L.E.V. Festival announces the first names of its 16th line-up in Gijón, which will take place between April 28 and May 1
- With the support of Gijón’s Town Council and the Principality of Asturias, the festival will host four days of live shows and audiovisual performances in different spaces of the town.
- Squarepusher, from the legendary English label Warp, will headline this year’s festival, playing a live show at Nave de Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial.
- With Squarepusher, Soft as Snow and other artists to be confirmed, the festival will resume its night activities, after a hiatus of two years due to the health crisis.
- Teatro de la Laboral will host amazing audiovisual performances created by international and national artists such prestigious as Martin Messier, Jason Sharp, Playmodes and Klara Lewis + Nik Void w/ Pedro Maia, among others.
- Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies will showcase a night devoted to the essential English label Planet Mu, with live shows by Jana Rush and µ-Ziq.
- Teatro Jovellanos will host the Spanish premiere of The End of the World, an immersive multimedia performance created by Ukrainian pianist Lubomyr Melnyk, SPIME.IM collective from Turin and Canadian cellist Julia Kent.
- Tickets for the festival will be available soon at www.levfestival.com
L.E.V. Festival (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual) will take place in Gijón for its 16th time, from April 28 to May 1, the same dates as before the pandemic, with a four-day line-up in different spaces of the Asturian town, to showcase the most astonishing artistic experiences in the field of electronic sound creation, audiovisual creation and contemporary digital art.
With the support of Gijón’s Town Council and the Principality of Asturias, L.E.V. announces the first names of this year’s bill, focusing on live shows and audiovisual performances, with a long list of local, national and international artists, burgeoning projects and true flagships in this field of creation.
Squarepusher headlines this year’s line-up with a live show at Nave de Laboral Centro de Arte
In its sixteenth year, L.E.V. Festival resumes its night activities at Nave de Laboral Centro de Arte: on Saturday April 30, we will enjoy a live show by 2022’s headliner: Squarepusher. No doubt Tom Jenkinson is a highly influential artist, a leading figure that managed to create a sound world of his own. A member of the legendary Warp label (which celebrated its thirtieth birthday on 2019), the English artist and producer has recently released a remaster of his visionary album Feed Me Weird Things (1996), a true turning point in the underground electronic UK scene due to its wonderful weirdness. Jenkinson will showcase his 2020 work Be Up Hello, using again all his arsenal of analog hardware and digital vintage, with a new approach to redefine and renovate his signature early sound.
Another act to play on the same night, plus some other artists to be confirmed, is Norwegian two-piece Soft as Snow, formed by musicians and producers Oda Egjar Starheim and Øystein Monsen, showcasing the new audiovisual show created for their new album Bit Rot (Infinite Machine, 2022). Produced with 3D artist 3D Guynoid, this live show explores topics such as fluidity in the body and identity in the age of human digitalization.
Audiovisual performances at Teatro de la Laboral: Martin Messier, Jason Sharp, Playmodes, Klara Lewis + Nik Void w/ Pedro Maia
At Teatro de la Laboral, on Friday, April 29 and Saturday 30 we will enjoy works such as Martin Messier’s Echo Chamber. The Canadian artist, who has played in previous L.E.V. Festivals, always amazes us with the mise-en-scene of his sonic works, where he brings to life everyday objects, made-up machines and bodies in motion. Every new project by Messier pushes us to be forward looking, transcending the use of everyday things around us and reinventing their reason for being. With Echo Chamber, he questions how we can see the invisible, probing beneath the surface of the tangible through an “echo machine” that rumbles, vibrates and pulsates. Membranes, needles, sensors… All are elements that take us into a fantasized laboratory where sound and light shape the imagery of our psyche.
Saxophonist and electroacoustic composer Jason Sharp (Montreal) will also play live his visual album The Turning Centre Of A Still World, created with experimental filmmaker Guillaume Vallée. This third record with the Constellation label is his most lucid, moving and complete work so far. A sonic exploration, halfway between a human and a machine, a crossroads of his own body, his acoustic instrument and his electronic system, in an ongoing evolution.
