Europe Summer Tour 2018

Posted by: mikronesia
Categories: performances • workshops
14 May

Hello from beautiful sunny Berlin. I just returned from Kaunas, Lithuania where I was in rehearsals with William “Bilwa” Costa for our upcoming tour, more on this below and this week’s overnight sleep concert at Lake Studio Berlin!

“Meditating on Sound” in Kaunas at Pirmi Šilainiai. Photo by Daina Dieva

Overnight Sleep Concert

This Saturday I’ll be playing an overnight concert of ambient music for sleeping, dreaming, being and becoming. The space at Lake Studios Berlin is perfect for a deep night’s sleep listening subconsciously to slowly evolving soundscapes. The space has high ceilings with long skylights that will allow natural night elements to paint the sky. Also, there’s a surround ceiling mounted sound system. It’s in the quiet Friedrichshagen neighborhood of East Berlin which is very tranquil. Please join me for a night of serene lullabies and inner exploration.

Please bring a pillow, blanket or sleeping bag. Lake Studios has plenty of tatami mats to sleep on. Arrive at 21h to secure a spot, have some tea and get to know the other concert goers. Music will start around 22h.

OVERNIGHT SLEEP CONCERT with MICHAEL MCDERMOTT
19 May at 21h to 20 May at 6h
Lake Studios Berlin
Scharnweberstrasse 27, 12587 Berlin, Germany
15-25€
Facebook Event

The Unheard Sea

While preparing sounds for this sleep concert, I got inspired to re-score a film by friend and collaborator Alex Bond. Alex did the live video projections for my first two sleep concerts. I love his work and think this new music goes well with his hazy visual dreamscape of oceanic disintegration.

Watch the Video

Un/natural Fields Tour

I’m very excited to team up with my old colleague and friend William “Bilwa” Costa for a tour through the Baltics and Central Europe. 

Un/natural Fields is a new project in which Michael McDermott and William “Bilwa” Costa juxtapose two solo projects, the organic imagined landscapes of the McDermott’s Echozoo works in progress and Costa’s unnatural field recordings. Together they create an imaginary listening experience akin to magical realism.

Audio: https://soundcloud.com/bilwa/sets/un-natural-fields

Madame Claude, Berlin, Germany May 21
MOKS, Mooste, Estonia May 24
MIM stuudio, Tallinn, Estonia May 25
UNDER / Electronic Musik Festival, Riga, Latvia May 26
Skaņas dienas (Sound Days) Festival, Liepaja, Latvia May 30 – June 2
BB 15, Linz, Austria, June 5
Rozkurz, Wroclaw, Poland, June 7
Osobliwy Poniedziałek, Krakow, Poland, June 8
Kolonia Artystów, Gdaǹks, Poland, June 10

Perpetual Movement and Sound – Perfect Sec0nds

Posted by: mikronesia
Categories: albums
22 Sep

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This was our first and only studio recording done as “Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd” (Bilwa and Mikronesia). We did the recording in one weekend using a variety of synthesizers, percussion and effects. The music was created with our movement partners in mind and also as a companion to our gasp show at Philly Fringe that fall. This also turned out to the the first release on the new label earSnake. The limited edition spray painted CDs were sold at the Philly Fringe show.

Download from bandcamp

Perpetual Movement and Sound – Paraphrase/NEXUS

Posted by: mikronesia
Categories: dance
22 Sep

This was our first of many improvised performances as NEXUS Gallery in Kennington for the Paraphrase/NEXUS series. Bilwa became a member of NEXUS in 2007 and started a series Paraphrase where sound and movement artists would come and respond to artwork in the gallery with a performance of their work.

This performance is improvised music from Mikronesia (radios and fx) and Bilwa (balloons and fx) performing music while Emily Sweeney and Rebecca Patek perform dance in an installation by Jodi Sweitzer And Elaine M. Erne.

Perpetual Movement and Sound – gasp

Posted by: mikronesia
Categories: dance
05 Sep

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This was our first performance as a group for the Philly Fringe Festival. The piece took inspiration from light, moths and the breath. It was choreographed by Emily Sweeney. Bilwa and I did the sound for this piece using the audible breathing sounds from the dancers and processing that in real-time. The processed breath sounds were played back over four speakers in surround sound. We did six shows total of gasp and it was very well received. Below is are two clips from the show shot by Carl Franke

Perpetual Movement and Sound – Rashomon Effect, Part 1

Posted by: mikronesia
Categories: dance
09 Dec

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Early in Perpetual Movement and Sound’s performance history we did a series of shows called The Rashomon Effect. This series was a reinterpretation of the Akira Korosawa film Rashomon where a crime is told from four different view points. For our “Rashomon effect”, we had four pairs of musicians and dancers respond to each other in a round-robin performance of improvised music, dance and video.

Below is an audio recording of the show.

Mikronesia – electronics
Helena Espvall – cello
Sean Mattio – percussion
Bilwa – electronics

Perpetual Movement and Sound – WAsh cycle

Posted by: mikronesia
Categories: dance
22 Sep

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For Bilwa’s photo show at 10th Street Laundromat we had a special debut performance from Perpetual Movement and Sound. The quartet for this show consisted of Bilwa and Mikronesia providing music and Emily Sweeney and Zornitsa Stoyanova providing movement. The improvised dance and sound score involved moving through the laundromat with lights and fabric. Below is a recording of the sound from that night.

City of Horns Duet

Posted by: mikronesia
Categories: performances
02 May

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When my friend and collaborator Bilwa asked me to do a live set at his photo and media event, I thought it was a standard Mikronesia “cocktail hour” type set. During these set (of which I’ve done plenty) I do background ambient music and people mill around, drink, talk and (sometimes) listen, which is fine. For these events basically a DJ, but instead of playing other people’s music, I’m usually there with a keyboard and laptop looping sounds and creating a soundscape on the fly.

However when I got to Mascher Space Coop (a venue that would lead me into a whole new field of composing and improvising with dancers and choreographers) I found out I would be doing a live improvisation with dancers and local experimental musician City of Horns (Rick Henderson). The whole event was really fun and like I said opened me up to a whole new world of collaboration.

Below is a live recording of our improvised set: