Sotto Voce: A One-Day Festival of Music and Noise

On 10 February 2007, the curators known as [no.signal] presented Sotto Voce, a one-day festival of music and noise held at the state51 warehouse on Rhoda Street, off Brick Lane, in east London. The event ran from 4:00pm to 11:30pm and was described by its organisers as a day festival curated and self-produced by [no.signal]. It was an ambitious undertaking, assembled at short notice, and it brought together a set of performers whose work sat at the meeting point of acoustic improvisation and amplified noise.

Two Stages, Two Approaches

The festival was built around two distinct spaces, each with its own character. The first was conceived as a resonant space for acoustically led performances. The second was a main space given over to amplified, and by the organisers' own admission probably loud, acts. This division shaped the whole day: listeners could move between the two rooms and hear the same broad impulse, the exploration of sound, expressed through very different means.

Stage One: Acoustic and Resonant

Stage one opened at 4:30pm with a new trio of Stefano Tedesco on vibraphone, Joe Williamson on double bass and Roger Turner on drums. A performance by Gary Smith followed at 6:30pm. At 8:15pm, Rhodri Davies and Angharad Davies took the stage. The acoustic programme closed at 9:45pm with the guitar virtuoso James Blackshaw.

Stage Two: Amplified and Loud

Stage two began at 5:15pm with Portable, described as a laptop group with Rhodri Davies. Birds Of Delay performed at 7:15pm. At 9:00pm came Testicle Hazard, the loud noise duo of Lasse Marhaug and Tommi Keranen. The day ended at 10:30pm with Aufgehoben, a UK quartet, in what was billed as their first ever UK live performance.

Origins of the Event

The festival grew out of a smaller plan. [no.signal] had originally intended an event featuring the UK group Aufgehoben and the noise duo Testicle Hazard. Following what the organisers called the recent and fresh success of their opening 2007 event with Birchville Cat Motel, Peter Wright and Alex Mein Smith, they decided to push the boundaries a fraction further. The single event evolved into a full day festival at the state51 factory, alternating self-amplified performances with louder acts in a different setting.

Acknowledgements and Practicalities

In their announcement, the organisers thanked the artists first and foremost for accepting the invitation without hesitation, and expressed the hope that audiences would arrive from the start of the day. Tickets were priced at eight pounds on the door and six pounds in advance, with a pre-booking form available. The venue was reachable by tube from Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green, and by bus routes 8, 388, 26, 149, 48 and 76.

What the Day Represented

Sotto Voce was not a conventional concert. It was a deliberately split programme, placing quiet, resonant improvisation alongside amplified noise, and asking an audience to hold both in mind across a single afternoon and evening. The lineup reflected a particular moment in London's experimental music scene, when laptop performance, free improvisation, prepared guitar and harsh noise could share a bill without contradiction. The organisers framed the day as an experiment in scale and setting as much as in sound, and the programme they assembled remains a compact record of the performers and approaches they valued.