Saturday 16th December 4pm-10:30pm
catHead – Heledd C Evans – Joshua Jones, Jim Gibson & Howl Hubbard – Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp – Yakkida! – Ivor Woods
catHead is a new electronic music project working across genres, most notably blending elements of ambient, electroacoustic, techno, downtempo, breakbeat and UK bass. catHead designs and builds their own experimental instruments from recycled materials and uses them alongside vocals, environmental recordings and a variety of hardware, traditional acoustic and electronic instruments. Producing ethereal soundscapes, pulsating bass rhythms and glistening textures punctuated by natural sounds and metallic drum hits, catHead’s music evokes a warm sense of nostalgia whilst also hinting towards an eerie dystopian future. The new project is set to launch in 2023 alongside a series of live performances. https://www.instagram.com/cathead.music/
catHead is the alias of Gwen Siôn, an award-winning composer, producer, pianist and multidisciplinary artist working with sound, sculpture, DIY electronics, moving image and installation. She creates multi-instrumental, vocal and electronic compositions, and makes her own hand-built instruments and sculptural sound devices by repurposing both natural and industrial materials.
Gwen is interested in exploring ways of interpreting landscape in musical terms and the relationship between sound and environment, ecology, mythology, ritual and synaesthetic crossover. She has worked on a broad range of music and sound projects, commissions, public installations, performances, exhibitions and residencies throughout the UK and internationally, having gained support from organisations such as Arts Council England, Arts Foundation, Sound and Music, British Music Collection, PRS Foundation, Sound UK, Ty Cerdd, Wales Millennium Centre, Jerwood Arts, Oxford Contemporary Music, Atelier11 Paris, Greywood Arts Ireland, StokkoyArt Norway, University of the Arts London, Netflix, Leland Music, Sustainability First, BBC and Liquid Listening. Gwen’s music won the 2021 LMVH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) X Central Saint Martins ‘Maison/0 This Earth Award’ (a prize championing sustainable arts practice and works that advocate for nature), was nominated and subsequently shortlisted for the 2021 ‘MullenLowe NOVA Awards’ and was also shortlisted for the 2021 ‘Sustainability First Art Prize’. Last year Netflix and Leland Music selected Gwen to take part in a composer mentee development programme supporting two emerging composers to gain an insight into composing for film and TV during the production of the latest Top Boy season, receiving advice and mentorship from the series original score composers Mikey J Asante and Brian Eno as well as the Leland Music team and Netflix UK music department. Gwen was also nominated for the 2023 Electronic Music Award as part of the Arts Foundation Futures Awards, she was subsequently shortlisted and made one of only four finalists across the UK for the category. Funding awarded by Sound and Music’s New Voices programme and the Arts Council England DYCP grant has supported the development of a new experimental electronic music alias – catHead, as a result Gwen is undertaking a tour of live performances to launch the project taking place between August and December 2023. https://www.gwension.com
Heledd C Evans
A sound artist based in Cardiff, a graduate of Fine Art from Cardiff School of Art and Design. She creates sonic interventions that seek to disrupt and enhance our surroundings. She also co-hosts a weekly arts radio show, Pitch Radio, on Radio Cardiff & is a member of SHIFT, Cardiff.
Evans creates soundscapes through a combination of field recordings, narration, drone tones and electronic elements, and her violin. She works mainly site specifically, preferring to create work that is particular to one location and both its contents and acoustics. https://linktr.ee/heleddcevans
Joshua Jones (he/him)
Queer, autistic writer and artist from Llanelli, south Wales. He co-founded Dyddiau Du, a NeuroQueer art and literature space in Cardiff. His fiction and poetry have been published by Poetry Wales, Gutter, and others. He is a Literature Wales Emerging Writer, 2023, and is currently working with the British Council to connect Welsh and Vietnamese queer writers. His debut short story collection, Local Fires, is published November 2023 by Parthian Books. https://linktr.ee/joshua.ermose
Jim Gibson
Author of The Bygones, a story collection published by Tangerine Press, that has gained praise from former Booker Prize winner DBC Pierre amongst many others. Alongside this, A Symbol of a Memory, a single story chapbook, was recently published by Nightjar Press and his story, ‘The Thinker’, was chosen for publication in The Best British Short Stories 2023, published by Salt. He also produces The Hidden Valley, a zine with all profits going to Rewilding Britain. Being a co-founder of Hand Job Zine and Hi Vis Press, he has always tried to push the lesser seen side of life through literature and art. https://linktr.ee/Jimbobiliscious
Howl Hubbard
A multidisciplinary artist from Cardiff, and co-founder of Lone Worlds, a collective of LGBTQ+ creatives building community and creative development. Working across ambient and experimental soundscapes, Howl will be accompanying Joshua and Jim’s readings with haunting, exploratory and semi-improvised sounds. https://grulax.bandcamp.com
Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp
Founded in 2006 by Vincent Bertholet (Hyperculte), the Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp is a large-scale project. Designed as a real orchestra, the size of the ensemble has varied over time. Now with 12 members, 14 in the past or 6 at the beginning, the ensemble has scoured the stages of Europe to demonstrate that the formula “the more the merrier” has never been more true than on stage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ5dBCYJ9Sk
Yakkida!
Beautiful, unique sound world shuffles on beloved ancient keyboards to create highly saturated pastels with a keen instinct for musicality through immediacy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vzRKftHSj0
Ivor Woods
A multi-instrumentalist queer artist hailing from South Wales. Bursting onto the recently thriving music scene in Cardiff, Wales, Ivor Woods has been busy gigging and wowing audiences all over the city. Noted as a promising and interesting artist worth watching, Ivor was chosen as one of 2023’s PRS funded Forte Projects, Artists further solidifying her status as one of the more promising acts coming out of the scene. https://linktr.ee/Ivorwoods
To buy tickets for this event please visit our events page: catHead tickets from Skiddle .