Saturday 30 November 2013

Rising From the Red Vinyl

 

There's two vintage NE tracks included on this 5 volume red vinyl box set.
It all started on a cassette.

here's a link

Sunday 17 November 2013

Nocturnal Emissions Live Shows 1981-2012


1981
7 MARCH 1981 ARCHWAY STUDIOS BRIXTON ENGLAND       
14 APRIL 1981 ARCHWAY STUDIOS BRIXTON ENGLAND        
25 APRIL 1981 CRYPTIC ONE CLUB LONDON ENGLAND 
23 MAY 1981 THE CAVE CORSHAM WILTSHIRE ENGLAND      
1982
23 MAY 1982 WHISKY A GO GO LONDON ENGLAND
10 JUNE 1982 UNIVERSITY OF ROME ITALY 
25 JUNE 1982 CENTRO ARCI HOP FROG VIAREGGIO ITALY  
1983
24 MAY 1983 THE SLAMMER LONDON ENGLAND 
9 JUNE 1983 RITZY CINEMA BRIXTON ENGLAND   
14 JUNE 1983 IDIOT BALLROOM LONDON ENGLAND
6 JULY 1983 WOMAD FESTIVAL ICA LONDON ENGLAND   
22 JULY 1983 RHINETERRASSEN BONN W GERMANY
1O JULY 1983 FISHMARKET HAMBURG W GERMANY    
5 AUG 1983 LOFT BERLIN W GERMANY        
6 AUG 1983 BROTFABRIK FRANKFURT W  GERMANY           
21 SEPT 1983 RECESSION STUDIOS HACKNEY ENGLAND    
1984
29 SEPT 1984 NL CENTRUM AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS
OCT  1984 TILBURG NETHERLANDS
24 NOV 1984 AMBULANCE STATION LONDON ENGLAND
1985
22 MARCH 1985 DMA2 FESTIVAL BOURDEAUX FRANCE
9 AUGUST 1985 ICA LONDON ENGLAND
1990
20 OCT 1990 EARSHOT FESTIVAL NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE ENGLAND (with Poppo)
4 NOV 1990 PERMUTANT FESTIVAL COPENHAGEN DENMARK (with Poppo)
7 NOV 1990 LYRIK & BILLEDER FESTIVAL ODENSE DENMARK(with Poppo)
10 NOV 1990 SZENE VIENNA AUSTRIA
1991
14,15,16,17 MAR 1991 LA MA MA THEATER NEW YORK USA (with Poppo)
20 MAR 1991  ALBANY ART GALLERY ALBANY USA
21 MAR BIRMINGHAM LOFT PITTSBURGH USA
22 MAR  1991 INSTITUTE OF ART, CLEVELAND, OHIO, USA
23 MAR 1991 THE BANK DETROIT USA
24 MAR 1991 CHICAGO USA
9 APRIL 1991 KIR HAMBURG GERMANY
10  APRIL 1991 KLING KLANG WILHELMSHAVEN GERMANY
11 APRIL 1991 DIOGENES NIJMEGEN NETHERLANDS
12 APRIL 1991 AALST  BELGIUM
13 APRIL 1991 EKKO UTRECHT NETHERLANDS
26 JULY 1991  WEESPERPLEIN BUNKER AMSTERDAM  NETHERLANDS (with Poppo)
18, 19 DEC 1991 FOREVER FESTIVAL TYNEMOUTH ENGLAND
1992
22 APRIL 1992 RIVOLI TORONTO CANADA
23 APRIL 1992 FOUFOUNES ELECTRIQUES MONTREAL CANADA
25 APRIL 1992 OTTAWA CANADA
9 , 10, 11 15, 16, 17,18 OCT 1992 LA MA MA NEW YORK USA (with Poppo)
20 OCT 1992 GARGOYLE MECHANIQUE NEW YORK USA
