East African Nocturne is the first live collaboration between US musician, sound artist and poet Z’EV and sound recordist and founding member of electronic music pioneers Cabaret Voltaire, Watson.

The premiere performance of this 45 minute live sound mix will be an exceptional, captivating sensory experience, mixing experimental industrial music and sounds recorded from nature.

East African Nocturne is the result of exchanging sound files and internet discussions between Watson and Z’EV over a period of a year. The composition features sounds of the Serengeti mixed with Z'EV's percussion atmospheres produced in the crypt at Christ Church Spitalfields. Z’EV’s instruments were recorded moving through the crypt at varying speeds and directions to create an astonishing range of pitches and timbres.

For this special event, the work is recreated through Watson’s live mixing of sounds of birds, elephants, frogs, hyenas, insects, lions and vultures and their environment, recorded by Watson during trips to the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and Z'EV's live percussion performance.

The rhythms of the work are generated as Z’EV and the instruments move in and through the gallery, producing orchestrations of highly rhythmic acoustic phenomena. Watson’s mix also moves through the gallery, processed by Paul Gillieron’s Ambisonic surround sound system, 3D AudioScape, presenting a special electro-acoustic experience: ‘a fully immersive sound field, where wildlife dawn and dusk choruses will create an exceptional experience of sound’. This new musical composition summarises the cross-over between contemporary live performance and field recording.

Eastern African Nocturne echoes Bela Bartók’s Musiques Nocturnes (The Night’s Music) the fourth movement from Out of Doors for solo piano (1926), in which Bartók imitated the sounds of nature.

ZE’V is an American musician and sound artist, a pioneer and prolific figure of industrial music using found metal as percussion. He has an ongoing interest in the correlation of visuals and music often working within the visual arts scene. He has collaborated with international musicians and artists such as Sunn O))’s Stephen O’Malley, Peter Rehberg, Lydia Lunch, Simone Forti and Charlemagne Palestine. He is regular plays at international industrial music festivals and recently, he was featured in New York’s Performa Noise Music Festival A Fantastic World Superimposed on Reality curated by artist Mike Kelley, November 2009. Z’EV lives in both Los Angeles and London.

Chris Watson is a British musician and sound recordist, founder and ex member of the legendary band Cabaret Voltaire and the Hafler Trio. As a sound artist, he is well known for his experimental work in electro-acoustic music. As a sound recordist, Watson specialises in natural history, developing an interest in recording wildlife and animal sounds. Watson has won awards for his sound recording work with David Attenborough on productions such as The Life of Birds and The Life of Mammals. He has released several solo and collaborative experimental music projects on Touch. The Wire recently published an extensive feature on his work in their August 2010 issue.

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COMPETITION: 2x Pairs of tickets to attend Z'EV and Chris Watson present East African Nocturne at the SLG. We have a pair of tickets for Fri, 10th Sept and Sat, 11th Sept - both nights start at 21.00. Please state your preference when you enter the competition.

To claim your tickets, send an email to jamie@run-riot.com with the correct answer in the ‘subject’ box. The winner will be randomly selected.

Q: Z'EV - what a chap. Musically worldly, in every sense. Of the following music styles, which hasn't he studied?

A: 1) Ewe (Ghana) music .2) Balinese gamelan .3) Indian tala .4) Oriental Whispering (with Hijokaidan)