Mix made with Katrina Niebergal, It has to do with the great mystery, aired on Radio TNP
Katrina and I contributed a mix for Cara Mayer and Sanneke Kleingeld's day-long program for Radio TNP, in Amsterdam. Sharing here the archived mix, along with a short text we wrote for it. Happy winter festivities :)
As we mentioned to you, this theme (I'll keep the nest warm) has heaps of resonance for us, since our daughter, Odi, was born just over five weeks ago. We've been in deep-nest-mode — home, for the most part, just the three of us — snuggled up and tenderly confronting the...awesomeness of new life. The mix includes songs we've been playing around the house before and since the birth, lullabies we've been singing, songs about peace and love, songs for Palestine. It includes recordings we made while changing Odi's diaper, a track from our recently released tape (come, Memory: fieldwork), and an acoustic version of Homebody, a track that belongs to Bergur's forthcoming album, Unisong (scheduled for release spring 2024). We had lots of fun making it in between breastfeeding sessions and the gaps of naps. Thanks so much for the lovely invitation.
November 28, 2023
Release come, Memory: fieldwork
A limited edition cassette that I made with Katrina Niebergal, around her long-term research project, will be released on Futura Resistenza on November 28. Info, listen and order here.
September 2023
Duets
Documentation of Duets, a new work I presented as part of the group show Dreams, at an other world, Rotterdam is here
Group exhibition Dreams opens on September 8 at An other world, Rotterdam
Dreams with Ghislain Amar, Bergur Anderson, Guillem S. Arquer, Sarah Blake, Katrina Niebergal and Leonard Prochazka
The opening will take place: Friday, September 8, 5-9pm
Visiting days and hours: Friday, Saturday, 2-6pm and by appointment
The exhibition is open until Sunday, September 17
Studio Dreams is an artist’s studio in Rotterdam, located in the former De Player space in Afrikaanderwijk since approximately September 2022. At some point in our very early days, one of us suggested we make a group exhibition together as a way to bond as studio mates, but also to locate, relocate, dislocate, localize and vocalize our sharing of space and our place and presence in the neighbourhood.
Months later, here we are. As individuals we coexist in Studio Dreams — share pots and pans, plans, a kettle, a calendar, a half (broken) wooden spoon, new friendships, and busy lives. As we attempt to collectively write this text, we are also preparing for the exhibition — and, obviously and quite honestly, don’t know yet what sorts of resonances will come from the intermingling of our works in this exhibition and physical space . . .
but we’re excited to find out.
And would be happy for you to join us.
Warmly,
Ghislain, Bergur, Guillem, Sarah, Katrina, and Lenny
August 2023
Residency and performance at Grand Hospice with Diana Duta
A nice shot capturing the vibes of the performance Diana Duta and I did to conclude our week-long residency in Grand Hospice Chapel (Brussels) in August. Thanks to Grand Hospice team for having us, and thanks to Julia Dyck for the photo. More doc to come later...
April 2023
Vibrato is live
Vibrato is a new music studio in Charlois, Rotterdam. There, I make my own work and co-manage, with Maziar Afrassiabi and local art-space Rib, a space for sonic encounters. Together, we facililate improvisations, jams, and sonic meeting points with the local community — documenting the neighborhood's oral histories.
First two recordings can be found at vibrato.bandcamp.com, featuring myself and Maziar, along with good friends Ceola and Leif! More to come, stay tuned.
January 2023
Night Time Healer performs "Evening Healing Time" part of a walk around the Rotterdam harbour
Two impressions from The World Disintigrates Around Me -- an event I'm very happy to have been a part of. It was a walk around the Rotterdam port curated and hosted by Shimmer and Cookies, also featuring work by Isabelle Sully. During a stormy afternoon, Night Time Healer performs "Evening Healing Time", from Night Time Transmissions, was played on a loudspeaker by the water -- a groovy and contemplative listening experience after getting to know the harbour, its stories and industries with the other works and speakers. Many thanks for the kind invite, Eloise and Federico!