1994
MAY GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND
1997
1 MARCH 1997 TOWN HALL, FOWEY, CORNWALL, ENGLAND
1998
5 APRIL 1998 TIPI LILLE FRANCE
6 APRIL 1998  L'ETREPOTE LIEGE BELGIUM
7 APRIL 1998  FRANS VAART GENT BELGIUM
8 APRIL 1998  VPRO RADIO, AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS
10 APRIL 1998 EXTRAPOOL NIJMEGEN NETHERLANDS
11 APRIL 1998  GALERIA HITLER DUSSELDORF GERMANY
12 APRIL 1998  SIX PACK KOLN GERMANY
14 APRIL 1998 SUPAMOLLY BERLIN GERMANY
15 APRIL 1998  MS STUBNITZ ROSTOCK GERMANY
16 APRIL 1998 CAFE MATRAX HANAU GERMANY
17 APRIL 19 INSEL BERLIN GERMANY
18 APRIL 1998  KASERNERSTR  ZURICH SWITZERLAND
29 AUG 1998 BALLROOM ESTERHOFEN GERMANY
4 SEPT 1998 007 CLUB PRAGUE CZECH REPUBLIC
1 OCT 1998 CARLO LEVI LIEGE BELGIUM
2 OCT 1998 FRANSE VAART GHENT BELGIUM
3 OCT 1998 SCHELDSQUAD ANTWERP BELGIUM
7 OCT 1998 OCCII AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS
8 OCT 1998 ALLUVIUM OLDENBURG GERMANY
9 OCT 1998 AJZ  GREIFSWALD GERMANY
11 OCT 1998 SUPAMOLLY BERLIN GERMANY
12 OCT 1998 007 CLUB PRAGUE CZECH REPUBLIC
15 OCT 1998 BARRICADE, FREIBERG, GERMANY
16 OCT 1998 ROCKHAUS JENA GERMANY
17 OCT 1998 CHEKOV COTTBUS GERMANY
18 OCT 1998 TELLSTR 19 ZURICH SWITZERLAND
20 OCT GALERIE/WESPERCLUB MAINZ GERMANY
21 OCT GALERIA HITLER DUSSELDORF GERMANY
23 OCT FABRIK DUISBURG GERMANY
1999
30 APRIL 1999 LA ZONE LIEGE BELGIUM
22 MAY 1999 WAVE GOTIK TREFFEN LEIPZIG GERMANY
23 MAY 1999 MS STUBNITZ ROSTOCK GERMANY
27 MAY 1999 007 CLUB PRAGUE CZECH REPUBLIC
30 MAY 1999 SUPAMOLLY BERLIN GERMANY
22 JUNE 1999 THE GARAGE LONDON ENGLAND   
2000
01 NOV 2000 BATOFAR PARIS FRANCE
2003
5 NOV 2003 GURU CLUB PRAGUE CZECH REPLUBLIC
8 NOV 2003 INDUSTRIAL FESTIVAL WROCLAW POLAND
2005
19 NOV 2005 CENTRE D'ANIMATION CURIAL PARIS FRANCE
26 NOV 2005 SLIMELIGHT, LONDON, ENGLAND
2008
6 MAR 2008 EL CENTRO MURCIA SPAIN
13 MAR  2008 THE CAVERN EXETER ENGLAND   
18 MAY 2008 MACSORLEYS MUSIC BAR GLASGOW SCOTLAND
10 OCT 2008 CAVE CLUB SALZBURG AUSTRIA
2009
30 MAY 2009 SPITI POLTISMOU FE XANTHI GREECE
9 OCT VIPER ROOM VIENNA AUSTRIA
2011
13 NOV 2011  KOLN GERMANY
16 NOV 2011 INSTITUT FUR NEUE MEDIEN  FRANKFURT GERMANY
17 NOV 2011 GANZE BACKERIE AUGSBURG GERMANY
18 NOV 2011 BLACK BOX MUNSTER GERMANY
2012
8 JUNE 2012 NAHERHOLUNG STERNCHEN BERLIN GERMANY
-->

