Zoë Mc Pherson & Alessandra Leone: String Figures
Audiovisual Performance September 25, 6 pm & 10 pm Sala Azcona, Cineteca / Matadero Madrid Tickets 15€ (Double session with Lee Gamble & Clifford Sage Live Av)Audiovisual live set String Figures, collaborative work between Zoë Mc Pherson and Alessandra Leon, visual artists and founders of SFX platform, arrives at L.E.V. Matadero, revisited especially for the festival after being released and toured in 2018 and 2019.
A multi-platform production that explores the overlap between the digital and the organic through field recordings of Inuit throat singing may sound, on surface level, to be something that is a rather niche. However, Zoe Mc Pherson’s exploration of this world on String Figures is a deeply rhythmic, immersive and forward-thinking piece of electronic-leaning music that remains just as danceable as it does experimental.
Over the seven tracks (which are laid out as chapters) the record explores glitchy electronics, dub-tinged grooves, polyrhythms, and a huge array of instruments that takes in quiet blasts of atonal sax alongside wonky synths. This of course cross-pollinates with the throat singing and experimental field recordings to create an utterly inimitable sonic sphere.
The album is fundamentally one of duality, exploring the traditional and the contemporary, organic and electronic, audio and visual, history and the future. Rooted in this duality is also a core theme around string being one of the most ancient and playful art forms and the seemingly infinite possibilities it offers in terms of shapes, structures and figures lines up with this as a trans-global art project. One that over time will involve video art, choreography, 3D motion design, macro film, instrumental and electronic sound. Although for now is being presented through an AV performance, films and a record with Mc Pherson collaborating with director Alessandra Leone.
