Press room

Alessandro Cortini

+ KMRU

Electronic music producer and musician Alessandro Cortini returns to the Barbican Hall to present an evening of innovative music and visuals.

Alessandro Cortini is an Italian musician, producer, composer, instrument builder and one of the foremost figures of contemporary electronic music - best known for his haunting, atmospheric work. Alongside being a longstanding member of Nine Inch Nails, he has released a steady stream of his own heady music on luminary labels including Mute, Hospital, and Important Records for the past decade. Throughout his rise to fame, he has collaborated with the likes of Lawrence English, Daniel Avery and Merzbow. Balancing dark ambience with smoky, pulsing rhythms, his compositions are perfectly restrained, textured and mesmeric.

In 2020, Cortini was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame through his work with Nine Inch Nails, making history as the only Italian musician to have ever been honoured with this recognition. In 2021, Cortini custom designed a semi-modular synth called Strega (Italian for ‘witch’) and used it to create his album, Scuro Chiaro (Mute Artists, 2021), which was described by Pitchfork as 'pitched somewhere between purgatory and the planetarium’. In 2022, he exhibited a high-concept audio installation called “Nati Infiniti” for Sonar 2022, which developed into a live show based on improvisation using the Strega. 

Opening the performance at the Barbican is Nairobi-born, Berlin-based sound artist KMRU (Joseph Kamaru) & visual artist Markus Heckmann presenting their project Dissolution Grip. KMRU’s work uses sound as a sensorial medium through which social, material, and conceptual interpretations are manifested. KMRU carries with him a repository of listening experiences from Nairobi and beyond; expanding his sonic practices and bringing an awareness of surroundings through creative compositions, installations, and performances.

Produced by the Barbican

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Rone - L(oo)ping

with London Contemporary Orchestra

French electronic music producer Rone performs the UK premiere of his latest album L(oo)ping alongside the London Contemporary Orchestra, conducted by Robert Ames.

It took less than a decade for Rone (Erwan Castex) to establish himself as one of the main artists of the French electronic music scene. Always crossing the boundaries of electronic music, Castex has released several studio albums on the Parisian label InFiné and has collaborated with the likes of The National, Étienne Daho, Jean-Michel Jarre, Michel Gondry, François Atlas, and Alain Damasio.

It was while working with composer Romain Allender (who worked on films The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water among others) that Rone's electronic world made its first bridge with the orchestral world. In leafing through tracks from Rone’s repertoire that might lend themselves to symphonic reinterpretations, Allender worked with Rone to create L(oo)ping – an album of Rone’s music with new life breathed into them by Allender’s arrangements. L(oo)ping took shape in June 2021 as an electro-classical concert in France, receiving a rapturous response from audiences and wide critical acclaim, followed by a live recording in 2023.

Reviews of L(oo)ping:

 “This album does not push the orchestra into uncomfortable virgin compositional ground, but it seduces them into a cutting-edge artistic space where the boundaries to what can be achieved are invisible.” Loud and Quiet

NB. This performance contains haze and strobe lights.

Produced by the Barbican

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