Sunday 11 August 2013

Thursday 27 June 2013

The Virgin's Nipple Dolmen

There is something strangely retro-futuristic happening in the Bodmin Moor Zodiac. The latest enhancement has been the erection of a pink granite dolmen (cromlech or quoit), in the centre of what has become known as the Virgin’s Nipple, or Twelvewoods roundabout at Dobwalls.



A dolmen, also known as a portal tomb, portal grave, or quoit, is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of three or more upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone (table), although in this case, the capstone is placed to one side.


The oldest known dolmens are in Western Europe, where they were set in place around 7000 years ago. Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it. They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite the absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artifacts, have been found in or close to them, which could be scientifically dated, but it has been impossible to prove that these archaeological remains date from the time when the stones were originally set in place.



The Virgin’s Nipple dolmen is clearly not a burial site, its capstone is removed to expose the chamber to the sky. It is constructed from granite, a stone that has probably been chosen for both its nipple pinkness and its natural healing radioactivity. Evidence of the unique acoustic and spiritual properties of this site can be found in an earlier blog.

 There is also the possibility that this dolmen-nipple-roundabout complex has been designed to create an auto- psycho-sexual wormhole in spacetime, a sort of Einstein-Rosen Bridge, where matter and radiation can pass through, and extraterrestrial and extratemporal artifacts, and occasionally life-forms may show up. 

In this genuine photograph, taken at 17:24:50 on 26 June 2013, we can see what appears to be a Smart Car from the future “leaking through” into the present.




Tuesday 25 June 2013

Live shows coming up

Nigel Ayers will be performing at

Penryn Arts Festival
Friday 26th July 8.00
The Ark, Jubilee Wharf
Penryn, Cornwall

http://www.penrynartsfestival.co.uk/#!nigel-ayers/c1lvu 

and

 The Fascinate Showcase :
Wednesday 28 August, 2013
The Performance Centre,
Falmouth University,
Tremough Campus,
Cornwall.

 http://www.fascinateconference.com/showcase/

Sunday 23 June 2013

The Sacred Sound of the Virgin's Nipple

There is a fundamental human need to create sacred spaces where sound reverberates to commune with the ancestors and gives praise to the Divine. Ancient people recognized the importance of sound and sought out resonant caves to perform rituals. Modern-day temples and cathedrals were built to enhance sound and music.

The uncapped pink granite dolmen atop the Virgin’s Nipple is a sacred place built to hear ourselves and Spirit more clearly as the Earth Goddess’s nipple is stimulated by the rotation of motor traffic.

The circle of stimulation is enhanced by the natural healing radioactivity of the stones. Sound and structure are simply different manifestations of the same universal mathematical constants creating a relationship between the seen and the unseen worlds within and around us. Out of this vibratory field comes an awakening and quickening of spiritual consciousness.

Tuesday 4 June 2013

In and around the garden of Earthly Delights













In and around the Garden of Earthly Delights, life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.

Thursday 30 May 2013

Resound Sound Art Festival - Penzance

Fri 7th June 6:30pm -11:30pm Acorn Theatre Penzance, Bar & Free Entry
Sat 8th June 11:30am - 2pm Exchange Gallery Penzance, Buffet & Free Entry
Sat 8th June 2:30pm - 11:30pm Acorn Theatre Penzance, Evening bar & Free Entry

Resound was created by SVA (sva.org.uk) and this 2013 edition is brought to you by CAZ. The festival will showcase a diverse range of exciting and innovative regional/national/international sound and performance art from established and emergent artists and will be hosted by the Acorn theatre in Penzance. The two day festival will also feature an ALIAS seminar offering artists talks and networking opportunities hosted by the Exchange Gallery in Penzance. All events are free & open to the public.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL PROGRAMME>> MORE INFO: INFO@CAZART.OG.UK

SEMINAR SPEAKERS: MIKHAIL KARIKIS / NEIL ROSE / LUCY DAFWYN

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: NIGEL AYERS/ ANAT BEN-DAVID/ ROBERT CURGENVEN & KATHLEEN MCDOWALL/ TIM CROWLEY/ SIMON COATES & ZAHRA JEWANJEE/ MATT DAVIS/ LUCY DAFWYN/ POULOMI DESAI & SIMON UNDERWOOD/ DOM & PASSMAN/ ANTHONY HOWELL/ NIGEL BISPHAM, DELPHA HUDSON & ROBIN SIMPSON/ MIKHAIL KARIKIS/ ALICE KEMP/ JAMES KING/ MARTIN PEASE/ TIF ROBINETTE/ NEIL ROSE/ KEN TURNER & THE LEVENSHULME BICYCLE ORCHESTRA/ FALMOUTH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS/ WARDENCLYFFE/ HEATHER WARREN-CROW/ CAROLINE WILKINS/
Event curated by Ian Whitford, Rebecca Weeks & Andrew Whall of CAZ.
Photograph: Mikhail Karikis, Sculpting Voice - A, 2010

 Link to facebook event page : www.facebook.com/events/149530891900824/

Program link: www.cazart.org.uk/content/resound-programme

I'm performing on Friday evening.