At Teatro de la Laboral, Playmodes Studio (Barcelona) will play the audiovisual concert FORMS – String Quartet, combining instrumental and electronic music based on a set of graphic music scores which work both as visual scenography and musical composition. The project is the result of a rigorous research in the fields of image sonification, algorithmic composition, generative art and graphical notation.
Straight from Festival Semibreve, with a project curated and premiered at the same festival in Braga (Portugal), artists Klara Lewis, Nik Void and Pedro Maia will meet onstage again to bring us a show which combines Klara Lewis’ industrial ambientalism, full of luminous refractions and surprising electronic details, with the modular, adaptable and meandering electronics by Nik Colk Void (Factory Floor). And the work by the third vortex of the project will be shown on the big screen: Pedro Maia, filmmaker and visual artist.
Open space concerts at Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies: Jana Rush and µ-Ziq from Planet Mu
Another recurring space in L.E.V. Festival is Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies. On Sunday April 30, at midday, it will host a showcase of the essential English label Planet Mu.
One the artists taking part in this session will be Jana Rush (Chicago) who in the early nineties was a regular at all the footwork and juke events in her hometown. Influenced by Robert Armani, Lester Fitzpatrick, Cajmere, DJ Milton, or DJ Deeon, Jana Rush will fill the space of this Saturday afternoon with her personal, deconstructed footwork sound with references to jungle, acid, soul or jazz, playing live her new album Painful Enlightenment, an intense, moving rollercoaster of distorted samples, vibrant electronica and erratic percussions.
Mike Paradinas, also known as µ-Ziq, will play this same Saturday at Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies. The big boss at Planet Mu Records has gradually turned into one of the few electronic artists that is able to create his own, recognizable sound, moving between an ambitious experimentation and the accessibility of his catchy melodies and beats.
Spanish premiere of The End of the World at Teatro Jovellanos: Lubomyr Melnyk + SPIME.IM feat. Julia Kent
One of the highlights of this year’s festival is The End of the World (Teatro Jovellanos), a multimedia, immersive performance created by Ukrainian pianist Lubomyr Melnyk, SPIME.IM collective from Turin and Canadian cellist Julia Kent. This amazing performance combines piano and cello melodies with digital sounds and interactive images to convey a message of unrest concerning the environmental evolution of the planet, and the lack of solutions. Co-produced internationally by Superbudda, L.E.V. Festival, Nextones, Snaporazverein and Fondazione I Teatri Reggio Emilia / Festival Aperto, in collaboration with TOurDays and Basemental, this project is also based on the artistic residence hosted by Collective SPIME.IM in 2021 at Teatro de la Laboral.
L.E.V. (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual) is a platform of production, promotion and experimentation related to electronic sound creations, audiovisual creations and digital art. An open area of research, created by DATATRON collective, which uses the latest technological tools to explore contemporary creation with national and international avant-garde artists and new and trailblazing creators, performing several activities and shows in public spaces, with two main big annual events: L.E.V. Festival in Gijón, and L.E.V. Matadero in Madrid.
L.E.V. Festival
April 28-1 May
Gijón (Asturias, Spain) 2022
An initiative by: Datatron
Supported by: Gijón’s Town Council and the Principality of Asturias
Partners: La Salve, Embassy of Canada in Spain, Québec Office in Barcelona, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Madrid, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Conseyu de la Mocedá del Principáu d’Asturies, Conseyu de Mocedá de Xixón, Radio 3, Neo2, The Wire.
Spaces: Teatro Jovellanos, Teatro de la Laboral, Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto, Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies, Capilla del Revillagigedo, Escuela de Comercio.
Graphic design: Pasajero37
Video and animations: Geso
LINE-UP:
Squarepusher [Uk / Warp]
Lubomyr Melnyk + SPIME.IM feat. Julia Kent: The End Of The World [Ua / It / Ca]
µ-Ziq [Uk / Planet Mu]
Klara Lewis + Nik Void + Pedro Maia [Se / Uk / Pt]
Martin Messier: Echo Chamber [Ca / Qc]
Jana Rush [Us / Planet Mu]
Playmodes: FORMS – String Quartet [Sp]
Jason Sharp [Ca / Constellation Records]
Soft as Snow [No / Infinite Machine]
More artists to be announced soon
