XI Internacional LEM Festival

Programme

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5 10 pm.
Vagina Dentata Organ + Tabalers de la Malèfica del Coll

One of the top names on the European industrial scene returns to Catalonia after a long spell in England to present a piece full of stark contrasts and visceral staging. Cristal Music is a performance in three interrelated movements which flow past like visions of a small-scale apocalypse. An overture in the form of violin sonatas executed by Bernarda Jones, a volcanic intermezzo with the drums of the Tabalers de la Malèfica del Coll, and a painfully poetic grand finale as sharp as a glass storm all interact with the unwholesome atmospheres created specially for the occasion by Jordi Valls himself. An unmissable passionate and torn picture.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12 10 pm.
Homenatge a Eliane Radigue: Kasper T. Toeplitz i Gerard Pape

Gérard Pape is a Paris-based US composer who has been the director of the renowned Iannis Xenakis Centre for Musical Creation since 1991. His prolific output includes more than sixty pieces for orchestra, chamber ensembles, choirs and soloists, as well as a number of electroacoustic works. His interest in new technologies has also led him to work with experimental film directors and artists from the world of video and plastic arts. Gérard Pape will open this performance at the MACBA by presenting 676, a work created specially for him by Eliane Radigue.

As a composer and musician, Kasper T. Toeplitz moves with the greatest of ease within the ill-defined no-man's-land between academic works (pieces for orchestra, and operas, amongst others) and electronic noise experiments. For some time now his computer has taken centre stage as a working tool which interacts with more traditional instruments. This creative synthesis has given rise to the BassComputer, a cross between a bass and a computer, which Kasper T. Toeplitz will use to perform Elemmental II, a piece created specially for him by Eliane Radigue. A formidable epilogue for this intense tribute to this grande doyenne of electroacoustic music.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19 10 pm.
Cabezas de Cera

The latest studio recording by this Mexican group (Fractal Sónico, 2005) confirmed the power and versatility of their music, which appeared ten years ago in the form of their first, eponymous album and which has since been refined to create precise machinery that combines hybrid sounds and constantly seeks to break across traditional boundaries. They offer a unique vision of an alternative scene in a multifaceted country that rejects clichés and explores its own world guided by surprising intuitions.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26 10 pm.
LESS-LETHAL: projecte d'ALKU sobre les armes sòniques

In 1999, ALKU decided to look into the use of music as a non-lethal weapon by the major powers' military ranks. By incorporating reflections on psychological determinants, the insidious effect of piped music and muzak, and the bastardisation of pop music, the Less-Lethal research project is now able to deliver its first findings. At this final LEM function at the MACBA, they will offer an artistic, instructive, serious and sarcastic set on this phenomenon by combining reflections and exhibits by artists from all over the world to reveal the hidden face of this war-thirsty strategy.