TOUGH SELL closes out the year with the intimate, mesmerising collaborations of two pairs of unique artists.

TIM ETCHELLS + AISHA ORAZBAYEVA (UK/France / PRAH)

Internationally celebrated artist and writer Tim Etchells collaborates with violinist Aisha Orazbayeva on a rolling improvisation that combines and moves between spoken text and music. Shifting from looped phrases, to a set of spontaneous fragmentary improvisations – text and music are treated as fluid forces in the same space, fading in and out of each other, breathing together, cutting and cancelling each other, creating a dynamic and always unstable landscape.

Constructing the accumulating text collage of the work, Etchells draws on fragments from his notebooks as well as on excerpts from performance texts and works in progress, creating collisions, loops, and unexpected connections between different spoken materials. The technical virtuoso Orazbayeva meanwhile, plays the violin in a way that tests the instrument’s limits, deconstructing and at the same time uncovering new sound potentials as well as radically remixing and quoting from elements of classical repertoire.

The pair's collaboration saw an album, Seeping Through, released on PRAH in 2016, and a full-length theatre work Heartbreaking Final made for Wiener Festwochen in 2021.

https://prahrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/seeping-through

CROSSPIECE (THEODORA LAIRD + CAIUS WILLIAMS) (London / Cherche Encore)

Caius Williams is an improviser, bassist, and composer from London with a varied practice including improvised music, electronic music, and projects exploring experimental approaches to composition. His debut album ‘Gwannach’ is out now via Cafe Oto’s OTOROKU.

Theodora Laird is a multidisciplinary artist, songwriter and producer. She has released several EPs under the moniker ‘feeo’ - including most recently ‘run over’, made with support from the PRS Foundation’s ‘Women Make Music’ fund. As a vocalist she has appeared on projects such as Loraine James’ Hyperdub release ‘For You And I’.

Crosspiece is Caius and Theodora’s first release as a duo, piecing together their long lasting collaboration.

"sparse and elegant [...] possessed of an entrancing immediacy and intimacy."
Jennifer Lucy Allan, The Quietus

https://cherche-encore.bandcamp.com/album/crosspiece

AISHA ORAZBAYEVA (solo) (France / PRAH)

Kazakh violinist Aisha Orazbayeva is renowned for her fearless interpretations of contemporary music and radical approach to early repertoire. She has released four critically acclaimed solo albums with music ranging from her own compositions to Telemann and Sciarrino, with the New Yorker describing her "Music for Violin Alone" album as a "unanimity of head, heart and hands". She has performed internationally in venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, HAU2 Berlin, Corum Montpellier for Radio France and Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe.

https://aishaorazbayeva.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-violin-alone

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TOUGH SELL says: this is a total dream booking for us. Tim Etchells, director of the legendary performance company Forced Entertainment, needs little introduction: an artist who has been at the vanguard of experimental theatre and writing for nearly half a century. And renowned player Aisha Orazbayeva is simply our favourite violinist working right now — her approach to classical repertoire is utterly singular, unstuffy and spellbinding. Meanwhile, two young musicians — Theodora Laird and Caius Williams — fixtures in London's improvisation scene, blew us away at festivals this summer both as Crosspiece and with Theo's solo project feeo. Their stuff is really something special: sensitive, spacious and emotional. Catch them now before their careers go stratospheric.

£13 standard / £9 concessions (NOTAFLOF - please email toughsellzine@gmail.com if money is a barrier)