Mira Calix and Malcolm Middleton have collaborated on a BBC 3 Late Junction session, to be broadcast at 11.15pm on the 13th August. This will be the seventh in the series of monthly collaboration sessions. Late Junction makes the introductions between two musicians and the artists begin a musical adventure as they write and perform new material for the session.
Mira Calix and Malcolm Middleton, who live a few hundred miles apart, have been exchanging their new musical ideas online, and will piece them together when they first meet to record at the BBC’s Maida Vale studios in early August.
Of the experience so far, Mira Calix says:
Mira Calix is an electronic musician, DJ and composer whose work defies easy categorisation; fusing electronics, organic matter and classical instruments in a unique way, she has crafted her own sound world that transcends the genres from which it draws. As well as the five albums she has recorded for the Warp record label, she has been commissioned to write many installation pieces, compositions and film soundtracks. Her installation, ‘My Secret Heart’, was awarded a prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award earlier this year.
Malcolm Middleton, once half of cult Scots songsters Arab Strap, has as a solo musician become a voice of sparkling unpredictability, unafraid of touching on his own dark side. He has just released his fifth solo album ‘Waxing Gibbous’, and his work balances a fragile mix of self-doubt, humour and wry observations on the human condition.
The Late Junction sessions have already brought together artists from a variety of genres and have inspired creative partnerships that in some cases have been lasting. For example, the first ever Late Junction collaboration, featured the British twisted folk-pop-rock collective Tunng and members of Tinariwen, the Touareg rockers from the Southern Sahara. Having met and collaborated on the BBC Radio 3 Late Junction session the two bands embarked on a Contemporary Music Network UK tour together.
Mira Calix and Malcolm Middleton, who live a few hundred miles apart, have been exchanging their new musical ideas online, and will piece them together when they first meet to record at the BBC’s Maida Vale studios in early August.
Of the experience so far, Mira Calix says:
“Malcolm has started some of the tracks, and I, the others, they've gone back and forth in both big and small chunks, as we've added to them and shaped them collectively.
We're not quite finished yet, but the experience so far has been exciting (that’s waiting for new parts from Malcolm) and sometimes a little frightening (sending back bits of a track and hovering by the computer for a response can fill me with trepidation). I'm learning all the time, considering someone new, creating space for them, being inspired and led by what they've done, while ultimately trying to please and create something we both rate, means I’ve had to approach things differently. I’m out of my comfort zone and I’m loving being there.”
Malcolm Middleton, once half of cult Scots songsters Arab Strap, has as a solo musician become a voice of sparkling unpredictability, unafraid of touching on his own dark side. He has just released his fifth solo album ‘Waxing Gibbous’, and his work balances a fragile mix of self-doubt, humour and wry observations on the human condition.
The Late Junction sessions have already brought together artists from a variety of genres and have inspired creative partnerships that in some cases have been lasting. For example, the first ever Late Junction collaboration, featured the British twisted folk-pop-rock collective Tunng and members of Tinariwen, the Touareg rockers from the Southern Sahara. Having met and collaborated on the BBC Radio 3 Late Junction session the two bands embarked on a Contemporary Music Network UK tour together.