Wednesday 29 May 2013

Open Provocation Festival

Polruan, Cornwall April 2013


Open Provocation was a festival of live sound art and performance, held over 4 evenings in April 2013, in the unlikely setting of Polruan Village Hall, near Fowey. Featuring 16 performances with artists from Germany, Italy, Australia, and across the UK and Cornwall, the festival was organised by Robert Curgenven, a Polruan resident.

Polruan Village Hall
Photo by Iris Garrelfs
It was a festival funded by benefit CD sales, which these days means that it ran on the good will of those taking part. Many of the performers had travelled across country and from across Europe to get here. It was a unique opportunity to see many performers together who are rarely seen in the UK.
I’d been to an event Rob had organised here last year. It was just three solo performers I'd not heard of before, two from Australia and one from Cornwall playing junk instruments, turntables, guitar feedback and laptop as the sun went down in this cold, scruffy village hall. And somehow it created something powerful and magnificent, a celebration of natural forces channeled through battered instruments as the the sun went down. And it wasn’t repetitive beats, folk music or covers bands or anything with any sort of tune, it was something else completely - a mind-blowingly brilliant music experience. Maybe half the people there were only there being polite because they were local, but for me it was probably in my top ten gigs ever. Top twenty at least. Anyway it was a rare event for Cornwall and I wanted more and was chuffed to bits to be invited to perform here myself this time round.

Although I haven't heard of most of the acts this week, one of them (Company Fuck) I played with in a club in Berlin last year and I'm very excited. Oh, and there's a founder member of Napalm Death on the bill. And two of the guys who were on last time, bonus.

With its steep, narrow, winding little country roads and imaginative signage, Polruan isn't exactly easy to get to, or get back from, even when you live only just five miles away like I do. So this is a bit of an adventure. Polruan is a beautiful place, but off-season like so much of Cornwall's seaside, it's a dead zone of empty holiday lets. This old village hall though, seems like a place with a past, rather than somewhere that is closed when the tourists aren't here. It's a place in which people have lived and grown up and done their amateur dramatics and their jam making and bought their raffle tickets. It's not some purpose-built facility with the very latest equipment designed to open up opportunities for cultural collaboration, interdisciplinary connections and community partnerships, if you know what I mean.

So here it is night by night:

 
WEDNESDAY

The interval music is Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western soundtracks. The bar is stocked up with an exotic selection of Belgian beers, Czech lager, cider, local microbrewery, a selection of teas, single malt whisky and some kind of flapjacks. And the theme tonight is three blokes, each with a table-top full of an assortment of electrical and other junk. To the uninitiated this might look like a car boot sale, except they're all wired up to a very nice looking PA. Rob Curgenven introduces the performers in turn and each performance is about half an hour to an hour. It seems about right.

Dennis Wiehahn opens the proceedings with the sound of a London railway station, a sonic postcard. Sitting behind a table top full of audio equipment, he introduces and explains each short pre-recorded piece. This includes the street sounds of St Austell; a piece featuring the voice of Maggi Hambling during the making of her Oscar Wilde sculpture and other textured sound collages.

After a warning for epilepsy sufferers, it's time for Matt Davis. Matt is standing behind another table, this one's covered with electrical appliances. But these are appliances like an insect electrocutor and flickering domestic light bulbs. The sound he produces seems to be coming from miked up electromagnetic fields - spluttering interference patterns creating flavours of mains hum and earth loops. No beats, no tunes, not music as we know it, and not very loud. Manufacturer's warnings ignored - warrantees void. Sometimes he pokes the appliances with a pointy stick. Sometimes there is a faint bouquet of Motörhead and perhaps a hint of 90's digital hardcore (or is it just me having flashbacks...?).
By heck, this is good.

Ludomir Franczak and Marcin Dymiter couldn't make it from Poland so they've sent a video instead, 'Waiting for Emma' is a projection of street scenes in Eastern Europe with a minimal droning soundtrack. It's all a bit monochrome, and nothing much happens. Hmm, forget what I wrote about “the real world”, this would probably work better in a purpose built cinema with HD screen.

