Cuckoo Towne: Angelo Seo and Jamie Stewart (of Xiu Xiu) at The Isabel and Hotel Wolfe Island

Name: Tourism Kingston
Price range: $

FREE ARTIST VISIT Curated by Andrei Pora and Fan Wu With the generous support of the Chancellor Dunning Trust Visitorship Lecture: A History of Experimental Music Isabel Bader Centre for Performing Arts Film Screening Room (Room 222) 1-3pm. March 22, 2024 Drawing from their own practice, Seo and Stewart chart a history of experimental music in dialog with their inspirations, influences, and collaborators. Workshop: Deep Listening and Improvisation Isabel Bader Centre for Performing Arts Sound Studio (Room 313) 1-4pm, March 23, 2024 RSVP: 21aip1@queensu.ca Seo and Stewart guide students through a participatory workshop where students are invited to compose and perform in a group setting using found instruments and improvisation techniques. The workshop will be followed by a guided walk along the shore of Lake Ontario to practice deep listening. Special Experimental Set Hotel Wolfe Island 7:30pm, March 24, 2024 Shuttle Provided RSVP: 21aip1@queensu.ca A semi-improvised acoustic and electronic performance distills the affects and experiences culminated over the course of the visit. This is not a traditional Xiu Xiu set, but a special performance composed and performed just for this artist visit. A shuttle bus is provided on the island side by the organizers of this event. It will leave from the island’s ferry dock to the hotel at 7:30pm (catch the 7pm boat from Kingston to make it on this shuttle) and head back to the ferry from the hotel for those hoping to catch the 10:30pm boat back to Kingston. — Hyunhye (Angela) Seo is an artist exploring experimental composition and expression of sound and its manifestations within space and body. She is a member of the musical group Xiu Xiu, in which she extends the band’s visual themes to global diaspora, post-colonial spirituality and ritualism, and complex exotification/fetishization via videos that have been featured in film festivals around the world. Recently, her solo album, Strands, explores abstract soundscapes built with processed percussion, improvisational piano, and dark ambient material. Her sound installations in relation to this work create an immersive territory that compels the listener to question how they carry the immediate and lingering impact of sound. — Jamie Stewart is from Los Angeles, California. In 2002 they began the musical group Xiu Xiu and started to waste their life. Xiu Xiu tries to make music for people opposed to and opposed by the horror and disquiet of life. They have been called “self flagellating,” “harsh,” “brutal,” “shocking,” and “perverse;” but also “genius,” “brilliant,” “unique,” “imaginative,” and “luminous.” Xiu Xiu draws upon musical traditions of British post punk, 20th century classical, industrial noise, experimental and traditional percussion musics, 50s rock and roll, field recordings, queer dance pop and kosmische musik. Xiu Xiu has toured relentlessly all over the world. They have shared stages with Sun Ra Arkestra, Ben Frost, Zola Jesus, Deerhoof, Prurient, Liars, Swans, Matmos, Faust, Grouper, Genesis P Orridge, Angelo Badalamenti and thousands, perhaps billions, of other unstoppable musical fairies, dignitaries and saints. For the past decade they have been more productive than ever. Xiu Xiu released 6 studio albums of original music, collaborated with Mitski, Merzbow, Eugene Robinson, Mantra Percussion, and Lawrence English and recorded reinterpretations of the music of Nina Simone (NINA), American religious songs (Unclouded Sky), Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and the music of Twin Peaks (Plays The Music of Twin Peaks). They have created museum installations for the Berlin and Venice biennales, LACMA, the Getty Museum and Laguna Art Museum. Jamie Stewart's debut novel, Anything that Moves, was published in 2023. Their download site, xiuxiu69, dedicated to rare and obscure releases of the band, donates 100% of its proceeds to various progressive activist groups. Girl with Basket of Fruit, the band's 11th studio album, came out in 2019 and featured collaboration with Haitian master drummer Daniel Brevil.