live convertor kaffe matthews :: biography

 Kaffe Matthews

live convertor kaffe matthews : biography

with a further stride into more noisy rhythms and abstract cyber landscapes, kaffe's music continues to transport and defy rules and regulations around sound and performance. her electronics her instrument, she still starts each show with no sound grabs from what's there, making pieces crackling with digita and tones and static, fizzing into pounding beats and cut* to some hanging still space of beauty. clarity in her intent now so apparent, she seems to have sourced some kind of wizard abuse of repetition to transport all senses. the tabletop violin a rare addition, kaffe drives a wedge of life into that old laptop performic. check out her latest release, cd cecile and http://www.stalk.net/annetteworks for where you'll find her next..

a little background.

kaffe has been making and performing new music via all kinds of digital gadgetry all over the world for the past ten years. From a background in violin, shopkeeping, Zoology, drumming, acid house engineering and a masters in Music Technology, she is now most known for her live sampling performances of events and places in real time: processing in installation, on stage, in galleries, clubs, concert halls, tents, churches, the outback, warehouses, or ambient tea rooms. The music is vast, sculpted into textural landscapes, vibrating granular technohymns, noisy and beats via her on stage processing of sound from carefully placed microphones and an occasinal violin.

Recently she has collaborated and performed with Christian Fennesz, mimeo, Charles Hayward, Jon Rose, Pan-sonic, Butch Morris' conduction, Andy Moor(the EX), the BROOD, Neotropic(aka Riz Maslem), Hayley Newman, Kingsuk Biswas(Bedouin Ascent), artist Mandy McIntosh (see http://www.backspace.org/mobilehome), Bruce Gilchrist and Joe Joelson (SYZYGY, interactive kite flying collaboration, where she was using weather data collected via the kites to compose) and has just returned from wiredup desert experiments with Australian wire music merchant Alan Lamb. Watch out for uplinked performances from the bush in 2001.

Teaching-wise, she introduced and established the course Performance Technology, to Dartington College of Arts, Devon, UK ('91-'95) and is now tutoring some violin and live electronic techniques to students at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. Through '94 to '97 she worked as a director for Sonic Arts Network and the London Musicians Collective.

She regularly performs all over the world and has just released her third solo work cd cecile, made from performances in Oslo, London and Chicago, '98-'99, available from Annette Works or selected stores.

FOR MORE INFO AND UP TO DATE CALENDAR, PLEASE CHECK OUT http://www.stalk.net/annetteworks or contact us at ANNETTE WORKS. PO box 14077, London N16 5LE, UK. t/f: 00 44 (0)171 502 0814 mail: annetteworks@stalk.net

Some press comments

"kaffe matthews : one of England's finest live sampling performers." ARILDR.ANDERSEN. OSLO INDEPENDANT

"Over the past few years, she's released two striking CDs whose unusually warm sensibility lifted them out out of the pack of usual noisemakers ." ........Kenneth Goldsmith. New York Press.

"INTOXICATING RACKET TO DELICATE LYRICISM" .........Clive Bell, Resonance, UK.

"Moment by full moment, it's a thrill from beginning to end" ..........the WIRE, review of cd cecile, july'99

"Produces soundscapes of rigorous intent and shocking beauty".....................Pittsburgh Post Gazette, USA.

"Stockhausen crossed with the Boredoms", .... ....the Independant, UK

"Din from loudspeakers." ..........Clement Crisp. The Financial Times.

"A raw and densely layered exploration of sound, always clear, always intelligently constructed. .....like a painter or novelist. .... the physicality of playing is at the heart of Matthews' music." ..........Avant, UK

"You wander with the rest of the audience in the chill semidarkness as the music gets more odd and beautiful. Kaffe Matthews' soundcape is wonderful ." .......... Fiachra Gibbons .

The Guardian. "This woman rocks. Incredibly too it's all being made from two hidden microphones somewhere around here and that wired up violin: and, that laptop's memory was empty at the start. This is certainly worth checking out for something more than a night out". ..........D. FORBSTER, EVENING POST, NOTT'M.

Selected discography :

"a text of violin music" video Simon Biggs ('95),
the Soundworks Exchange 2 Shinkansen Goethe Institute ('96).
"Pink Noir" with David Toop.('96),
"cdAnn" AWcd0001 Annette Works ('97)
"how many planes are there in the sky at any one time?" Resonance. volume 6 no. 2. RES 6.2 CD
"cdBea" AWcd0002 Annette Works ('98)
"this many planes" SSS52. 7" vinyl. an Annette Works production.
"Rude Mechanic Piano 200" ('99) double cd ( a collaboration with pan-sonic)
"female of the species" compilation double CD. Law and Auder records. '99
"cd cecile" AWcd0003 Annette Works (May '99)

.dec. 1999

CV

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