Einar Örn Benediktsson is very busy these days. Candidate for the Best Party.
And performing with
Curver Thoroddsen as
Ghostigital @ Istanbul
Icelandic Artists @ The Morning Line, Istanbul The Morning Line @ Istanbul is an integral part of the European Capital of Culture 2010 celebrations. The Morning Line is a sensational experiment that T-B A21 undertook with the great innovator Matthew Ritchie, two very talented young architects Aranda\Lasch, an amazing engineering firm Arup AGU, an astoundingly inventive sound lab from the technical University of York headed by Tony Myatt, a group of extremely creative composers and my amazingly courageous foundation T-B A21. All of us took an incredible leap of faith into the unknown, hugely inspired by a group of physicists, cosmologists and mathematicians! Another inspiration for Matthew was "Paradise Lost" by John Milton. Together we have created one of the most complex and bewildering experiments that brought as many disciplines together as we possibly could ever dream of, and then proceeded to convince the Mayor of Istanbul that he really wanted to place this audacious project next to the Spice Bazaar @ Eminönü Square.
The
official opening ceremony will take place on
Saturday 22. May from 7:00 until 8:00pm followed by
special performances by Jónsi & Alex, Cevdet Erek, and Lee Ranaldo. On Sunday 23. May there will be the Contemporary Music festival, with some great composers and musicians. These were carefully selected by our guest sound curators Russell Haswell, Melih Fereli, Kamran İnce, and Cihat Aşkın. Several live performances will take place, the majority however being extreme electronic sound compositions, will be performed without performers...
For the presentation in Istanbul guest sound curator Russell Haswell has invited Jana Winderen, Peter Zinovieff, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, and Yasunao Tone to conceive new acoustic works, commissioned by T-B A21. Two other new works by Ghostigital and Jónsi & Alex are also being presented for the first time in Istanbul. As The Morning Line continues to travel the world as a platform for contemporary music, and within its mandate to encourage and support the production of innovative composition wherever it tours, T-B A21 has entered a partnership with ITU - MIAM, Centre for Advanced Studies in Music, Istanbul, under the guidance of Melih Fereli, former director of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), Kamran İnce, and Cihat Aşkın and has commissioned new compositions by Erdem Helvacıoğlu, Cevdet Erek, Batuhan Bozkurt, and Mehmet Can Özer.
Ghostigital: Cannibal in Tuxedo (internal/external), 2010
Duration: 29 minutes
For those new to the sonic world of Ghostigital, you should know that there doesn’t seem to be any floor plan to the music, even though there is architecture. It’s best you just relax, release preconception, don’t think or analyze too much. Here’s an idea: let us do the analyzing so the thoughts don’t get in the way of your listening experience. Know the music will come to you the way it wants to; you are not in control.
Ghostigital
Jónsi & Alex: All Animals, 2008/10
Duration: 30 minutes
Faraway melodies floating in and out from places we feel are familiar but do not recognize. Is it singing? Is it piano? Is it the animals and trees creaking about in the wind? There is magic within the stillness. We long to start over, use all that is around us to build new beginnings. For some this is the end, but for us it is a second chance, a hope to create harmony and endless possibilities … All Animals recorded in Reykjavik, Iceland, with acoustic instruments, primarily piano, voice, and animal sounds.
Jónsi & Alex
Tracklist 
