focus: default #14 – 14.03.2024 with Taku Sugimoto, Luciano Maggiore, and Lukas De Clerck & Suzan Peeters
default den haag is happy to announce their upcoming program taking place on Thursday the 14th of March at the Grey Space in the Middle.
For default#14, we will host the restrained guitar minimalism by the influential Japanese instrumentalist and composer Taku Sugimoto, known for his refined improvisation and just intonation compositions, a ‘task-based’ unamplified performance by Palermo-born, London-based musician Luciano Maggiore with a focus on the performativity of the musical act, as well as a special duo performance with Belgian improvisers Lukas De Clerck & Suzan Peeters for Aulos (the ancient Greek double reed instrument) and extended accordion.
In this focus newsletter, we would like to share with you a selection of works made by the artists set to perform at default#14.
The event is taking place on 14.03 in The Grey Space in the Middle, Paviljoensgracht 20, The Hague. Doors open at 19:30, concerts start at 20:00. You can purchase your tickets before the event here and at the entrance of the venue on the day of the event. The ticket price* is €12.5 (student) / €15 (general).
*in case your current financial situation does not allow you to visit the event, but you are keen on coming, you can mail to defaultdenhaag@gmail.com and we can find a solution
Taku Sugimoto
Taku Sugimoto (1965, Tokyo) is a greatly influential Japanese guitarist, improviser, and composer, known mostly for his subtle improvisation style and just intonation compositions. Sugimoto gained attention in the 90s for his restrained, melodic guitar playing, unusual in the world of free improvisation. Initially coming from Tokyo’s underground as a guitarist in different bands, he became a ‘pure improviser’ within many different collaborative settings, associated with the emergence of ‘Onkyo improvisation’ and an influential figure for the developments within EAI. He has participated in organizing the notorious concert series ‘The Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama’ (documented on this release) as well as ‘Meeting at Off-Site’, contributing to a great extent to the free-improvisation scenes in Japan. During these years he would also perform in the US, EU & Japan together with such musicians as Otomo Yoshihide, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Sachiko M, Taku Unami, Kevin Drumm, Gunter Muller, Keith Rowe, Annette Krebs etc.
Taku Sugimoto & Kevin Drumm - Den
(Sonoris, 2000)
Akiyama / Nakamura / Sugimoto / Wastell- Foldings
(Confront Recordings, 2003)
In the early 2000s, his music became increasingly abstract – all but eliminating melody and featuring extended periods of silence – gradually stripping down his playing. Later, finding in his minimalist explorations kindred spirits in the Wandelweiser Group of composers and performers (collaborating with Antoine Beuger, Radu Malfatti, and Manfred Werder), Sugimoto’s interest shifted from only improvising, towards a focus on composition and its performance.
Consequently, his composition style also started to change, pointing towards various directions, gradually loosening up the radical ‘hyperminimalism’ he had become known for. In the last decade, he has been investigating directions such as: works with just intonation, compositions including non-musician performers, and music featuring human voices, working together with the actor, voicist and performer Minami Saeki for the past 6 years.
Manfred Werder / Taku Sugimoto
(Slub Music, 2019)
Taku Sugimoto x Minami Saeki - Songs
(Slub Music, 2017)
Sugimoto’s discography is extensive and diverse, entailing the many phases of his rich career. Having released works on labels such as his own imprint Slub Music as well as on Ftarri, Erstwhile, Zoomin’ Night, and Another Timbre, he currently releases self-published improvisations and compositions on Bandcamp next to his remarkable stream of YouTube uploads, documenting his performances in public spaces.
His latest release titled ‘Since 2016’ (Full Spectrum, January 2024), feels almost as if to be a celebration of his career. Captured at various sites across Tokyo between 2016 and 2022, this new body of work serves as an informal “best of” that compiles versions of some of Taku’s favorite compositions from this time.
Since 2016
(Full Spectrum Records, 2024)
Other recommendations from his vast discography include:
Opposite (hatNOIR, 1998), Otomo Yoshihide / Taku Sugimoto / Sachiko M – Les Hautes Solitudes 孤高 (Out One Disc, 2002), Rowe / Akiyama/ Ambarchi / Nakamura / Otomo / Stangl / Sugimoto - seven guitars (Erstwhile, 2003), Live in Australia (Improvised Music From Japan, 2005), Taku Sugimoto & Moe Kamura – さりとて [Saritote] (Saritote Disk, 2007), 13 14 for guitars (Slubmusic, 2009), Michael Pisaro / Taku Sugimoto – 2 Seconds / B Minor / Wave (Erstwhile, 2010), Quartet / Octet (slubmusic, 2014), quartet, humming quartet, trio (2018), Minami Saeki, Wakana Ikeda, Yoko Ikeda, Taku Sugimoto, Stefan Thut, Manfred Werder- Sextet (Meenna, 2018), Taku Sugimoto, Samuel Dunscombe, Michiko Ogawa - 2 Clarinets + Guitar (Suppedaneum - 2019), Snare Drum + (Zoomin' Night, 2021), falls (2023), and for 5 guitars (2023).
The show at default#14 marks his first European solo tour in more than half a decade.
Luciano Maggiore
Luciano Maggiore is a Palermo-born, London-based musician, whose work addresses the performativity of the musical act, the perception of it, and the obscurity that emanates from it. His main interests include mechanisms of sound diffusion, performance, repetition, endurance, non-human/animal languages, dance, and folklore. With the use of speakers, several analogue/digital devices (samplers, CD players, walkmans, tape recorders) as well as acoustic objects, Maggiore crafts work of dedicated simplicity and, at moments, absurdity, where the traces of the various sound media in use surface.
The same distinctive persistence also shows in his rich discography consisting of both solo audio works, as well as in different (duo) collaborations, including his recent release with Michael Speers on which they contemplate the kernel of black metal.
self-talk (edizioni luma, 2023)
Luciano Maggiore & Michael Speers - necesse est numquam revelare stercorem tuum (Krim Kram, 2023)
Maggiore’s long-standing collaborative duo project with Louie Rice, also titled ‘NO-PA/PA-ON’, engages in what can be described as 'unrewarding task-based actions’ or simply 'two people in a room, doing something’. By performing (and recording) score-based works of others and their own, they’ve created a space to embrace minimalism, prolonged action, choreography, auditory phasing, unorthodox stereo expansion as well as the lack of amplification, and the use of acoustic sound sources (humming, stepping, clapping, etc), challenging possible boundaries of electro-acoustic music.
Luciano Maggiore & Louie Rice - NO PA ON 1 (self-released, 2019)
Luciano Maggiore + Louie Rice - Whistle Posse (901 Editions, 2024)
Following his ongoing performance practice based on prompts and scenarios, Luciano Maggiore will bring a solo performance at default#14, taking place in the Gallery Space of The Grey Space in The Middle, for which he requested ‘just two identical armless chairs’.
A selection of other solo releases include: Locu (Dinzu Artefacts, 2019), pietra e oggetto (Kohlhaas, 2020), Very cheap non-human animal imitations (Xing, 2022), drenched thatched roof (edizioni luma, 2021), 9 enclosures (Senufo Editions, 2018), and Intersezioni Di Vortici, Studi Ritmici E False Chimere (Senufo Editions, 2012). Luciano was also featured on the "Music Made With Balloon And/Or Needle” compilation (Balloon & Needle, 2014).
Other collaborative works with Louie Rice include: Actions for phone playback (hissing, torches, humming) (AFTER ACTION, 2019), NO PA ON 2 (2019) + 3 (2021), Three Things (adhuman, 2023), Skirting (AFTER ACTION REVIEW, 2022), and Synthesised Voices and Low Frequencies to Eat Crisps With (Takuroku, 2020).
A profile on Luciano’s work, published in The Wire Magazine #471 (May 2023), can be found here.
Lukas De Clerck & Suzan Peeters
For the special occasion of default#14, Belgian sound artists Lukas De Clerk & Suzan Peeters will bring an acoustic duo improvisation for Aulos and extended accordion.
Lukas De Clerck
Lukas De Clerck is a musician and sound-artist, living in Brussels. His artistic practice is currently centered around the Aulos, an ancient Greco-Roman, double-reeded double pipe, that went extinct more than a millennium ago. The Telescopic Aulos – a contemporary version of the instrument which the artist recently crafted following the desire to strip the Aulos from its enigmatic past – enables him to narrow down his research on the sound qualities of the instrument in which micro-tonality, psycho-acoustics and sound texture are central elements. Several years of improvisation and reed-making has led Lukas to develop an auto-didact artistic output which has resulted in releases on labels such as KRAAK, umland editions / Q-O2 and Blickwinkel.
esquiver l'avalanche/sur un seul ski (umland editions / Q-O2, 2021)
MILLI MILLE (KRAAK, 2022)
In the margin of his research around the Aulos, Lukas likes to work with recognizable, almost everyday sound production like gargling, whistling and sneezing. By putting these sonic happenings in an artistic context, a tension arises between the extra- and the ordinary.
CERCHI CERCHI (Blickwinkel, 2023)
‘GarGling’ as part of the “This Too Shall Pass” exhibtion PILAR ASAP (2021)
De Clerck’s practice also entails installation-work. His sound scultupte ‘AirBag/14Holes’ consists of a large central air cushion with 14 bulging cones and constant air flow, activating the BlokfluitAsiel, a collection of abandoned, donated unused recorder flutes. umland editions / Q-O2 & Meakusma recently co-released “Het Blokfluitasiel”, where a connection is made between the machine, organ and recorders. The project was a collaboration between Lukas De Clerck, composer Angélica Castelló, music teachers Katelijne Lanneau and Matthias Verniers and their pupils.
Airbag/14Holes
Suzan Peeters
Suzan Peeters is a Belgian accordionist, composer and improviser based in Brussels. She extends the acoustic sound spectrum of her accordion by manipulating the bellows, preparing the instrument as well as using live electronics. The improvisations tend to traverse rattles, soft drones and tremolos that arise from the interplay of the accordion and external motors.
Besides making her own music, Suzan regularly collaborates with other musicians , including the free-improv duo NAAN that she has founded together with flutist Nathalie Van Meirvenne.