Photos by Sol Archer
November 2022
Collected Earworms documentation and new release: Around the Songster's Commune
Documentation from my solo exhibition at Kling og Bang is now up here
Around the Songster's Commune, a new tape out via Futura Resistenza and Jambes, is here
Stay warm xo :)
October 8 - November 13, 2022
Collected Earworms at Kling og Bang, Reykjavík
My solo exhibition, Collected Earworms is running at Kling og Bang, Reykjavík until November 13.
Exhibition text written by Katrina Niebergal:
Earworms are undoubtedly bodily.
Can’t they, for minutes, hours, days, take you over? possess you?
those sonic creepers
those infectious, melodic devils
those little rhythmic stow-aways, merrily sailing the waves of your consciousness.
I often pick them up in the grocery store. Half way home, they bob to the surface -- and I’m humming Bittersweet Symphony . . . Angel Eyes . . . Umbrella . . . before I even realize it.
I often wake up to one.
Yes, it’s true, sometimes they are a nuisance -- something stuck in your head that you can’t get out. But earworms have productive capacities also. If you think about it, they’re forms of musical notation -- notes themselves and their own kind of note-taking -- that belong only to the sonic.
Unwritten
earworms can pass through logical limitations jump as quanta of involuntary memory
from source to source to source.
(‘Once the way all song travelled.)
And that’s how Bergur is thinking about them, I think.
He’s collecting them when they surface -- right then, before they recede -- and working with them -- as material (and a material archive) for songs and sonic arrangements. As an artist and composer, it’s a way to document the melodies that travel through his mind with special attention paid to the way in which they travel. His collection comprises tunes of his own invention -- half-ideas or not-ideas, free- floaters -- as well as residues from/of other sources; augmentations; riffs; errors; traceable and not.
Get hooked ;)
-- Katrina Niebergal, Rotterdam, September 2022
Many thanks to Katrina for all her listening and support; Lester Michiels at dubplate.be, who cut the 7" record for the show; to Sölvi, Hekla and the Kling og Bang team for organizing, facilitating, curating. Documentation will come soon, please drop by if you are around xo
August 9, 2022
Documentation from De Nor performance
Had a really good time performing at De Nor in Antwerp a little while ago. Here are two songs from my set. Camera by Katrina Niebergal.
Labyrinth
Cricket Dream
July 30, 2022
Performance at De Nor
Feeling honoured and excited about playing at De Nor in Middelheim Museum, Antwerp on July 30 along with Justine Grillet and DJ Nino Stelzl. Click here for tickets and more info, hope to see you there.
March 2022
Collaboration / release: 37 meters of wax pipes, water, lights, motion sensors and aluminium sculptures by Víctor Santamarina
"37 meters of wax pipes, water, lights, motion sensors and aluminium sculptures" is a sound archiving publication by Víctor Santamarina on his sculptural installation in the exhibition space of A Tale of A Tub in Rotterdam during the summer of 2020. The publication includes a self-cut vinyl dubplate with six sound sculptures constructed by Bergur Anderson from field recordings of the installation at A Tale of A Tub. An accompanying booklet includes photographs of the sculptures accompanied by two poems by Erika Roux, and a Spanish text by Marta Echaves with an English translation by Juan Pablo Pacheco.
Víctor Santamarina confronts contemporary concerns from his daily life with traditional and material-based processes. His practice explores the potential of sculpture-making as a reintegrated technique in our fast-paced society. Santamarina interrupts and flips conventional processes, and facilitates the conditions for interferences, cracks and uncontrolled events. The exploring of the accidental serves as a mantra to escape the stress and overstimulation of contemporary society.
Published in an edition of 40 copies, Brussels/Rotterdam, 2022
Listen / buy here
All tracks recorded, composed and mixed by Bergur Anderson
Recorded at A Tale of A Tub, Rotterdam in October 2020
Photography by Erika Roux
Artwork and design by Víctor Santamarina
Poems by Erika Roux
1st poem title: Mindful
2nd poem title: AD-hoc
Text by Marta Echaves
Translation by Juan Pablo Pacheco
A project by Víctor Santamarina
victorsantamarina.com
February 13, 2022
Live on Operator Radio
I played a few new songs on Operator Radio recently, that are now online and archived. This performance was recorded at Gemaal Op Zuid for the Radio Paleis Maashaven program. Special thanks to Good Times Bad Times Radio for the invite.
