Shabazz Palaces are percussionist Tendai Maraire and Ishmael Butler, formally of Digable Planets and Cherrywine. While Tendai employs ancient instruments from his homeland Zimbabwe, Ishmael provides the group’s vision and vocals.

For Butler, who never stopped making music since he released his classic album by Digable Planets , ‘’Blowout Comb’‘, Shabazz Palaces is his latest place to play with ideas. Those ideas have always been simultaneously global in their expansiveness and basement ceiling low in their commitment to hip-hop’s bottom line.

After releasing several recordings themselves on small time labels, in 2010 they released an EP with Sub Pop and have collaborated in recordings and on stage with artists such as Mc Silk and THEESatisfaction. They deliver sincere and radical lyrics with sounds and beats that include sounds from around the world. Containing echos of funk, minor-key jazz, London dubstep and mbira sounds they structure their songs outside the 16-bars/chorus/repeat form of much hip hop.Their music won them the first ever Music Genius award from The Stranger in 2010.

The group which also features mixing engineer Erik Blood, often dress in elaborate costumes and masks for their live performances. Their video for Belhaven Meridian is a one-shot bw music video, shot in Watts, LA, and a homage to the 1977 classic film Killer of Sheep, a film set around the Watts Riots. It features a cameo by Ernest Wadell from The Wire.

DATE: Weds 16 May 2012

VENUE: Islington Mill, James Street, Salford

TICKETS: £8 + Booking Fee. Available from SeeTickets.

Now Wave

We have just confirmed Bilal Randeree as a speaker at the FutureEverything Conference in  2012.

Bilal Randeree is Social Media and Online Producer for Al Jazeera English (AJE) based in Doha, Qatar. He works in the newsroom, using online tools and platforms for news-gathering stories from around the world.

He will be talking extensively about the Arab Spring and the role Al Jazeera played in documenting those events. He will also be looking forward into 2012, predicting what he hopes to see and what he envisages will actually happen both socially and politically in the Arab world.

Bilal was one of the first journalists to get in touch online with Tunisian protesters and activists during December 2010 events, and since then the use of social media and online platforms has become even more vital to his work, and to Al Jazeera’s coverage. He is also responsible for improving and developing new platforms and strategies for AJE’s coverage, most notably the popular live blogs. He spends his free time maintaining Al Jazeera’s CC Repository.

Knowledge Exchange, Innovation and Digital Design post at The Creative Exchange

Naja Bagi and Tullis Rennie are The Electronic Exchange; an inter-European duo who write, record and produce their music collaboratively – entirely via the web – from their homes in Manchester and Barcelona.

The Electronic Exchange are touring their new live show in February 2012 and will collaborate with a string section made up of young ‘classical’ professionals and a live drummer. This new 6 piece band will perform re-imagined versions of original material by the duo.

The unique element to this tour will be an online rehearsal process – the musical collaboration between all players will be developed entirely by web-based ‘electronic exchanges’. This music will be made public via a blog, Twitter feed and Facebook page making the creation of new music interactive, open to all and as important as the final performance.

Each night support acts will open the shows, from Leeds electronica beat-smith Neko Neko to the fresh Manc Hip Hop of Dayse & Aver and the cinematic soundscapes of Liverpool’s Patterns In The Ivy.

The tour is a development of a one-off performance at FutureEverything 2011 and is supported by Arts Council England.

Tickets are available via We Got Tickets.

Tour Dates:

Thurs 9th Feb – Leeds – Musiquarium

Fri 10th Feb – Manchester – Kraak

Sat 11th Feb – Liverpool – Static Gallery

http://electronicexchange.tumblr.com

http://www.facebook.com/theelectronicexchange

https://twitter.com/ElectronicEx

FutureEverything confirm Matthew Herbert’s spectacular One Pig show, a performance that follows the life of a pig from birth to dinner plate

Matthew Herbert’s One Pig will be performed live on Friday 18^th May at RNCM as part of the 2012 FutureEverything festival. The avant-garde musician has created an electronica album that captures the sounds of an anonymous pig’s life on a Kent farm, through to its death at an abattoir, and the consumption of the meat at a banquet hosted in its honour.

