GBSR Duo: Stockhausen vs Aphex Twin (Double Bill)

In 1995, Stockhausen was asked to listen to the music of Aphex Twin, commenting that Aphex should ‘immediately stop with all these post-African repetitions’. Aphex Twin responded that Stockhausen might want to ‘stop making abstract, random patterns you can’t dance to’.

Thirty years later, this programme juxtaposes the electroacoustic works of these very different giants of electronic music.

In the Purcell Room event, hear Kontakte, one of the musical masterpieces of the post-war avant-garde. GBSR Duo’s ‘landmark performance’ (Tom Service, BBC Radio 3) sees the musicians perform their virtuosic parts from memory, interlocking them precisely into the electronic sounds that swirl around the audience.

Join musicologist Richard Witts for a pre-concert talk telling the story behind the event. Witts dives into Stockhausen’s comments about sound artists he encountered and how Stockhausen has shaped popular music, including what Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground and Can have to say.

Following the hall performance, we move to the Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer for Aphex Twin’s EP Computer Controlled Instruments pt2, released in 2015 on Warp Records.

Recorded excerpts from The Music Machine: The Technocrats, BBC Radio 3, 23 – 27 Oct 1995, presented by Dick Witts. Soundbite Productions, Lizzie Jackson (producer), Robert Heller (researcher).