OSMIUM: An electro-mechanical live performance ritual
2023-08_-_OSMIUM_Recording_Bonello-06.jpg | Credits: Camille Blake
2023-08_-_OSMIUM_Recording_Bonello-10.jpg | Credits: Camille Blake
2023-08_-_OSMIUM_Recording_Bonello-11.jpg | Credits: Camille Blake
2023-08_-_OSMIUM_Recording_Bonello-14.jpg | Credits: Camille Blake
2023-08_-_OSMIUM_Recording_Bonello-18.jpg | Credits: Camille Blake
OSMIUM is an audacious performance project that fuses electroacoustic experimentation with raw physicality, forging a visceral dialogue between human performers and machine-driven sonic landscapes. Blending burnished soundscapes, metallic drones, and bio-mechanical vocalizations, OSMIUM explores time fluidly—smoldering through the past while forging new sonic pathways.
At its core, OSMIUM interrogates human-technology relationships, tradition versus progression, and the interplay between individual and collective form. Each performance is a radical synthesis of folk traditions, doom metal, minimalism, industrial music, and extreme noise—thriving in the liminal spaces between genres, shifting and evolving unpredictably.
Central to OSMIUM’s vision is a synergy between groundbreaking instrumental design, electro-mechanical beaters, and extreme vocal techniques. The ensemble features Oscar-winning Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir (halldorophone), US engineer/producer James Ginzburg (custom bass monochord), UK Grammy-winning producer designer Sam Slater (feedback percussion), and Senyawa’s Rully Shabara from Indonesia (extended vocal techniques). Their collaboration transcends individual achievements, forming a singular artistic entity.
Guðnadóttir’s halldorophone harnesses unstable feedback loops, Slater’s custom feedback percussion generates resonant rhythms, and Ginzburg’s bass monochord fuses ancient tonalities with modern processing. Shabara, the conceptual fulcrum, merges guttural articulations and spectral overtones. Each instrument and performer interacts with custom electro-mechanical devices, blurring boundaries between human and machine.
OSMIUM’s performances are immersive, ritualistic experiences where human agency and automation converge in an evolving sonic ecosystem. Through custom-built instruments, electro-mechanical rhythmic beaters, and digital processing, the ensemble redefines live performance, interrogating the blurred lines between performer and instrument, tradition and innovation, control and surrender.
OSMIUM is an audacious performance project that fuses electroacoustic experimentation with raw physicality, forging a visceral dialogue between human performers and machine-driven sonic landscapes. Blending burnished soundscapes, metallic drones, and bio-mechanical vocalizations, OSMIUM explores time fluidly—smoldering through the past while forging new sonic pathways.
At its core, OSMIUM interrogates human-technology relationships, tradition versus progression, and the interplay between individual and collective form. Each performance is a radical synthesis of folk traditions, doom metal, minimalism, industrial music, and extreme noise—thriving in the liminal spaces between genres, shifting and evolving unpredictably.
Central to OSMIUM’s vision is a synergy between groundbreaking instrumental design, electro-mechanical beaters, and extreme vocal techniques. The ensemble features Oscar-winning Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir (halldorophone), US engineer/producer James Ginzburg (custom bass monochord), UK Grammy-winning producer designer Sam Slater (feedback percussion), and Senyawa’s Rully Shabara from Indonesia (extended vocal techniques). Their collaboration transcends individual achievements, forming a singular artistic entity.
Guðnadóttir’s halldorophone harnesses unstable feedback loops, Slater’s custom feedback percussion generates resonant rhythms, and Ginzburg’s bass monochord fuses ancient tonalities with modern processing. Shabara, the conceptual fulcrum, merges guttural articulations and spectral overtones. Each instrument and performer interacts with custom electro-mechanical devices, blurring boundaries between human and machine.
OSMIUM’s performances are immersive, ritualistic experiences where human agency and automation converge in an evolving sonic ecosystem. Through custom-built instruments, electro-mechanical rhythmic beaters, and digital processing, the ensemble redefines live performance, interrogating the blurred lines between performer and instrument, tradition and innovation, control and surrender.
Halldorophone: Hildur Guðnadóttir
Vocals: Rully Shabara
Feedback percussion: Sam Slater
Bass monochord: James Ginzburg
Recorded by Daniel Reymer and Tobias Ober at Bonello Studio, Berlin Germany
Written by Hildur Guðnadóttir, Rully Shabara, Sam Slater, and James Ginzburg
Instrument Design:
Halldorophone: Halldór Úlfarsson
Feedback percussion: Christian Zollner, Sam Slater
Bass monochord: James Ginzburg
Electro-mechanical beater design: Christian Zollner @ KOMA Electronik
Curatorial advisors: Mat Schulz and Gosia Plysa
Special thanks to Unsound, CTM, Chris Sharp (Barbican Centre)
With support from: Unsound, CTM, Chris Sharp at the Barbican Centre
OSMIUM (INT) is a groundbreaking collaboration between Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (Iceland), vocalist Rully Shabara (Indonesia) of Senyawa, musician James Ginzburg (USA) of emptyset, and Grammy-winning producer Sam Slater (UK). Using custom-built acoustic instruments augmented with machines, distortion, and electronic manipulation, Osmium creates a sonic landscape like no other. Their work features primordial growls, harsh breathing, and pre-lingual utterances over industrial drones and metallic percussion—a gripping, infernal sound beyond categorization.
OSMIUM (INT) is a groundbreaking collaboration between Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (Iceland), vocalist Rully Shabara (Indonesia) of Senyawa, musician James Ginzburg (USA) of emptyset, and Grammy-winning producer Sam Slater (UK). Using custom-built acoustic instruments augmented with machines, distortion, and electronic manipulation, Osmium creates a sonic landscape like no other. Their work features primordial growls, harsh breathing, and pre-lingual utterances over industrial drones and metallic percussion—a gripping, infernal sound beyond categorization.
In OSMIUM, the four composers and musicians Hildur Guðnadóttir (halldorophone), Rully Shabara (extended vocals), Sam Slater (feedback percussion), and James Ginzburg (bass monochord) create a thriving performance that crosses borders between genres and aesthetics, each using a custom-built system that likewise enhances the individual possibilities to create sound and challenges each musician to adapt and react to the inconsistencies deriving from their instruments. On a conceptual level, the integration of the self-built instruments refers to the musicians’ reflection on the relation between human and machine; on a practical level, it emerges as an impressive sound collage of beats, drones, and noise variations paired with lingering vocal utterances. The result convinces through a compelling energy rooted in both the audible sounds as well as the interaction of the group members within the performance.
In OSMIUM, the four composers and musicians Hildur Guðnadóttir (halldorophone), Rully Shabara (extended vocals), Sam Slater (feedback percussion), and James Ginzburg (bass monochord) create a thriving performance that crosses borders between genres and aesthetics, each using a custom-built system that likewise enhances the individual possibilities to create sound and challenges each musician to adapt and react to the inconsistencies deriving from their instruments. On a conceptual level, the integration of the self-built instruments refers to the musicians’ reflection on the relation between human and machine; on a practical level, it emerges as an impressive sound collage of beats, drones, and noise variations paired with lingering vocal utterances. The result convinces through a compelling energy rooted in both the audible sounds as well as the interaction of the group members within the performance.