Behind another table now, high up on the stage, is Lee Patterson, very smartly dressed, a table with some sort of chemistry set as well as the usual kind of sound equipment. He starts his set by dropping Andrews Liver Salts into a couple of glasses of water. The amplified liquid fizzes and the fizzes turn into some sort of atmospherics and there's other sorts of crackles and heaven only knows what he's up to…He twangs small springs that sound huge and deep, then there's strange burning smells and the crackling of small fires – then it looks like he's set his mixing desk on fire – but he can't have because he's sitting there very calmly.
It’s a poignant and subtle multi-sensory theatre.
 


THURSDAY


 
Alex Wendt
Photo by Iris Garrelfs
 
Alex Wendt tells a fairy tale about little animals, and gently places a rainstick, a group of small digital playback gadgets and little speakers on a pair of white canvasses on the floor. They click and make electrical insect whirrings and seem to be communicating to each other in some sort of insect language. None of this is amplified.

Iris Garrelfs does this arresting thing with her own voice, making strange non-verbal utterances like monkey noises. She loops the vocalizations – it looks like she's using some MacBook app - and builds up layers of sound on sound. Somehow this emerges as something enormously trancelike and relaxing.

Robert Curgenven sits behind a laptop playing a piece based on the sounds of a pipe organ. This is highly abstracted, decomposed so that all you are hearing is the wheezy breathing of the organ pumps and wind box, turning the unique timbre of the instrument into something akin to weather conditions, overtones, undertones, creaks and rustlings. Engaging and magical passages, sometimes loud and some that would be silent - if it wasn't for some drunk in the audience giving us a commentary.

Mat Pogo sits on the steps to the stage, unamplified, his body twitches and spasms, he gurgles as if struggling to make speech. Over the course of several minutes of unamplified physical theatre he produces an incredible vocal performance, fitful human beatboxing crossed with jazz scat and dada performance poetry. Sometimes he moves his mouth to a voice processor, many times he misses and carries on eventually a line or two of pure joyous song emerges - then that's all, folks.


FRIDAY
There's a higher proportion of women in the audience tonight and more women in the show, too. And everyone's a lot better behaved than last night. It all kicks off with JD Zazie , armed with turntables and CD player, she boldly seeks out all the ways you are not supposed to play records and CDs. The surface noise of vinyl wibbling with off-centre wobbles, amplified CD motors fast forwarding and skipping. Elements once intended to reproduce hi-fi sound create something dirty, organic and lovely.

And now the red stage curtains open to reveal an icy white cube stage set where Kathleen M stands half naked. She moves slowly to minimal drone soundtrack, in a slow dance of a some tortured, abject spirit, face is blotted out with smeared makeup, vulnerable and with a great sadness.

The next piece is a Supergroup - many of the performers who have been performing solo now take turns to perform in improvised duets. The recombination of sonic elements in this more social music works very smoothly. Sitting in the audience I get lost in music and it becomes timeless and it's hard to figure out what is going on. It's fab though.

And then the chairs are pulled back and stacked up, and Polruan Village Hall becomes Company Fuck’s dancehall.…OMG! 
Company Fuck
Photo by Iris Garrelfs
Company Fuck is a mad Aussie in nerd spectacles wearing a crotch-hugging two tone purple leotard. Yelling DJ clichés into a wireless karaoke mike he remotely triggers Euro-disco trash punctuated by sudden explosions of HIGH VOLUME HARSH NOISE. This lunatic crawls round the floor, climbs over things, pushes and shoves and humps members of the audience, regardless of gender. “Shut up!” he hollers in the faces of a couple of women who happen to be enjoying a private conversation, “..this is my art, I've been working on this piece for years!”.
Apparently there were complaints from the neighbours.




SATURDAY

Dominic Allen has set up his crazy analogue sound system: loads of flashing LEDs and dials and elements of fairground organ and banging drums, untidy components salvaged from skips. A handmade 10-step analogue sequencer drives electro mechanical components, gutted re-purposed reed instruments, and backwards-engineered fragments from crashed UFOs. 

