancements ultimately swallow mankind?

Are we losing the connection to (our) nature?

Can you stand still amidst complete chaos? Or even embrace it?

The MAHU Book of Stories will be opened, 7th of September. Bringing soundscapes together with A.I. generated images, diverse chapters are performed.

Sonic poetry for the couragious mind.

Dyade

Dyade is the dark IDM project of Henk Hop and Dom Graveson. Henk is better known as Microloop and has released a number of experimental recordings.

Dom has past collaborations with Digitonal and CERN across a variety of genres, and more recently as The Invisibles. His latest project ‘Pansemic’ can be found here https://pansemic.bandcamp.com/

Expect precision beats, dark textures, and a journey touching on many influences and shades across their collective experiences.

M4

Marco and Martijn (Cinema Perdu amongst others) joined forces to create an interactive music machine.

With this machine the audience can create (acoustic) music themselves with all kinds of interaction possibilities.

This time it is Marco and Martijn themselves who will create the music, half modular, half music machine.

https://interactivemusic.net

Speelgoed Bende

Speelgoed Bende (aka Veerle Pennock) really wants to emphasise sounds from toys and circuit bend casio keyboards, speak and spell’s and similar things can make for great musical instruments when used correctly, and instead of what theyre used for commonly wich is very harsh and distrorted also make them sound insanely good when fed into a modular system.

https://www.instagram.com/elektortek

https://www.facebook.com/acidsolderclub

Allert Aalders

Allert is hard to miss if you are into synths and in The Netherlands. He is part of the Modulation and Dutch modular fest teams and he plays various electronic music events now and then (Voltage Control Amsterdam, Electric Cafe Arnhem, Noodlebar Rotterdam, Superbooth etc).

It’s also possible that he taught you about synths and if you use plugin instruments by Arturia, Native Instruments, Steinberg, Kilohearts and or Fabfilter you’ve probably used a preset he made.

Allert improvises with voltages, generated or found sounds and effects (Granular! Reverb!) and creates a patch to play on the event itself.

https://www.facebook.com/modulationutrecht

open|forms #3

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May 24th
Starts: 20:00
Entree: donations

At Boot122, Nijverheidskade 12, Utrecht

With:

  • Wouter van Veldhoven;
  • Clôture Électronique;
  • Pansemic;
  • Alphabox.
Open|Forms #3

Wouter van Veldhoven

Wouter van Veldhoven creates music, instruments and installations. Most of it has the following ingredients: taperecorders, toy-instruments, lots of hiss, nostalgia and moving parts.

Clôture Électronique

Jostijn Ligtvoet (Clôture Électronique) is from Tilburg and makes experimental/noise/soundscape music with modular synthesizers (and sometimes cello). He is currently working on music with his own recorded sounds in combination with dark drones and harsh noise to create long compositions.

Pansemic

Pansemic explores the simple meaning and non meaning in sound. What is to you is different for someone else and we should celebrate that. Expect improvisation around drone, texture, melody and noise.

Alphabox

Andrew Dobson (Digitonal, Of the Night Sky) has been producing and performing electronic music for over 25 years. With his collaborators, he’s released records with Toytronic Records, Cactus Island and Just Music, delivered remixes for Max Richter, B12 and Marconi Union and holds production credits for Kelli Ali and Kirsty Hawkshaw.

Now relocated to Suffolk, Alphabox is Dobson flying solo in unashamed 90s electronica mode, recalling early Plaid, B12 and In Sides-era Orbital. Expect angular beats, bleepy melodies, 101 basslines and lush pads, complete with a reactive visual system.

open|forms #2

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Februari 23rd
Starts: 20:00
Entree: donations

At Boot122, Nijverheidskade 12, Utrecht

With:

– The Puddle Parade;
– Woodbender;
– Microloop;
– Endorphins;
– Paul & Pavlina.

The Puddle Parade

One-girl band, bringing frail lullabies with vague melodies and distorted, fading voices a minimalistic crackling toy orchestra in slow motion. member: ellen evers. tools: guitar, voice, melodica alto, melodica soprano, music boxes, children’s accordion, tooth brush, analog 4-track recorder, distortion pedals, loop station, xylophon, zither, dictaphone, and many more stuff. worked with: annelies monseré, tara jane o’neil and machinefabriek… in one way or another. born and raised in: eastern germany, and with good childhood memories in mind.

Woodbender

Woodbender is an improvisational, exploratory sonic project consisting of M. Pieck (modulair synths, field recordings) and J. Unger (e-guitar & effects, field recordings).

Their focus lies on live improvisation in and outside the public domain, exploring all kinds of analog and digital means to express their original approach on immersive and spatial soundscapes.

Microloop

Microloop is a musical project of Henk Hop (Utrecht). Microloop’s dedication to pushing the boundaries of sound extends beyond the studio to live performances. The artist’s use of granular effects in a live setting adds an element of unpredictability and spontaneity to the music. Each performance becomes a unique sonic journey, with Microloop manipulating granular parameters in real-time, engaging the audience in a dynamic and immersive experience.

Endorphins

Endorphins is the pseudonym of Thomas Heijmans hailing from Utrecht, the Netherlands. He has been producing music under this moniker since the late nineties. With a love for both ancient electronica pioneers and current electronic music combined with a cinematic sensibility, the sound of endorphins can best be described as having a clear melodic and at times visual quality with experimental undertones.

