We are delighted to be part of John Doran’s (The Quietus) tour, presenting his new book Jolly Lad; to an ambient musical accompaniment from Arabrot. We also have the wonderful Sarah Angliss paying us a visit again and we are thrilled to welcome the poet Josephine Dickinson to Callow End.

Due to heightened demand, and our limited village hall capacity, we are pre-selling tickets for this event. Here is the ticket booking page.
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Our first If Wet this year in our home of Callow End Village Hall represents a bit of a departure from our usual events. Last year, John Doran of The Quietus got in touch to ask whether we would host an event as part of his tour to celebrate the launch of his book. We weren’t entirely sure how this fitted with If Wet but John and The Quietus have shown us a lot of support over the last couple of years, and we always relish an opportunity to play with the If Wet format; such as If Wet as radio show.

When we heard more about the tour and John’s book, it became clear what sort of artists we might invite to this event, to accompany the reading and performance John and Arabrot would deliver. We decided on a sonic storytelling thread, and Josephine Dickinson and Sarah Angliss seemed immediately appropriate.

As your hosts we will kick the event off, as usual. Then it will be over to Josephine to provide us with an insight into her work and background.

Josephine has something of a unique story. She has known normal hearing, sudden profound deafness, sudden total deafness, extreme aural hallucinations and, most recently, the experience of sound with a cochlear implant. A poet, composer and artist, she studied with Michael Finnissy and Richard Barrett in London, then moved to remote Cumbria, where she lives on a tiny hill farm. Josephine will share her story and explore its implications and possibilities for her practice. She will be open to the insights and ideas of the audience. “It is an ongoing and exciting journey that has only just begun.”

Next up, we have Sarah Angliss in our hall for the second time, to provide some of her captivating folk tales and music provided by her and her robotic friends.

Sarah is an award winning composer, roboticist and historian of sound whose music reflects her fascination with European folklore and long-forgotten machines. Sarah is known for her singularly embodied performance which mixes theremin, saw and ancient instruments with live electronics, with the ensemble of musical automata she’s designed and built to work with her on stage.

Her If Wet presentation will feature new songs from Ealing Feeder, her forthcoming solo album, inspired by London folklore.

Lastly, we will have John Doran, performing a reading from his book Jolly Lad; accompanied by Arabrot.

Jolly Lad is a memoir about the recovery from alcoholism, habitual drug use and mental illness. It is also about the healing power of music, how memory defines us, the redemption offered by fatherhood and what it means to be working class.

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This will definitely be distinct from our usual If Wet events. There will be more emphasis on performances and less on discussion but we certainly hope to maintain the If Wet flavour in various ways. Firstly, either side of the performances we hope to encourage questions from our audience; the usual generous and open exchanges. Secondly, our village hall setting – coupled with village ale, home-made grub and cake – will provide the usual atmosphere.

As this is a one-off special event, we have decided to pre-sell tickets at the princely sum of £6 each. These may sell fast, who knows, but please consider buying your tickets now so you are not disappointed. Here is the tickets page. JOIN US.

Please note: this event may overrun if discussions take flight.

We are delighted to be part of Maker Faire this year, where we will host an If Wet strand on one of the stages. We have invited Graham Dunning to present his work on the Saturday and Paul Granjon will be showing his on the Sunday; each giving performances later in the day.

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For our first If Wet event of 2015 we will be heading to Newcastle for Maker Faire.

As your hosts we will kick the event off, as usual. We will set the tone each day and present our latest piece of work. It will soon be over to our invited artists though to discuss their work and working methods.

On the Saturday, we have Graham Dunning presenting his ingenious Mechanical Techno system, which he uses to create wonky techno, through a series of stacked platters, tonearms and contact mic drum / synth triggers. In his words:

“Mechanical Techno: Ghost in the Machine music – vinyl dissonance for lost memories. A live dubbed rhythmical collage made of squeezed record crackle, analogue synthesizer, dubplates of field recordings, dusty shellac records and clumsily triggered drum machines.”

