Nocturnal Emissions is a sound art project that has released numerous records and CDs in music styles ranging from electro-acoustic, musique concrete, hybridised beats, sound collage, post-industrial music, ambient and noise music. The sound art has been part of an ongoing multimedia campaign of guerrilla sign ontology utilising video art, film, hypertext and other documents. The project was initiated in London in or around 1980 by Nigel Ayers (b. 1957) together with collaborators Danny Ayers(b.1964) and Caroline K (b.1957- d.2008).
From early in their work, the group concentrated on the axiom of music being a form of social control, and highlighted concepts such as information overload, cult conditioning, brainwashing and subliminal advertising, in a critique of information society. Their music drew heavily on worldwide folk traditions as well as that of the European avant-garde. One of their earliest performances was in a railway arch in Atlantic Road, Brixton, while the 1981 Brixton riots raged outside.
Since 1984 Nocturnal Emissions has continued mainly as Nigel Ayers' solo project. Line-up has varied from one to a dozen musicians. Nocturnal Emissions temporary members have included net artist Stanza, Ben Ponton of Zoviet France and (somewhat bizarrely) life coach Fiona Harrold.
Nocturnal Emissions ran their own record label, Sterile Records and later worked closely with the editors of the art music label Touch, later with both the Netherlands- based Staalplaat and USA- based Soleilmoon recording labels. All three labels came to the fore as part of 1980s cassette culture. In 1990-92 Nocturnal Emissions collaborated on Butoh dance performances in Europe & the USA, with the Japanese choreographer Poppo Shiraishi. Around this time Nocturnal Emissions' Situationist-influenced practice became increasingly informed by magick, stone circles, techno-shamanism, neo-paganism, animism and Fortean research. There were many collaborations on animated films by Mancunian TV director Charlotte Bill. Bill was never an official member of Nocturnal Emissions, but admits to being one of the legion of members of The Fall (band).
Nocturnal Emissions were later to be associated with the Kernow section of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts and to feature in a best-selling story by the novelist Stewart Home.
Anna Domino
Laurie Anderson is one of today’s premier performance artists. Known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist.
O Superman launched Anderson’s recording career in 1980, rising to number two on the British pop charts and subsequently appearing on Big Science, the first of her seven albums on the Warner Brothers label. Other record releases include Mister Heartbreak, United States Live, Strange Angels, Bright Red, and the soundtrack to her feature film Home of the Brave. A deluxe box set of her Warner Brothers output, Talk Normal, was released in the fall of 2000 on Rhino/Warner Archives. In 2001, Anderson released her first record for Nonesuch Records, entitled Life on a String, which was followed by Live in New York, recorded at Town Hall in New York City in September 2001, and released in May 2002.
Anderson has toured the United States and internationally numerous times with shows ranging from simple spoken word performances to elaborate multimedia events. Major works include United States I-V (1983), Empty Places (1990), The Nerve Bible (1995), and Songs and Stories for Moby Dick, a multimedia stage performance based on the novel by Herman Melville. Songs and Stories for Moby Dick toured internationally throughout 1999 and 2000. In the fall of 2001, Anderson toured the United States and Europe with a three-person band, performing music from Life on a String. She has also presented many solo works, her most recent being Happiness, which premiered in 2001 and toured internationally through spring 2003.
Anderson has published six books, the most recent of which is Laurie Anderson by RoseLee Goldberg (Abrams, 2000), a retrospective of her visual work. Text from Anderson’s solo performances appears in the book Extreme Exposure, edited by Jo Bonney. She has also written the entry for New York for the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Laurie Anderson’s visual work has been presented in major museums throughout the United States and Europe. In 2003, The Musée Art Contemporain of Lyon in France produced a touring retrospective of her work, entitled The Record of the Time: Sound in the Work of Laurie Anderson. This retrospective encompasses installation, audio, video and art objects and spans Anderson’s career from the 1970's to her most current works. It will continue to tour through 2005. As a visual artist, Anderson is represented by the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York.
As composer, Anderson has contributed music to films by Wim Wenders and Jonathan Demme; dance pieces by Bill T. Jones, Trisha Brown, Molissa Fenley, and a score for Robert LePage’s theater production, Far Side of the Moon. She has created pieces for National Public Radio, The BBC, and Expo 92 in Seville. In 1997 she curated the two-week Meltdown Festival at Royal Festival Hall in London. Her orchestra work Songs for A.E. premiered at Carnegie Hall in February 2000, played by the American Composers Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.
Recognized worldwide as a groundbreaking leader in the use of technology in the arts, Anderson collaborated with Interval Research Corporation, a research and development laboratory founded by Paul Allen and David Liddle, in the exploration of new creative tools, including the Talking Stick. She created the introduction sequence for the first segment of the PBS special Art 21, a series about Art in the 21st century. Her awards include the 2001 Tenco Prize for Songwriting in San Remo, Italy and the 2001 Deutsche Schallplatten prize for Life On A String.
In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA. Other current projects include a commission to create a series of audio-visual installations and a high definition film for the World Expo 2005 in Japan and a series of programs for French radio. She will premier her new score “O!” at the Opera Garnier in Paris in December ’04. She was also recently part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Athens. Her next project will involve a series of long walks. Anderson lives in New York City.
The performance artist Laurie Anderson has been named the winner of the 2007 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. She will receive about $300,000 and a silver medal in ceremonies at the Hudson Theater on Nov. 13. Recognizing outstanding talents in the arts, the prize, in its 14th year, is a legacy from the silent screen stars Dorothy and Lillian Gish, who were sisters. Lillian's will specified that it should be awarded annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life." Previous recipients include Ornette Coleman, Bill T. Jones, Lloyd Richards, Arthur Miller, Isabel Allende, Bob Dylan, Ingmar Bergman and Frank Gehry.
(What’s Going On?, 1971)Right click to download, click to listen right away, always better in iTunes:
A little bit softer now. “Picket lines and picket signs / Don’t punish me with brutality / Talk to me, so you can see / Oh, what’s going on?” Gaye delivered those words with a voice so supple, it’s easy to forget that What’s Going On? was as stirring a message of social protest as the outspoken works of Dylan, Curtis Mayfield or, well, anyone.
What’s Going On? described an impoverished land divided by war and prejudice. Its lyrics, co-written by Gaye, Renaldo Benson and Al Cleveland, keyed on family matters. Gaye’s marriage was failing; his duet partner, Tammi Terrell, had died; his brother had just returned from combat. The song’s plaintive repetitions of the words father, mother and brother made What’s Going On? feel simultaneously sweeping and intimate. “Father, father,” Gaye sang, meaning God or his own dad (father and son had a stormy relationship) or both. The song’s key line, however, came but once: “For only love can conquer hate.”
