14/12/2019
The fourth edition of the Naviar Haiku Fest took place at the iconic music club Corsica Studios.
We started the event with an introductory workshop on haiku, followed by a music hackathon where musicians were invited to make music in response to an assigned haiku.
The Haiku Fest will end with a series of live performances by members and friends of Naviar Records, working in the fields of ambient, electronic, and contemporary classical music.
During the workshop we learned the history of haiku, the rules for writing one and its structure, how to add a kigo (seasonal reference), and Kireji (cutting word). We read and analyzed some of the most famous haiku and haibun. At the end of the workshop, participants had time to write their poems.
At the beginning of the session, participants were provided with a list of haiku poems to choose from (provided by the Haiku Foundation), and invited to make music in response to one of them. They had three hours to complete one (or more) composition and record it.
Thanks to our partnership with Image-Line, all participants received a 40% discount on any FL Studio purchase.
The authors of the three best tracks were awarded a free copy of FL Studio Signature Bundle. The winners were selected by Naviar and music journalist and author Kevin Press.
Kevin Press is the author of The Moderns, two volumes dedicated to the world’s most exciting avant-garde musicians. Featuring over 100 reviews, interviews, and profiles, the book is available exclusively from Amazon. Press’ career as a radio host and music writer dates back to 1985. He can be reached at modernslove@gmail.com and on Twitter @baddpress.
AUDIO OBSCURA https://soundcloud.com/audio-obscura-music
Neil Stringfellow has been recording and releasing music as Audio Obscura since 2014. A lot of Neils's music uses field recordings as a base and haunts the wide spectrum of electro-acoustic music with a firm footing in the ambient realm. The sound also strays towards the experimental end of electronica where post-classical minimal leanings occasionally push through.
https://audioobscura.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-airports-in-the-age-of-climate-change
PEDRO FIGUEIREDO https://soundcloud.com/everythingdies
Pedro Figueiredo is a Portuguese software developer who started experimenting with noise music a decade ago, and has gravitated towards a minimalist approach – layers of piano, tape loops, found noises, and granular synthesis.
TUNNELWATER https://soundcloud.com/tunnelwater
Using an electric guitar and a small assortment of pedal looping devices as his foundational tools, Tunnelwater creates what could broadly be described as minimal, ambient, electroacoustic music. His wide range of musical experience and commitment to improvisation in live performances will often allow the music to be gently persuaded over the boundaries of the territory suggested by those descriptors while maintaining a core aesthetic that is meditative and mindful of the taming power of the small, gentle, slow, and subtle.
SIMON MCCORRY https://soundcloud.com/simonmccorry
Simon is a cellist & composer based in Stroud, Gloucestershire. After playing in several bands as a bass player in the 90s he started making music and sound design for theatre, contemporary dance, and film. He has worked with visual artists creating soundscapes for installations and exhibitions, defining space and feeling with sound. Also releases work as ‘amonism’ combining influences of modern classical, free improvisation with electronics & field recording.
Corine Timmer
Corine Timmer is an interior designer, animal lover, award-winning haiku poet, publisher, and self-published author. She lives in the countryside in the south of Portugal with 10 street dogs and other animals, including her beloved donkey, Lolita. Corine’s haiku has been published in various respected print and web haiku journals and anthologies. She has recently published an anthology of pig haiku in celebration of the Year of the Pig. Corine is a member of the British and American haiku societies. In January 2019 she started participating in the Naviar Records Haiku Music Challenge and she’s been composing music ever since.
www.bicadeideias.com
Detritus Tabu
Living in the mountains of Western North Carolina, Detritus Tabu enjoys his life with his two children and dog, Ginger.
soundcloud.com/detritus-tabu3
El Wud
El Wud Project has its roots in the electronic and psychedelic experimentalism of the seventies. His work is an attempt to work out a sound process that can somehow break the barriers of rationality to evoke the vision of a new inner awareness. In this sense, the visionary and meditative contribution of the listener plays a fundamental role so that the sound could never be the same, just like the water that always flows in the same river but that is never the same. A great contribution to this development comes also from the study and practice of poetic writing and the reading of Zen Buddhism.
The new possibilities of elaborating and researching sound paths thanks to the use of computers have led the El Wud Project to be what it appears today. An experimental, electronic, ambient project realized with the use of overlapping indeterminate sounds, causal collisions, and cosmic echoes. A sound that lives in a slow and constant metamorphosis, a project for which the receptive capacity of the listener is essential to perceive and enrich its essence. El Wud Project can be heard on Soundcloud, Reverbnation, Jamendo, Zenapolae Records, Naviar Haiku, and Breathe Compilations.
soundcloud.com/el-wud-1
how the night came
Born in England, I studied literature at university before going on to obtain a PhD in philosophy.
After completing a program in elementary education, I moved to Japan 14 years ago, where I now work as a preschool teacher.
As my son is growing and becoming more independent, I have found the time to reactivate my interest in trying to play guitar.
I like to write imaginary soundtracks for the books I am reading (typically literature or philosophy), so Naviar Records’ threefold intersection – japan, literature, music – suits me perfectly!!
howthenightcame.wordpress.com
Katharina Schmidt
Katharina Schmidt is a musician and writer based in Berlin. She works with Cashmere Radio, Sonic Field, and SVS Radio, among others, and holds a master’s degree in Sound Studies from the Berlin University of the Arts.
For more information, you are welcome at www.katharina-schmidt.net
Oxebe
A musician fascinated with synthesizers and by the process of creating sounds and timbres. His passion is to start from a simple waveform and to form a rich, evolving, and complex sound, texture, or drone. His musical path began from playing the piano, and piano sound can be often heard in his music adding melancholy. He also uses an electric guitar and tries to capture sounds that can be shaped by tweaking guitar effects beyond the limits. Composing music is his way of expressing wistfulness, mystery, meditation, incertitude, and a feeling of distant and unbounded space.
soundcloud.com/oxebe
Paul Fletcher
Paul has been creatively involved for many years in experimental music, from custom-made audiovisual instruments(such as the midi-vacuum cleaner) to drummer for Essendon Airport and more recently David Chesworth, to short film/animation and media projects. His many animated and experimental films have been screened locally and internationally, including TecnoBunny (1995), and Pop Psychology (2014) at Ars Electronica. His animation Drive To Work won the best Site Specific Installation at Zagreb MSU Animafest 2017. Paul is a Lecturer in Animation, at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, VCA School of Film & Television, University of Melbourne.
soundcloud.com/edmundio1
LIVE ALBUM
Broadcasted in its entirety on Resonance Extra on 2nd February 2020. Released on 3rd February.
NHF IV was supported by:
