Performance Spaces & Live Reviews
Booking Information
Performance Spaces & Live Reviews
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Any enquiries - please contact me here or email Janek at audiOh dot com
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Performance Description:
"Using his custom built 'Twin' turntable to manipulate especially cut vinyl, Janek's improvised concerts are an evocatively woven soundscape combining abstract electro-acoustic source material with long forgotten vinyl alterations. An evolving dense stream of close focus sound textures, pulses and frequencies which conjure images of an architectonic landscape, traversing though Ballard's 'Drowned World'."
If you are interested in making a booking for me then I'd be delighted in discussing any opportunities that you may have.
I'm available for concerts, sound installations and moving image soundtracks or any other ideas you have of course.
Lots of nice Press Quotes: Click Here
A selection of interesting Press Pictures: Click Here
My highlights CV and Biography: Click Here
What may also be interesting is a BBC Radio interview I did at Sonar.
I explain what I do in concert etc.
You may find it very useful to listen
to a recent concert I gave in Holland in 2003.
It's a 19min Real Audio stream taken from an event with Philip Jeck at the )Toon)4
festval.
listen
to 20 min solo concert online stream
[with
Real Audio]
Belgrade [Serbia] :
Straslund [Germany]: Poitiers [France]:
Nantes [France]:
Discorder Magazine, Canada
[Mutek 2002]
"But certainly the most amazing performance of the festival is from the UK’s spectacular Janek Schaefer, whose turntable improvisation, set in the middle of the room, blows minds and ears with directional panning and a linear and LIVE scape of clicks, drones, loops, and layered samples, all mixed live from his own innovative record pressings and his dual tone-arm, homebuilt turntable with built-in contact mics. Interwoven with a subtle and evocative video which corresponds with the lights dropping on Schaefer and leaving us all in darkness, this man has messed with my goddamn mind. "Art," I mutter, to no one in particular". Text: TJ Norris ...extract
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. England
+
Festival in a deserted Mine in a forest in the middle of nowhere in Sweden!
Michael Christiansen [Festival Art Director]
"It was great to see how the crowd gathered around
you like a real bonfire - so you actually became a storyteller.
This way of moving the artist into the actual middle of the crowd is very unique,
and it gave me some great ideas for next years festival".
Text: Guillaume Grenier - Photo: Tobias Van Veen
So there I was, almost ready to quit the place sorely disappointed/deeply frustrated/in
horrible pain from my rapport with the Ex-Centris floor. "One more to endure
and off I go", I was thinking. People were gradually turning themselves
towards the center of the room, where throned Janek's 2-arm turntable. I sat
right beside it. Eventually, Janek made his appearance, slowly walking to his
work place, telling the crowd "I'm coming... Just grabbing my beer...".
"Great, I thought. Just what I need. Another nonchalant fellow." Turns
out (at least I think so) he never even glanced at the beer during the set.
The atmosphere, more "communitarian" as a result of the convergence
of attention towards the center of the room, was also light with laughter in
reaction to Janek's words. The attention of the crowd seemed very focused, probably
because of the unusual gear/setup and the fact that the guy was closing the
show.
Words fail me to express what I felt during this set. What can I say? MAJOR
FUCKING TALENT ALERT!!! This guy is a genuine visionary,
a true artist. It had it all. The music
was incredibly detailed, extraordinary rich. Just with his 2-needle turntable
and his knobs, he created multiple layers of sonic beauty. The layers were clearly
defined and worked magically well against each other. There was momentum, variety,
a *very natural flow*. I tell you it had it all. Changing atmospheres, ranging
from ominous tones to an airy breeze. The music was performed with a surgical
precision (I kid you not!) with total concentration from the artist. He had
written down a score that looked very precise and he glanced quickly at it from
time to time to refresh his memory [not so though, it was an improvisation].
He definitely knew where he was headed! It was a truly fantastic journey. I
was suspended to his every moves and to the most minute changes in the music.
Maybe I'm projecting my own experience here onto the crowd, but the quality
of listening seemed especially good. Once in a while, he placed something new
on his turntable (strange-looking discs, I don't know what they were exactly)
and positioned carefully his needles. The rest of the time, he was manipulating
his knobs in an expert fashion. Every tiny move seemed to be a life-or-death
operation, and that's where music becomes true art. Sometimes, the sounds had
certain similarities with the musique concrete tradition. At other times, it
used much purer electronic tones. The music carried a lot of energy, tension.
It also had a lot of character, being very much itself.
Totally mind-blowing, my-head-exploding music-making.
The crowd appreciated it a lot too, it seemed. As for me, I thought it was so
good as to be a bit ridiculous considering the other stuff happening at the
show before. IMO [but I already said that earlier... :)], he so totally dwarfed
the other participants of the evening, it's not even funny... I even felt uncomfortable
for them...
I tried to clap very energetically, even though I'm not very demonstrative by
nature... I feel really stupid/pathetic for not having congratulated/thanked
the artist. Everybody seemed to just hang there after the performance, with
nobody talking directly to Janek and I didn't break the ice. In a way, this
ridiculously long and delayed message is a sort of penitence for that. So, there
you go, thank you again Janek for the fantastic music. I bought the CD of his
that they were offering, "Pulled Under", on the "audi0h"
label. I haven't listened to it yet (can't wait to do it!) so I have no idea
if it sounds like the set he did [it does]. If it does, I'll be a very happy
man.
"Dozens of heart-shaped balloons stick to the wall on the 3rd floor gallery; one has the word 'Love' scrawled across it in cursive handwriting. During the last hours of UK experimentalist Janek Schaefer's haunting performance, the balloon has shrivled down to a tiny wrinkled mass. It's 2:00am, and beneath a rosy glow cast by the crimson globes overhead, Schaefer twiddles knobs until a low, mournful drone rises from his kit, warpng Jennifer Rush's 'Power of Love' so that the chanteuse moans like a demonic drag queen. 'I am your lady, and you are my man' she sighs, as if to clarify any gender confusion. In the centre of the room, two women slow-dance to the bizarre ballad, their exaggerated waltz looking like something from a David Lynch film. A handful of voyeurs watch transfixed. Three hours later, just before sunrise, Schaefer is as energetic as ever and wide awake expertly perverting his favourite love songs!"
45min concert recorded by VPRO Radio at the Interzone festival in Utrecht, October 2005
This is also an amazing archive of concert recordings by lots of people. Worth a browse.