Video stream by Endorphins

Paul & Pavlina

Paul (@paul.alstein) is a modular synth player who is into strange electronic music. Pavlina (@puvleena) is a classically trained violinist who is interested in processing the sounds of the violin through digital technologies.

Together they are on an adventurous mission to bring together the worlds of classical music and electronic music. The result is both unpredictable and unexpected.sounds that surround us.

https://www.instagram.com/paul.alstein/

open|forms #1

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November 24th
Starts: 20:00
Entree: donations

At Boot122, Nijverheidskade 12, Utrecht

With:
– Random Reality;
– Elektortek;
– Holophrase;
– Owlbites;
– Etta Harbar.

Random Reality

Eelco Bosman is an artist based in Utrecht, with a career in abstract electronic music, drum ’n’ bass, dark jazz and harsh guitar music ranging from sludge to hardcore punk and everything in between and beyond. To name a few; beat focused electronics as s.u.b.c.o.d.e., guitarist in improv drone band 78RPM, guitarist/ sound designer in The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation / The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, guitarist in sludge-doom band Mary Bell.

For this performance Random Reality will bring two instruments, one acoustic and one electronic and some FX. Both instruments are made for drone based music. They have been designed centuries apart and are very similar and very much alike at the same time, and the way they sound together is not of this world.

Elektortek

Veerle Pennock is a creative electronics builder, living beep machine and conductor of a yet to be defined live-set setup, performing under the name Elektortek.

From self-made electronic instruments, midi sequenced radio’s and DIY modular synth experiments gone wrong, there’s always something strange bubbling away in the background. From lo-fi textures to evolving melodies and wobbly rhythms, her style can go from close-your-eyes-and step-into-my-spaceship-ambient to punchy acid in a fly.

Veerle is also the founder of Utrecht’s DIY creative electronics workspace Acid Solder Club at the Hof van Cartesius, and frequent local Helles and Schwartz hunter at Boot122

https://www.instagram.com/elektortek/

Holophrase

Holophrase is the solo project of Ruth Alison Clemens, hack academic, gap-toothed Brit, and saxophonist in the garage-surf band Evy & the Assholes. As Holophrase, Ruth builds lo-fi layers of ambient drone with improvised saxophone, loops, and effects. She mixes the acoustic possibilities of the saxophone with fragments of archival texts to build a soft kaleidoscopic soundscape.

Concertzender Live

Owlbites

Owlbites is a solo project of Thanos Fotiadis, a half-baked professional pianist and composer, who found his personal voice through an extravagant modular machine that behaves as if it has a mind of its own. Thanos is usually contemplating on how to bring more noise in his ambient environments, in order to quiet his own mind and hopefully connect with the universe. But recently he has been found to doodle in dangerous abstract (a-)rhythmic territories. 

Owlbites live @ Bonnefanten museum in Maastricht, during the David Lynch exhibition.
Live modular @ Opgedoekt Film Festival.

Etta Harbar

Inspired by loud and abrasive sounds, Etta uses circuit bent childrens toys, broken cassettes, radio static, and lots of guitar pedals to make her own brand of harsh noise music. You can expect to hear influences from genres like punk and tekno; she likes anything cathartic, chaotic, and emotional. She enjoys losing and regaining control of the music, going back and forth between control and chaos, with the intent of overwhelming the listener. Her live performances distort innocent and familiar sounds into something distinctly dark and uncomfortable.

Visuals

Rossi dB.

Ross de Baas (a.k.a. ‘Rossi dB’)

Ross is a musician from New Zealand, now permanently based in Utrecht.

He creates visuals and design for his electronic solo music and assists with promo for his pop / dance duo ‘Oxilogue’.

Lo-fi videos are filtered, manipulated and blended into textures. Using altered colours, layered screens and semi-abstraction, Ross presents mostly outdoor public spaces, devoid of people. Modern transit infrastructure and city-scapes, water, old European architecture and scenic footage from the Netherlands and New Zealand. It’s about finding solitude in any setting.

Popgunpirates

In 2010, musician and illustrator Henk Hop started exhibiting his work. He makes illustrations based on ancient iconography, symbols and centuries-old Dia de los Muertos subjects. An apparent contrast of old, new, beautiful and ugly.

Over the years, the techniques have broadened – by using the possibilities of the computer in addition to drawing by hand. Geometric shapes and complex compositions are programmed by using Processing, a free graphical library and integrated development environment built for the electronic arts, new media art.

http://www.popgunpirates.com

StardotStar

open|forms

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Come and join us at open|forms, a community for experimental artists working at the intersection of electronics and performance. It’s an open event where everyone is welcome, but our programming is curated by our community – which you can join once you have performed.
We have three principles:

– There is an electronic element to the work – this can be synthesisers, samplers, pedals, or something we haven’t thought of!

– It is experimental in whatever genre, pushing an envelope and trying something new. It could be from guitar drones, to spoken word, from modular ambient, to processed voice. As long as it fits in a small intimate environment you are welcome to submit

– It is inclusive. We wanted to create a community that is open politically, culturally and gender wise. A safe space for anyone to come and contribute something meaningful

It is a place for musicians, spoken word and visual artists, anyone with a boundary pushing idea to come and share, learn and be inspired. We are deliberately starting small, to keep it cosy and supportive, personal and friendly.