Main image: John Donat/RIBA Collections
Time to move outside our comfort zone…
In a nod towards the artistic “happenings” and gatherings of the 1960s, the Library of Trinity College Dublin presents three nights of poets, music, sound effects, psychedelic projections and swirling quadraphonic sound in the Berkeley Library.
Curated by Richard Duckworth of the Department of Music, these events link the fifty years since the Moog synth was made commercially available with the opening of the Berkeley Library, and mark a radical departure from our usual events…
The nights have at their heart the classic Moog System 55 synthesiser – in Dublin as part of an upcoming Science Gallery exhibition – and we are very grateful to Paul Smith/Moog Sound Lab UK for its use. Each night will feature a “Synth Petting Zoo” to get up close and personal with the rig.
Monday 29, Tuesday 30, and Wednesday 31 May
Doors at 5:30, events begin at 6:00 and end at 8:00
North Training Room
Berkeley Library Basement
Trinity College Dublin
Entry is free but strictly by ticket only, please order using the links provided for each night required.
Monday’s performances
Poetry
Analog On DROID set
Synth Petting Zoo
Gerald Dawe
The Giftshop
PolyDROID
Tuesday’s performances
Poetry
Granny’s Tangerine Sedative
Analog On
Synth Petting Zoo
Kate Barry’s Choir
Udagan
Wednesday’s performances
Dorota & Jenny
Gerald Dawe
Synth Petting Zoo
Kate Barry’s Choir
Analog On + Udagan
Poetry
Artist Bios
Analog On are an experimental electronic music ensemble that composes and performs on vintage analogue electronics and modular synthesizers. The group consists of Shauna Caffrey on oscillator, saw and electronics, and Richard Duckworth from the School of Creative Arts at Trinity College Dublin on modular synthesizer and effects.
Analog On made their debut at the Ideopreneurial Entrephonics II festival at the Freemasons’ Hall in April 2016, and have just finished recording their first release on the iconic Moog System 55 in the cockpit of the Moog Sound Lab at the Tonmeister Studio in Surrey. The aesthetic is that of the time-warp cultist with retro and future aesthetics co-existing in the same cultural and temporal space.
Their album is a musical homecoming for Richard Duckworth as he studied analogue synthesis under Herb Deutsch at Hofstra University in the 1980s: this is where he was first introduced to the Moog modular system and he spent many hours in the electronic music studio experimenting with voltage-controlled systems. Shauna Louise Caffrey is a musicology major at Trinity College Dublin. Her life-long love of experimental soundtrack led her to join Analog On, and since then she has delighted in the creation of ‘weird noise’ and bizarre soundscapes through mixed media.
The Kate Barry Choir: Kate Barry is a Music graduate with a BA from Trinity College Dublin, having specialised in Music Technology. Throughout her time in Trinity she has performed with Boydell Singers, Collegium Musicum and the Campanile Consort, which she directed in her final year.
For her final year research project, she looked to combine her interests in choral work as well as music technology by focusing on the subject of Vocal Transformation.
Looking at the Microkorg Vocoder and the Roland Space Echo unit, Kate has written compositions that incorporate these instruments to manipulate vocals.
Gerald Dawe was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1952. He has published eight collections of poetry and four volumes of essays as well as editing various anthologies of poetry and literary criticism. He is Professor of English and Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin and founder-director of the Oscar Wilde Centre at Trinity College Dublin.
The Giftshop is an experimental synth-dread trio, consisting of classically-trained singer Hannah Crowley, and multi-instrumentalists Paul Miller and Sam Killian. Using instruments both out-dated and unique, they are known for their beautifully bizarre and bizarrely beautiful avant-grade music, and their penchant for performance art. Cultivating an aura of mystery and severity, undercut with layers of dark humour and sincerity, The Giftshop experience is comprised mainly of dread.
Granny’s Tangerine Sedative: Psych-folk fusion channels the innocence and optimism of the pre-Manson 60s heyday in an effects-laden paean to astral Moog-fueled poetic themes. Granny’s Tangerine Sedative’s favourite colour is, well, orange and the fact that all of the band members are two Zodiac positions apart leads to an above-average degree of karmic compatibility.
Dorota Konchevska and Jenny Hallahan met in the Dublin jazz scene and formed this experimental group. Konchevska is an active producer, vocalist and live electronics specialist – she has been living and creating in Ireland for the past 15 years. Jenny Hallahan has been playing bass for over 13 years, with experience in jazz, funk, and electronic music. She has a BA in jazz performance from Newpark Music Centre.
Their distinct and eccentric sound blends electronic soundscapes with beats, atmospheric melodies, jazz and traditional instrumentation.
Konchevska performs with a custom built patch which allows her to chop up beat loops and record live loops.
PolyDROID is a solo Irish electronic artist producing melodic, cinematic electronica, created using inorganic beats and vintage synth noises.
With influences ranging from early German electronica, John Carpenter soundtracks and Science Fiction Cinema, right through to the current new wave of 80s influenced Cold Wave and Synthpop, PolyDROID’s sound is an exploration of bleeps, blips, arpeggiations, blistering synth riffs and swelling synth pads.
Poldyroid released his debut album ‘Machines of Pure and Loving Grace’ on Cold Beats Records in 2015.
Udagan are Saydyy Kuo Fedorova and Oscar South.
Saydyy Kuo Fedorova is a specialist of the unique Sakha instrument ‘Khomus’ as well as a master of diverse Sakha vocal styles. She has brought these elements together and forged them into a precise vision, making an international impact through her performance which captures not just the essence of it’s origin, but also the imagination of it’s audience.
Oscar South is a contemporary music creator and performer whose vision for innovation has defined and driven his career. He combines instrumental virtuosity and digital performance in sound creation, with a finesse that mesmerises and leaves audiences transfixed in the gaze of his composition.
Sakha is a Northern nation inside the polar circle. The Sakha culture is closely related to other Northern cultures such as Sami, Inuit and Evenk. The techniques being performed tonight are Evenk traditions that have crossed over into Sakha culture.