During our first session of the day Graham will discuss this system and his approach. Later in the day you will get chance to come back to the stage to hear him perform a Mechanical Techno set.

On the Sunday, Paul Granjon will present his work as an electronic artist interested in the co-evolution of humans and machines, a subject he explores with hand-made robots and other machines.

Paul has exhibited his machines worldwide, for example representing Wales at the Venice Biennale 2005 with a couple of Sexed Robots. More recently he’s been turning art galleries into factories where people are invited to dismantle obsolete consumer electronic items and turn them into interesting stuff, or just have fun taking them apart. Paul is currently working on Coy-B, an intelligent biting machine and on Guido, a robot guide for an art and technology exhibition.

We are delighted to invite Paul and Graham to present their work at Maker Faire and that we will all get to see them perform too! We look forward to seeing you in Newcastle.
JOIN US.

We are delighted to have Rosanne Robertson presenting her work.

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As our final If Wet of the season – and the last before we hand things over to the Kickstarter Gods – we plan to run things a little differently from normal; and have a bit of a celebration. There will be no presentation of work from us, we’ll start with a presentation from our guest artist Rosanne Robertson.

Rosanne is an artist based in the North of England working with vibrations, objects and the body.

Since graduating from Fine Art at Manchester School of Art in 2009 Robertson has exhibited and performed at places such as The Bluecoat Gallery (Liverpool), Silent Barn (New York) and Roodkapje (Rotterdam). Recent projects include sound art commissions for Museum of Science and Industry and John Rylands Library at Asia Triennial Manchester 14 for sound art series Call and Response by Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art and also a mini residency and state side edition of Noise Above Noise for Exchange Rates Bushwick in Brooklyn. And now she is coming to our village hall in Callow End!

It’s always nice to welcome artists to If Wet that also run artist-led spaces / events and The Penthouse in Manchester and her event NOISE ABOVE NOISE are just that.

For If Wet she will deliver a performative presentation created for the occasion, entitled Objectum Sexuality – usually a term used to describe people who develop emotional connections and loving relationships with inanimate objects – Robertson will borrow the term to demonstrate her methods, recent collections, sound makers, arrangements and her connections to them. The presentation will be semi improvised in-keeping with her live practice and will involve various art works, texts, visuals, pre recorded and live sound to create an overall live impression of her work.

This is what Dazed and Confused said about Rosanne: “For me Rosanne’s very much a ‘doodlebug’, that is to say, a provocateur who tirelessly works across all platforms, creating work by any medium necessary and who works beneath the skin”

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Following on from Rosanne’s presentation we will have a bit of a review and celebration of our second season. This will be relatively low-key; a chance to relax with you all before we head to the local pub afterwards to continue celebrations. We won’t get to the pub until after they stop serving food but they offer a 10% discount to anyone attending If Wet if you want to eat beforehand…BUT – as ever – there will be plenty of lovely food at If Wet itself; so we can get properly fed before we get watered.

Lastly, as usual we’d welcome short, informal presentations in our Run What Ya Brung section. Just bring any sonic oddity along and you can present it to the audience for their wonderment. We hope we might coax a couple of regular contributors to bring something along, to present at our final event before we roll the Kickstarter dice.

Oh and this is all accompanied by the usual local ale, home-made grub and cake. JOIN US.

We are delighted to have two artists presenting their work: Pete Ashton and Ben Gwilliam.

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We will kick things off, demonstrating our latest work as MortonUnderwood. We will be bringing along the units we will have exhibited at the Longbridge Light Festival only the day before.

Then, it’s over to artist and If Wet regular Pete Ashton. Pete describes himself as more a photographer than a musician, but he is interested in whether the two disciplines are that different. In his own words, this is what he has planned for us at If Wet:

Since attending the first If Wet I’ve been thinking a lot about transduction – moving a signal from one medium to another. I’ve also been investigating slit-scan processing and whether the act of photography can be a performance. Using a digital variation on the classic Russian ANS synth (used by Tarkovsky amongst others) I will be presenting the first iteration of what I hope to be a long-term project and invite comments, criticism and collaboration.

