NHF IV – LONDON 2019

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 to haiku, followed by a music hackathon where musicians were invited to make music in response to an assigned haiku.

The Haiku Fest will ended with a series of live performances by members and friends of Naviar Records, working in the fields of ambient, electronic and contemporary classical music.

1-3 pm: HAIKU WORKSHOP

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 own poems.

3.30: 6.30pm: MUSIC HACKATHON

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) compositions 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 with 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.

 PARTICIPANTS:

Corine Bicadeideias www.bicadeideias.com
Detritus Tabu soundcloud.com/detritus-tabu3
halF unusuaL soundcloud.com/half-unusual (winner)
how the night came soundcloud.com/howthenightcame (winner)
Jared Bermejo soundcloud.com/vz-matthews
Joe MetaRei soundcloud.com/raremetals (winner)
Tunnelwater soundcloud.com/tunnelwater
Setsuna soundcloud.com/anosetsuna

7-10pm: LIVE PERFORMANCES

AUDIO OBSCURA https://soundcloud.com/audio-obscura-music

Neil Stringfellow has been recording and releasing music as Audio Obscura since 2014. A lof of Neils music uses field recordings as a base and haunts the wide spectrum’s 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.

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.

SOUND INSTALLATION

Corine Timmer

Corine Timmer is an interior designer, animal lover, award-winning haiku poet, publisher, and a 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 have 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 breaks 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 from the reading of Zen Buddhism.
The new possibilities of elaborating and researching sound paths thanks to the use of computer 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 pre-school teacher.
As my son is growing and become 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 electric guitar and tries to capture sounds that can be shaped by tweaking guitar effects beyond the limits. Composing music is his way to express wistfulness, mystery, meditation, incertitude and a feel 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-vacuumcleaner) 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 best Site Specific Installation at Zagreb MSU Animafest 2017. Paul is a Lecturer in Animation, 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: