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We collaborate again with fellow birthday organisation, the boutique Berlin based record label Sonic Pieces. Founder Monique Recknagel has been quietly curating and hand-crafting each release (now numbering fifty) creating a small but strong community of artists, whose ideas explore the border between contemporary classical and avant-garde. Today we present three of them from across Europe.

Deaf Center comprises Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Erik K. Skodvin and pianist Otto A. Totland, who operate at the axis of ambient, contemporary classical and drone music. Old school friends, they both grew up in a small village in southern Norway, each having a history of music-experimentation during the early internet days. At the start of the 2000´s they finally decided to collaborate. Deaf Center has released several recordings through the last 20 years, including albums Pale Ravine (2005), Owl Splinters (2011) and most recently Low Distance (2019) on Sonic Pieces. In their music the importance is placed on timelessness, friendship and the combination of warm human connection with otherworldly abstractions.

Norweigan artist Otto Andreas Totland is a self-taught pianist. Otto has determined himself as a timeless composer who follows nothing but his own gut and heart. Otto released his first solo piano album, Pinô, in 2014, an album of highly personal compositions built up through years of intimate performing for his friends and family. This started off his trilogy of piano compositions for the Sonic Pieces label, which also contain The Lost (2017) & Companion (2021). Totland´s latest record, Exin, was released on Nils Frahm´s Leiter label, who has recorded and produced all of Otto's solo albums to date.

The Gothenburg-resident impressionistic singer-songwriter and multidisciplinary artist Sumie has just completed the recording of her third album. It is the follow-up to Sumie, her selftitled debut, and Lost In Light, both issued by the UK’s totemic Bella Union label, also the home of Father John Misty, John Grant, Mercury Rev and Susanne Sundfør. Sumie's as-yet untitled new album will be issued in 2025. These rare appearances are the first opportunity – anywhere – to hear a selection of her new songs. Expect lyrical obliqueness, and the marriage of understated intensity with filigreed atmospherics.

Further event details: Cafe and bar open. An event for all ages. Pay-What-You-Can entry in advance or on the door (£12 per adult suggestion), subject to availability/capacity. The doors open at midday and the music begins a 1pm.