We look forward to seeing and hearing the results!

Then we have Ben Gwilliam, an artist whose work spans sound, film, installation & performance.

Ben will be presenting elements of two new pieces from a body of research into how the materiality and experience of sound media reframe/transduce time and/or space. He will be bringing the bare bones for a new installation (albeit scaled down for this occasion) & will preview a new video work that will be released on his new imprint molt in 2015.

Ben’s practice is something of an in-between, binding together concepts and material experiences that are explored through sound media. Considering ‘sound media’ in the plural sense, the perception of sound itself is both physical and one that exists through recorded media. Through Installations, films & videos, performances and publishing he explores sound at the interaction of looking & listening, analogue & digital and music.

As ever, we also welcome short, informal presentations in our Run What Ya Brung section. Just bring any sonic oddity along and you can present it to the audience for their wonderment.

All accompanied by the usual local ale, home-made grub and cake. JOIN US.

We are delighted to have the wonderful Sarah Nicolls presenting. She will be taking us Inside the Inside-Out Piano.

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We will kick things off, demonstrating our latest work as MortonUnderwood. This is likely to be an update on our work for the Futuro House project.

Then it’s over to Sarah Nicolls to present her work.

Sarah is a pianist who constantly innovates performance. She has worked a lot with interactive electronics and recently began to interrogate the piano itself. Sarah designed and built the first Inside-Out Piano in 2008 (at Wolstenholme Studios in Liverpool) to explore the idea of accessing the inside of the instrument as easily as the piano keyboard. She will talk about how this gave her a whole new interface to play with and made lovely sounds. Sarah had her second Inside-Out Piano built this year and is now preparing a solo theatre show, engaging with the more surprising aspects of the instrument, as well as the ease with which it allows ‘inside’ piano playing. The piano is turning out to be quite metaphorical!

Please note: Sarah won’t be bringing the Inside-Out Piano itself. Anyone who has been to If Wet before knows that we have a No PowerPoint rule, which is at least intended to set the tone for how we like to see stuff presented…but the Inside-Out Piano is too big for our budget. Sorry! BUT Sarah has promised she will try to bring it up to the hall next year as part of a tour she has planned.

As ever, we welcome short, informal presentations in our Run What Ya Brung section. Just bring any sonic oddity along and you can present it to the audience for their wonderment.

All accompanied by the usual local ale, home-made grub and cake. JOIN US.

Unusually, this is not in our home of Callow End Village Hall, as If Wet #17 will be part of Worcester Music Festival. Also, they have created the preview, so we don’t have to. Here it is! Although we have popped a few photographs below to whet your appetite.

Speaking of appetites, we will have less grub than we normally do in our hall – away kitchen and all that – but still cakes and refreshments. JOIN US.

[Please note: As part of Worcester Music Festival this event is free and has limited spaces only. Book yours here.]

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After his wonderful presentation at Bardsea Malt Kiln (as part of our recent tour) we are a delighted to have Lee Patterson back for a second time…but in our village hall!

[Please note: from now on all tickets will be sold on the day; Pay as you enter.]

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We will kick things off, demonstrating our latest work as MortonUnderwood, and we might even show a little personal project or two off…

Then it’s over to Lee Patterson to present his work.

Lee will explore the sonic potential of his unique instrumentation. From effervescent salts to amplified springs and dry rock chalk to burning nuts, he will open up and play the usually inaudible, microscopic sounds emitted by otherwise mute devices and objects. Having witnessed Lee’s presentation and wonderful sonic delights at If Wet at Bardsea Malt Kiln recently, we can assure you that you are in for an aural treat of the highest order…

All accompanied by the usual local ale, home-made grub and cake. JOIN US.

The fourth and last event in the tour is at our home venue of Callow End Village Hall, Worcestershire, 29th June, 2-4pm – TICKETS. JOIN US.