December 2021
Come to your senses EP. 06: Like rocks, immersed in your body of water
Played music and set the vibes with fellow-artist and love, Katrina Niebergal, for her monthly online radio show Come to your senses, broadcasted on Good Times Bad Times community radio in Rotterdam. Recorded during a research trip on the island of Gozo in Malta, December 2021. Thanks for having me x
October 29, 2021
Bergur Anderson & The Transmitters perform "Night Time Transmissions"
Documentation from the album release performance of Night Time Transmissions at Peach last October is now online.
Camera, sound, editing & sound mix by Studio Wolphi.
September 2021
Fathertongue live performance broadcast on Palanga Street Radio
Fathertongue is a new musical work, composed during my residency in Verpejos, Kabeliai. It weaves the story of a master forger with my own experiences in Lithuanian boglands and my fascination with Iceland’s legendary fabricator, Solon Islandus. Before and after the premiere are songs from the back catalog.
Special thanks to Katrina Niebergal, Verpejos, Icelandic Art Center and the Palanga Street Radio team for having me.
September 2021
Sound design for Sunkiss, a project by Mylan Hoezen
Sunkiss is four-hour piece revolving around the idea of 'slowness' in response to the acceleration of a once again rapidly forward moving world.
A short while ago, I designed a soundscape for Sunkiss, a new work by good friend and collaborator Mylan Hoezen — performed at De Appel, Amsterdam on Sunday, August 29.
Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee broadcasted the perfomance through a live stream, available to listen back to here.
Performers: Emirhakin, Mylan Hoezen, Negiste Yesside Johnson and Ratri Notosudirdjo
Sound design: Bergur Anderson
Lighting coordination: Jeisson Drenth
Photography & cinematography: Nicola Baratto
Stage construction: Arthur Jules
Graphic design: Emirhakin
Text edit: Lijuan Klassen and Lisa Jasperina Bommerson
Venue: de Appel, Amsterdam
Support via Project Grant: Mondriaan Fonds
June/July 2021
Publication: Poems with Katrina Niebergal
Between September 2020 and April 2021, Katrina and I collected the accidental/incidental rhymes made when speaking — we each acted as the collector and editor of the other’s poems and compiled these into this first double volume, collectively titled Poems.
email bexkex@gmail.com for order information, or visit Page Not Found, Den Haag
June 2021
Tenants' regret (with Janitor's commentary)
Super excited to share a first sound from my forthcoming vinyl release Night Time Transmissions, out in late October and released with good friend Frederic and label Futura Resistenza.
Written and recorded by Bergur Anderson
Additional arrangements and production: Gunnar Gunnsteinsson
Tenants choir: Katrina Niebergal, Vera Mennens, Linus Bonduelle, Marloes de Vries, Mylan Hoezen, Manon Verkooyen & Clara J:son Borg
The Janitor: Gunnar Gunnsteinsson
Mix and master: Albert Finnbogason
Drawing: Bergur Anderson
April – May 2021
Flying no. 9 — Ten of Moods at The Pole, Rotterdam
Documentation of magical twilight duo exhibition with Á. Birna Björnsdóttir is here, many thanks to Katrina for the photos and generous support of The Pole.
March 2021
Of womxn and other weeds
I contributed this vocal piece titled Greenness to Liza Prins and Layla Durrani's artist's book publication Of womxn and other weeds. The physical copy is available here, along with an upcoming presentation and workshop at Art Rotterdam in July.
February 2021
The Cosmic Ear on Palanga Street Radio
This month's featured artwork on Palanga Street Radio: "The Cosmic Ear appears in a reading when a certain understanding enters the mind of the listener. Those who hear the all-encompassing "Om", shall know the songs of the earth and the stars -- and that sound is the mysterious juice which keeps all things in order, endlessly moving."