Ptarmigan operated in Tallinn from 2011-2014. We no longer maintain any presence in Tallinn, but this website will continue to serve as an archive of the activities produced at Ptarmigan during these years.
Aspec(t) featuring 70fps
Aspec(t) are SEC_ and Mario Gabola from Naples, Italy. They have released several records in CD and LP. SEC_ plays Revox tape recorder, computer and no-input feedback manipulated on tape. Mario plays saxophone and feedbacks through an electro-acoustic chain of resonant drums, microphones and little speakers. Their music shares the timbrical research and the execution control typical of some radical improv music, but meets the visceral intensity and the obscure poetic of the new aktionsm and of noise music as well as the research on analog devices and concrete sound materials of the sonic poetry. The result is a fascinating and inextricable forest of sounds: frenetic structures, noise explosions, ancestral cries, an unceasing perversion of the soundscape and the time stream. Feedback, self-regulating systems, mimicry, mutations, becoming-animal, asymmetrical dislocation are some of the keywords.
Tonight they collaborate with 70fps, aka Andra Saggiomo. In 70fps, Super8 films are prepared by scratching and patching, piercing and ink drawing to be used in a double projection at different speeds. The projection is then manipulated with glass prisms, lens and mirrors. The projectors and their internal mechanics are also used as sound producing objects in relation with voice and electroacoustic stuff.
John W. Fail & Hans-Gunter Lock featuring Ville MJ Hyvönen
John W. Fail is an American-born artist, musician and organiser who works in experimental sound and other collaborative forms. His most recent recording is Lost Lake, released last year in his duo Lied Music, collaborating with sound artists Vernon & Burns. He also released the solo album The 15,000 Day Boat Trip in 2010.
Hans-Gunter Lock is is a composer and a musicologist, and has been living in Estonia since 2000. His creative work consists mainly of electronic music, or combinations with acoustic instruments. Evermore, he specializes in the production of electronic sounds in real-time, creating live-performance environments, which are connected to acoustic instruments, or controlled by electronic performers. He is interested in collaborations with different multimedia and performance artists, and, in addition to his own creative output, tends to exceed the sphere of music performance traditions.
John and Hans-Gunter's electro-acousic improvisations will be accented by video improvisations from Ville MJ Hyvönen.