It seems fitting that we will kick off our second season of If Wet in our hall with a piece we demonstrated at the first ever If Wet. We will be demonstrating the latest work on our Giant Feedback Organ. Originally shown at If Wet #1 and then commissioned by the Southbank Centre, we have continued to develop the sounds this beast can produce and we will share these with you…

We then give the rest of the afternoon over to the wonderful Paddy Steer. Paddy will talk about his work and perform a few pieces to demonstrate. We could write more about Paddy but sometimes a picture and a video can sum stuff up better than we can with words:

OK, so maybe we do need to include this review of his album The Fortified Herd on his Bandcamp page, “Wonderfully bizzaro funky stuff from Sun Ra’s switchboard operator”.

As ever, this will be accompanied by the local ale, home-made grub and cake. JOIN US.

The penultimate event in the tour is at Bardsea Malt Kiln, Cumbria, 28th June, 2-4pm – TICKETS JOIN US.

We will kick things off, demonstrating the latest work on our Giant Feedback Organ. Originally commissioned by the Southbank Centre, we have continued to develop the sounds this beast can produce and we will share these with you…

Next up we have Phil Powell and Shaun Blezard talking about their duo Hugs Bison, which they describe as the collaboration of a musician with an interest in technology, and a technologist with an interest in music.

They’ll demonstrate the devices, apps and techniques they use, and how they’ve evolved over time as the technology has matured. They’ll talk about the setup they are using to take their gigs “off grid” and ways to collaborate remotely with other artists.

For the second presentation in Cumbria we are delighted to have Lee Patterson presenting his work.

Lee will explore the sonic potential of his unique instrumentation. From effervescent salts to amplified springs and dry rock chalk to burning nuts, he will open up and play the usually inaudible, microscopic sounds emitted by otherwise mute devices and objects. Sam was lucky enough to witness the outcomes at Monomania Festival earlier this year. You are in for an aural treat.

All being well, this will be accompanied by the usual local ale, grub and cake. JOIN US.

The second event in the tour is at Fitzhead Tythe Barn, Somerset, 22nd June, 2-4pm – TICKETS. JOIN US.

We will kick things off as usual, demonstrating the latest work on our Giant Feedback Organ. Originally commissioned by the Southbank Centre, we have continued to develop the sounds this beast can produce and we will share these with you…

The second presentation is from a wonderful maker we met at the Southbank Centre, as part of the aforementioned commission. Jules Bushell will talk about his work on this project, known as Bushell’s Amazing Drain-O-Phone – a pedal-powered drainpipe organ – and a selection of other pieces he has worked on.

For the second presentation in Somerset we are delighted to have Hacker Farm presenting their work. They have a message for you regarding their intentions.

A few words from HACKER FARM: “When we were asked to appear at If Wet… the first thing we did was hack their web-page. But we hacked them in the nicest possible way – we temporary borrowed the HTML tags that ‘describe’ the web-page advertising the event we were asked to appear at: Fitzhead Tythe Barn, Somerset, on Sunday 22nd, June. The processing is known as ‘scraping’ because it literally scrapes information off a web-page. We took this borrowed data and ran it through an algorithmic script that creates MIDI information. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface – it’s a protocol for controlling synthesizers and samplers that was used a lot in the 80s and 90s. Many of your favourite classic pop records from that era were played using MIDI information. So, basically, we turned the If Wet… web-page into a tune…

“We’ll be playing that tune using a… ah, well, you’ll just have to wait and see. We will also be bringing along and demonstrating a variety of hand-built / salvaged musical-instruments, incl. the NANDIcams (chip-based synthesisers housed in Kodak Brownie cameras), a synth made from an old paraffin can along with a rusty-broken bucket – now re-envisioned as the Atari-Punk-Bucket. All of this, as well as broken/bent kids-toys and contact-mic’d plastic-instruments – will be played through our purpose-built ‘Farmyard Sound System’…

Well, there you have it. Somerset, eh? All being well, this will be accompanied by the usual local ale, grub and cake. JOIN US.