This controversial work utilised the pig’s meat, which was turned into musical instruments (and was prepared by Heston Blumenthal) –  bunting and tablecloths were made from the blood, the fat became candles, trotters a candelabra, and the pig’s farmyard oinks were recorded and sampled as part of the score.

One Pig debuted at the Royal Opera House in October on a stage filled with hay bales and musicians in white butchers’ coats. A new instrument, designed by Yann Seznec, called a ‘styharp’ was commissioned as part of the project, and will be played live alongside a chef that cooks bacon, onstage, as part of the performance in Manchester.

Matthew Herbert released One Pig in 2011. The album, made entirely from recordings of a modern pig’s life cycle, aimed to listen in on a single farm animal’s life in the context of an otherwise-anonymous food chain. The project generated controversy as PETA condemned One Pig as making “entertainment” from animal cruelty, apparently without first checking key details about Herbert’s intention and methods. Herbert discussed the ideas and approach to One Pig with PETA’s Jobst Eggert in this interview.

Herbert has previously written scores inspired by packets of crisps, human hair,  and has pioneered the use of so-called ‘real’, ‘ordinary’ or ‘found’ sounds in modern electronic music. On 2005′s Plat du Jour he recorded music beneath the sewers of fleet street, inside industrial chicken farms, used Vietnamese coffee beans as instruments and once drove a tank over a recreation of the dinner that Nigella Lawson cooked for George Bush and Tony Blair. He also recorded 3500 people biting an apple at the same time.

Matthew Herbert is both overall head and A&R man for Accidental Records, which he founded in 2000 and has also acted as a producer for the label. An increasingly in-demand collaborator and of other artists, Herbert has remixed Quincy Jones, Ennio Morricone, Serge Gainsbourg, John Cale and R.E.M.

Herbert has worked in other media, including scoring ballet, fashion shows, and theatre – his music has been presented at the Royal Court, on Broadway and the Almeida. His collaborators have ranged from Bjork to Antony Hegarty, from the playwright Caryl Churchill to purveyor of radical cuisine Heston Blumenthal. He has scored many feature films, notably 2011′s Life in a Day directed by Kevin Macdonald, writing for full, 90 piece orchestras in some instances. Whether performing or Djing, he has played all over the world to sell-out crowds, including venues such as the Sydney Opera House and Hollywood Bowl.

DATE: Friday 18th May 2012

VENUE: Royal Northern College of Music, 124 Oxford Rd, Manchester

TICKETS: £16 + booking fee, purchasable via SeeTickets and RNCM Box Office

NOTE: FutureEverything music wristbands have now sold out. There will be a small number of extra wristbands released in February. Visit our Buy Tickets page for further information.

Confirmed venues for this year’s festival include Islington Mill, St Phillip’s Church, Instituto Cervantes, RNCM, Jabez Clegg and Manchester Academy. The full music programme will be announced in early February.

Following a sold out US tour, Ninja Tune’s Amon Tobin will bring his hotly anticipated ISAM (LIVE) AUDIO/VISUAL SHOW for the first time, to the North of England.

The legendary producer’s latest album, ISAM, will be performed at Manchester Academy on 19 May as part of an incredible LIVE show at 2012’s FutureEverything festival.

ISAM (Live) features a stunning 25′ x 14′ x 8′ multi-dimensional/shape-shifting art installation that surrounds Tobin and envelops him and the audience in a unique visual 3-D journey that accompanies tracks from the album. Narrative, exhilarating and bombastic – the show uses projection mapping, generative/audio reactive real time, and pre-rendered elements with custom software that control the show. The visual elements are synched to Tobin’s music to make a large scale next level HD experience.

The performance has been developed by the award winning V Squared Labs founder Vello (whose impressive roster includes Jay- Z, Ministry and Red Hot Chilli Peppers), the set is built by Alex Lazarus (Vita Motus), who has worked with Massive Attack, Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.

