Non Plus Ultra
4310 Burns Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
VOLUME and Non Plus Ultra are pleased to present Sarah Davachi (Vancouver/Montréal) with filmmaker Paul Clipson (SF), Roarke Menzies (NYC), and Mem1 (Providence, RI).
About the Artists
As a composer of electronic and electroacoustic music, Sarah Davachi engages in practices of analog synthesis, psychoacoustic manipulations, and studio composition. Her work focuses on the experience of enveloped sonic dwelling, often utilizing extended durations and drones, gradual transformations in texture, and simple harmonic structures that emphasize variations in overtone complexity and natural phasing patterns. She holds an MFA in electronic music and recording media from Mills College in Oakland, California and, since 2007, has worked for the National Music Centre in Canada as an interpreter, researcher, and archivist of their collection of acoustic and electronic keyboard instruments. Her writings on experimental music have been presented and published within Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and she has held artist residencies at The Banff Centre for the Arts (Banff, CA), STEIM (Amsterdam, NL), WORM (Rotterdam, NL), EMS (Stockholm, SE), and OBORO (Montréal, CA). She has performed extensively throughout Western Canada and the United States, including recent appearances at Suoni Per Il Popolo (Montréal), Moogfest (Durham), New Forms Festival (Vancouver), MUTEK (Montréal), the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, send + receive (Winnipeg), No Response Festival (Cincinnati), Debacle Festival (Seattle), and Sled Island (Calgary), and has released recordings with Students of Decay, Important Records, Constellation Tatsu, JAZ Records, and Full Spectrum. Davachi currently splits her time between Vancouver and Montréal, Canada.
Paul Clipson is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who often collaborates with sound artists and musicians on films, live performances, and installations. His Super 8 and 16mm films aim to bring to light visual preoccupations that reveal themselves while working in a stream of consciousness manner, combining densely layered, in-camera edited studies of figurative and abstract environments, in a process that encourages unplanned-for results, responding to and conversing with the temporal qualities of musical composition and live performance. His work has screened around the world in festivals and at sound and film events such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, The New York Film Festival, and the Cinémathèque Française.
Mem1 seamlessly blends the sounds of cello and electronics to create a limitless palette of sonic possibilities. In their improvisation- based performances, Mark and Laura Cetilia’s use of custom hardware and software, in conjunction with a uniquely subtle approach to extended cello technique and realtime modular synthesis patching, results in the creation of a single voice rather than a duet between two individuals. Their music moves beyond melody, lyricism and traditional structural confines, revealing an organic evolution of sound that has been called “a perfect blend of harmony and cacophony” (Forced Exposure).
Founded in Los Angeles in 2003 and currently based in Providence RI, Mem1 has traveled extensively, performing at Issue Project Room, Roulette, REDCAT / Disney Hall, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Electronic Church (Berlin), the Laptopia Festival (Tel-Aviv), the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, and the Borealis Festival (Bergen). They have taken part in residencies at Harvestworks in New York, STEIM and Kunstenaarslogies in the Netherlands and USF Verftet in Bergen, Norway. In 2009, they created Visiting Hours, a site-specific installation for the Museums of Bat Yam (Israel); in Winter 2012, they travelled to London to create Visiting Hours II, a site-specific installation for the Sonic Arts gallery SoundFjord. Their piece Aphrosia (with video by Mark Cetilia) was screened at the Institute for Contemporary Art (London) as part of an evening of audiovisual works curated by Helen Frosi; collaborative works with media artists Liora Belford and Kadet Kuhne have been screened and installed at the Hordaland Kunstsenter (Bergen), the Sundance Film Festival, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco). Throughout their career, they have collaborated with a variety of musicians and sound artists including the Penderecki String Quartet, Steve Roden, Jan Jelinek, Frank Bretschneider, and Stephen Vitiello. Together, Mem1 curates the experimental music series Ctrl+Alt+Repeat and the record label Estuary Ltd.
Roarke Menzies is a New York City-based artist and composer who uses his voice, mouth and body as sound sources, along with audio hardware, software and field recordings, to create electronic and electroacoustic works. His music has been described by The New Yorker as “a layered electronic throb, coming and going, always enhancing but never overpowering.” Menzies’s work has been presented at Material Art Fair in Mexico City, Spring Break Art Show in New York, Diapason Gallery for Sound and Intermedia, the New West Electronic Arts & Music Organization’s NWEAMO Festival, and many others. His music has also been featured on WNYU’s Bentwave FM, KCHUNG Radio, KFFP Freeform Portland, and BBC Radio 3 as part of the series “New Year New Music – exploring iconic masterpieces, avant-garde experiments and the next generation of talent.”