Dom Allen's machines -detail
Photo by Nigel Ayers


As the sun goes down, Dominic does an incredible live performance with this living scrapheap. This is supposed to be the hyper-efficient world of digital information, but the scrapheap seems to be winning.


 So, tonight I'm performing as Nigel Ayers. Look, we're talking about the Grandfather of Industrial Noise, the one out of the Nocturnal Emissions here. I've a new hand-painted film to screen and some new sounds, based on my own digestive system. I perform a Space Cornish magic rite which sends me off into a pisky-led state of consciousness, I safely make re-entry back to Earth, Cornwall, Polruan then all recordings of a lifetime flash past. A brief section of vintage harsh noise and then earthworms dance to self-actualisation grooves. I finish with an amplified cat purr. The set is brilliant, as per usual, I enjoyed that.

Nigel Ayers makes the sign of the fire goddess
Photo by Iris Garrelfs


Apparently I'm a tough act to follow. But this isn't a competition. There's no Simon Cowell here. As I chill out with the nice beer that Kat has kindly put aside for me, Jorg Maria Zeger plays a wickedly energising multi-harmonic guitar feedback drone through a large collection of guitar effects. The drone becomes extended and hypnotic and after a while he hands the guitar round the audience.

Nicholas Bullen screens a DVD made up of vintage and recent super 8 holiday home movie footage, old fashioned cars, shots of stone circles, Gaudi's architecture all mixed up together and subtly colorized with a live contemplative soundtrack. A nice dreamlike sequence bit of personal and family history blended with a minimal soundtrack.

So there you have it, a great week of modern sonic fun with a beautifully clear sound system. Nothing corporate, no sponsors, nothing academic, nothing too desperate to please. The audience was fab, attentive, friendly and well behaved most of the time. Rob Curgenven was a great curator, host, and bouncer. Some good Belgian beers and herbal teas and flapjacks.

The festival was an entirely an artist run initiative and as such was staged entirely without conventional arts funding. Sales of the 2CD festival compilation provided a large percentage of the costs of the festival (artists’ transport, accommodation and food). Get it here: http://www.recordedfields.net

Get it here: http://www.recordedfields.net


Written for www.artcornwall.org  

 



Sunday 19 May 2013

Slow Worm Tongue



Another piece of natural history from the garden of Earthly Delights.

Tuesday 30 April 2013

May Day


Here we were doing our fertility rites in Parliament Square, London, in the year 2000. 

I was told this was the first maypole there since Oliver Cromwell banned them


Have a belting Beltane!


Many thanks to http://www.lawrencespicturepage.co.uk




Friday 26 April 2013

The wheels on the bus go round and round



Nice Little Package


CD Included get it here http://boomkat.com/vinyl/709201-nocturnal-emissions-accumulator


Read full review of Accumulator - Nocturnal Emissions on Boomkat.com ©
Boomkat say:
" **Also includes a free CDR featuring a crowd recording of Nocturnal Emissions live at the Brixton Ritzy on June 9th 1983** We Can Elude Control present three tracks by the politically-activated proto-techno unit, Nocturnal Emissions, dating to 1982. 'Accumulator 1 & 2' are two previously unreleased pieces of skeletal rhythmic minimalism; the first a scratchy, stepping rhythm shot thru with clipped guitar distortion and reminding at times of Craig Leon's output from the same period, whilst the kicking 2nd piece sounds like some kinda Pansonic prototype, pounding out a stern, monotone machine tattoo. Also appearing as digital download for the first time, 'So Darn Hot' crawls at snails pace with parched synth tones and stumbling machine drum patterns."



(((Some people don't seem to believe it was recorded all that long ago, but it was. You may have heard a slightly different version of "So Darn Hot" on Duty Experiment, http://nocturnalemissions.bandcamp.com/album/duty-experiment )))

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Nocturnal Emissions - Accumulator

Recorded in 1982, 12 inch vinyl out this week, or if you like to download:
Read full review of Accumulator - Nocturnal Emissions on Boomkat.com ©
(vinyl will be there soon)
Here's the artwork in a coloured-in version:

Sunday 14 April 2013

Live at the Ritzy



Brixton celebrates the news of April 8 2013 playing word games with the Ritzy cinema sign.

30 years back, it said NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS up there.
We were live at the Ritzy, not dead at the Ritz.


