Ethan

On December 21st, to mark the Winter Solstice, Jess Kempe, Liv Kisby and I will host a listening walk along the Thames, from dawn in Rotherhithe, to dusk in Brentford. The walk will be guided by listening exercises, prompts, both visual and text-based, and equipment, such as microphones and hydrophones. This is a chance to listen with people, both human and more-than, without talking. When we end the walk in Brentford, we will eat together, and discuss the experience. Poster by Jess Kempe. Booking essential, link in bio 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️

Today at HQI, we celebrate the life and legacy of composer Bill Dixon on his centenary. We will begin with an open rehearsal led by Sam Eastmond with the Index Orchestra. Eastmond will be teaching 'Index', a composition which Dixon considered one of his most significant, and yet was never performed or played properly. A panel discussion will follow, moderated by myself (Ethan Cohen) featuring Sam Eastmond, Orphy Robinson, Evan Parker, and Kevin Le Gendre. A quartet, led by Eastmond, will then play a selection of Dixon's scores, including Alex Bonney, Will Glaser, and Fergus Quill, and featuring Orphy Robinson and Evan Parker as soloists. Finally, the Index Orchestra will perform Index, the first time it has been played live in the UK. The day will be live streamed on Twitch and you can tune in free of charge, link in bio. Special thank you to Stephen Haynes of the Bill Dixon Living Trust, without whom none of this would be possible. Poster designed by Karina Sletten. October 5th, 15:00 HQI, 195 Wood Lane, W12 7FQ @_h_q_i_ @sammyeastmond @soundenvelope @orphyvibes @fergusquill @albonney @will_glaser_drums @slettenkarina

False Locust Presents: Solo sets from Elvin Brandhi, Khabat Abas, and Ryoko Akama, closing with a trio. October 9th, 7pm 96 Robert Street, NW1 3QP Elvin Brandhi @elvinbrandhi Elvin brandhi is an improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist from Bridgend, Wales making auto-tune blast beats from field recordings, tapes, instruments and voice. Live shows are unyielding bursts of erupting animation where her caustic stream of consciousness cavorts with restless, glitched out heaviness. Khabat Abas @khabatabas Khabat Abas is a cellist, composer, and interdisciplinary artist from Kurdistan-Iraq. Her work explores time, space, and memory through music, everyday sounds, and noises. She delves deeply into how we experience sound, particularly in various geopolitical contexts. Abas uses her instrument beyond traditional norms—improvising, composing, creating videos and sound installations, crafting cellos from diverse materials, and incorporating her body into performances. Through this approach, her work merges politics with personal expression, challenging conventional values and control. Ryoko Akama @ryokoakama A Japanese-Korean working with installation, performance and composition, residing in Huddersfield, UK. Her works apply domestic appliances and look-like-wastes into kinetic sounding contraptions with gadget electronics and invisible energy such as heat, magnetism and gravity. Her works are site-specific and consider both aural / visual values as one entity, creating ephemeral situations that magnify undefinable relationships between noise and silence, time and space.  Ticket link in bio / NOTAFLOF Poster by @cobesito_

Speech Muse Fest is this Saturday, August 30th, at HQI in White City @speech.muse @_h_q_i_ Posters in slides 1-3 designed by Karina Sletten @slettenkarina , handwriting by Reuben Cohen, based on photography of Claudia Gudín @1313.es Slides 4-5 from a review of Speech Muse in May by Jo Hutton in The Wire, Issue 498, August 2025. Video in slide 6 made by Claudia Gudín @1313.es

Excited to share Does Sifting Through Damage Ease, a sound collage with an accompanying booklet, at the UAL Sound Arts MA grad show this week at Dilston Gallery in Southwark Park. The show opens at 14:00 on Thursday December 5th. It runs until Sunday the 8th and is open every day 11:00 - 16:00. Does Sifting Through Damage Ease is a deliberately unfinished sound collage that listens to and thinks about pavements damaged by trees, a phenomenon which could just as easily be called, trees-that-have-damaged-the-pavement. The tree or the pavement: who hosts whom? This piece is composed of shouts, rambling conversations, and a poem. Tzara: thought is made in the mouth. Words combine with field recordings, specifically, those which sound nascent emergence, in other words: heaving, as in, heavy, which is to say, the weight of feet on the cracked pavement, and at the same time, the awkwardness of your gait as you navigate the scarred charred molten-crushed-rock-tar-shit-scape. When is pavement heave? Where is pavement heave? Auscultating the resonant hollows in the Robinia Pseudoacacia tree at the end of my road. Pseudo, like false like fault: fault lines. From Wikipedia: 'heart rot is a fungal disease that causes the decay of wood at the centre of the trunk and branches. Fungi enter the tree through wounds in the bark and decay the heartwood. The diseased heartwood softens, making trees structurally weaker and prone to breakage.' The project’s title is borrowed from Denise Riley’s poem 'And Another Thing'.  📸 Photography by Claudia Gudín @1313.es 🔊Audio mixed by Sahishnu Tongaonkar @sahishnutongaonkar Link in bioooo

Listening walk this Sunday! Thanks to @lost.in.taxi for the poster and @chaospeach for the photos from May's walk Link in bio 🚶‍♂️👂🏻🚶‍♀️