Kaffe Matthews has been making and performing new electro-acoustic music since 1990. She is acknowledged as a leading figure and pioneer in the field of electronic improvisation and live composition making on average 50 performances a year worldwide. In 1997 she established the label Annette Works, releasing the best of these events on the six cd's, 'cd Ann', 'cd Bea' , 'cd cecile' ,'cd dd', 'cd eb and flo' presenting an annual document of ever developing sound worlds.
Matthews makes site-specific sound works live, playing in the dark in the middle of the space, the audience surrounding her, the sounds moving around them. She uses self-designed software based matrices through which she pulls, pushes and reprocesses sounds live. Starting with an empty hard drive, a theremin, carefully located microphones and a four channel sound system, the room/gallery/concert hall/club/church/ship/audience/desert and its acoustic are also her instrument. It’s dangerous, but playing live on that fragile human boundary between success and failure is an essential aspect to her process.
She also collaborates and has worked and performed with many artists worldwide including agf, Ryoko Kuwajima, Zeena Parkins, Sachiko M, Brian Duffy, Ikue Mori, Marina Rosenfeld, Pan-Sonic, O’Blaat, Oren Ambarchi, Alan Lamb, Christian Fennesz, and is now working on things Italian with Tarantata, an opera with 'the lappetites' and ongoing democractic stuggles with pan-European electronics orchestra ‘MIMEO’.
She has also been making a growing body of composed works through collaborations with a variety of people, things and processes. From working with NASA astronauts researching the sonic experience of human and animal space travel making BAFTA awarded Weightless Animals, kites and the weather on an uninhabited Scottish island, (Weather Made', AWCDr01), taut wires in the Australian outback, mobile phone communication to a gallery in New York, and more recently “Touching Concrete Lightly” for MIMEO at the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003, London designed by Oscar Niemeyer, now available as triple cd.
Future commissions include sonic bed for 'Her Noise' (opening South London Gallery,September 2005), and a site specific work for the Mexican Sound Oasis Exhibition, Mexico City, February 2005 at Paseo de la Reforma.
Background.
Playing classical violin from the age of 7, singing badly in one band but getting further with bass and drums in another which recorded and toured for 4 years, in 1985 she discovered electricity and sound and with that, her current trajectory.
Since then, acid house engineering, electrically reconstructing the violin, Distinction for a Masters in Music Technology, introducing and running a Performance Technology course at one of the leading Live Arts Colleges in the UK, and establishing the label Annette Works. She also set up a shop and did a Zoology degree along the way.
R.G.:
Kaffe Matthews “CD Ann” – archivio SAM n. 123/a
17 tracce, compl. 68’43”
Musica elettroacustica di taglio ambient/minimal, sperimentale ma abbastanza “ascoltabile”. Suoni e rumori concreti, sostanzialmente rari e rarefatti. Musica predominante: con tastiere, campionamenti vari, archi, percussioni. Non male, nel complesso: però molto lungo, piuttosto omogeneo (leggi monotono) e in definitiva un po’ “già sentito”.
1 – Advent harring part 1
2 – Advent harring part 2
3 – Advent harring part 3
4 – Advent harring part 4
5 – Advent harring part 5
6 – A hot bath
7 – To Manson 13 part 1
8 – To Manson 13 part 2
9 – To Manson 13 part 3
10 – To Manson 13 part 4
11 – To Manson 13 part 5
12 – To Manson 13 part 6
13 – To Manson 13 part 7
14 – To Manson 13 part 8
15 – To Manson 13 part 9
16 – To Manson 13 part 10
17 – Bus with Olive Smme
Copyright: Kaffe Matthews 1997