Super 8mm footage by Danny Ayers
The night of the 1983 re-election of Maggie Thatcher, we played our funky music with a widescreen backdrop combining the TV announcement of the catastrophic results with snatches from our 16mm film "The Feotal Grave of Progress".



Soundtrack "Sinking the Belgrano" from Nocturnal Emissions
"Chaos - Live at the Ritzy"

Wednesday 27 March 2013

Open Provocation Festival - Polruan - Cornwall

Festival of contemporary music and performance in Polruan, Cornwall, UK :: 17-20 April 2013

featuring: Nicholas Bullen (UK),
Lee Patterson (UK),
Jörg Maria Zeger (DE),
JD Zazie (IT/DE) ,
Iris Garrelfs (DE/UK) ,
Mat Pogo (IT/DE),
Company F**k (AU/DE)
and from Cornwall:
Dominick Allen,
Nigel Ayers, 
Matt Davis,
Dennis Wiehahn,
Kat McDowall,
Robert Curgenven

(I'll be doing an audio/visual performance on the evening of Saturday 20th).


http://recordedfields.net/festival/
Support the festival from wherever you are in the world through buying the festival compilation


http://recordedfields.net/records/festival-compilation/
all sales go to supporting the festival directly, your support will be greatly appreciated






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Thursday 7 March 2013

Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, died on Tuesday.
Here he is photographed back in 2005, with soccer star Diego Maradona who is wearing a piece of my artwork for the occasion.
See: http://www.nigelayers.com/warcrim/warcrimjan.html
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151215717376066.503868.44070841065&type=1&l=4f2bb40232

Sunday 3 March 2013

Music for Butoh

Between 1990 & 1992 I provided the live soundtracks to some Butoh dance performances by Poppo & the GoGo Boys in UK, Denmark, Netherlands and La Mama Theater in New York USA. Here's some documentation:


Thursday 28 February 2013

Ophiuchus

Download now available.

Sunday 24 February 2013

Omphalos!

Omphalos! by Nocturnal Emissions (1998) now available for download

Saturday 9 February 2013

Contaminated Landscapes

A taste of the new video pieces I've been working on. The live footage and some of the sound is recorded at Okel Tor Mine in the Tamar Valley.

Monday 28 January 2013

BLEEDING IMAGES Screening in Leeds Feb 14th

[Description] BLEEDING IMAGES (1982, 46 minutes, VHS) THE FOETAL GRAVE OF PROGRESS (1984, 34 minutes, VHS)

Perhaps THE quintessential audiovisual statements of the post-industrial music scene. Provocative in content, prescient in style, these medium-format videos captured the subversive interests and activities of the pioneering sound art project against a contextual backdrop of the UK between 1981 and 1984; a time rife with mass unemployment, civil unrest, media hysteria, political indifference, terrorism and war overseas. Burroughsian cut-ups reveal subliminal imagery hidden in exploitative mainstream broadcasting; shocking images of real-life violence against living beings are critically employed to expose our complacency in everyday cruelty; the thunderous soundscapes and ritual performances of the Nocturnal Emissions awaken the viewer's senses to our undermining culture controlled by fear and repression...

Rarely viewed since their initial home video releases and screenings at the Tate and ICA in the UK as a result of the 1984 Video Recordings Act, both videos remains impressive today as early influential examples of the extended music video and key moments of the British independent video art movement. Countless artists and broadcasters have emulated or outright stolen the ambitions, aesthetics and techniques used in the videos of The Nocturnal Emissions, either directly or through watered-down copies - few however can match the tremendous power of the original works, long overdue public and critical reassessment in these increasingly pertinent times.

Free entry with small donations welcomed. Doors open at 7:30. A short talk and introduction by the organiser will precede the first video at 8pm - second video will be shown after 9pm. Please be aware that these videos contains flashing images and some footage that may disturb those of a sensitive disposition.

Special thanks to Nigel Ayers/Earthly Delights and Piitu Lintunen for making this event possible.

http://www.facebook.com/events/407157019370475/

*Wharf Chambers Co-operative Club is a members’ club, and you need to be a member, or a guest of a member, in order to attend. To join, please visit wharfchambers.org. Membership costs £1 and requires a minimum of 48 hours to take effect.*