Brazilian-born Amon Tobin signed to the prodigious Ninja Tune in 1996. He has recorded seven critically- acclaimed albums under his own name on Ninja that have helped define the label as a force in musical innovation and diversity. The depth and scope of Amon Tobin’s work have had a far-reaching influence, garnering respect amongst producers and artists both within and outside electronic music and remains among one of the most visionary electronic artists of a generation.

“Tobin has set a new benchmark for live electronic music with this deafening, dazzling and exhilarating assault on the senses” – The Times

“His subtle genius places him forever one step ahead of the listener and several light years in front of his contemporaries” – Uncut

“ISAM live has raised the bar, and with the kind of attention it’s gained, what remains to be seen now is how other artists will follow in its footsteps.” -Resident Advisor 5/5

The ‘making of ISAM (Live) official Ninja Tune trailer

DATE: Saturday 19th May 2012

VENUE: Manchester Academy One, Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9PR

TICKETS: £25 + booking fee, purchasable via SeeTickets and Ticketline

NOTE: FutureEverything music wristbands (that give access to the whole of the festival’s music programme across the city) have now SOLD OUT. There will be a small number of extra wristbands released in February. Visit our Buy Tickets page for further information.

Confirmed venues for this year’s festival include Islington Mill, St Phillip’s Church, Instituto Cervantes, RNCM, Jabez Clegg and Manchester Academy. The full music programme will be announced in early February.

From Counting Sheep to Finnegan’s Wake – The Dawn of Digital Thinking, featured at FutureEverything 2011.

A witty analogue take on digital metrics in physical space, Hit Counter is an interactive piece which narcissistically counts its own visitors and proudly presents this number as the art work itself.

Zach is a designer, programmer, educator, and conceptual artist from New York City.

His work explores the increasingly blurring line between the physical and the digital.He has exhibited internationally at venues like the Venice Biennale, the Giant Robot/Scion Space in Los Angeles, and the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw.

His work has been featured in several online and printed publications, including Rhizome.org, Neural Magazine, New York Magazine, and Das Spiel und seine Grenzen (Springer Press).

Sue Thomas Discusses ‘When Geeks Go Camping and Other Brushes with Nature’ at FutureEverything 2011.

For many years Sue Thomas has been inspired by this quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) “Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?”

Her first novel, ‘Correspondence’, a story of AI, passion, and transformation, (“packed with thrilling ideas” – Entertainment Weekly), was short-listed for the 1992 Arthur C Clarke Award, and her most recent book is the 2004 cyberspace travelogue ‘Hello World: travels in virtuality’. “Her writings fuse the surfaces, textures, histories and interactions of our bodies and minds” (Robin Rimbaud). She is now working on ‘Nature and Cyberspace: Stories, Memes and Metaphors’, a study of the relationships between cyberspace and the natural world.

Sue has been fascinated by computers and the internet since the 1980s. In 1994 she founded the trAce Online Writing Community, a very early example of global social media. At De Montfort University she devised and directed Amplified Leicester, a city-wide experiment funded by NESTA, and the influential Transliteracy Research Group.

Sue Thomas suethomas.net/

FutureEverything and the International Fab Lab Association are seeking expressions of interest from digital manufacturers to contribute to FAB✱ Manchester, the first European FabLabs Summit.

Taking place as part of FutureEverything 2012 in Manchester, England, the event will run as part of the annual festival from 16-19 May 2012 alongside the main conference and the established Handmade Digital Craft event.

FAB✱ Manchester seeks to bring together all of the digital manufacturing community in Europe with a view to establishing an exchange network among EU FabLabs.

With Fab conferences taking place in far away places, this will be your chance to showcase and discuss what you’re all about in Manchester’s incredible historic venues, Victoria Baths and the Museum of Science and Industry, at the UK’s leading festival of digital culture. We are seeking a crowd-sourced programme with contributions from any and all labs all over Europe.

To submit an expression of interest or suggest a topic for presentation simply fill out the expression of interest form at bit.ly/eufabsummit

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS – Monday 27th February  2012 – 12 noon.