send + receive v26: Lucy Liyou, Medical Museum, Yes, Sydo

Our final con­cert of the fes­ti­val begins with a spe­cial cura­tion by artist AO Roberts, fea­tur­ing work by duo Med­ical Muse­um and inter­pre­ta­tion by Deaf per­former Gaitrie Per­saud. Fol­low­ing this pre­sen­ta­tion, we’ll hear sound poet­ry of crit­i­cal rage from Van­cou­ver duo Yes, Sydo; and the fes­ti­val will con­clude with an unmiss­able selec­tion of Lucy Liy­ou’s omniv­o­rous­ly avant-garde song­book. Med­ical Muse­um is a new project by long-term col­lab­o­ra­tors, Hang Lin­ton and Lau­ra Luli­ka, based in Leeds, UK, com­bin­ing the artists’ pas­sions for sto­ry­telling through words, sounds, videogames and objects. Their musi­cal influ­ences span gen­res from Dun­geon Synth, Jun­gle and Doom Met­al to more ambi­ent and spir­i­tu­al sound expe­ri­ences. Yes, Sydo explores how poet­ry and sound can meld into an alter­na­tive form using Homer’s epic Odyssey as its anchor, and stem­ming from over six years of sus­tain­ing a rela­tion­ship through tragedy and com­e­dy; mutu­al and dif­fer­ent expres­sions of grief and pain. Los Ange­les-based com­pos­er Lucy Liy­ou syn­the­sizes field record­ings, text-to-speech read­ings, poet­ry, and ele­ments from Kore­an folk opera into son­ic nar­ra­tives that explore the impli­ca­tions of Ori­en­tal­ism and West­ern­iza­tion. Arrest­ing bal­lads and con­tem­po­rary clas­si­cal pieces frag­ment into decay­ing shards, voic­es get warped beyond recog­ni­tion, and shim­mer­ing light makes way for bit-crushed noise.