ISIDORA // Cathy Lucas + Arthur Sajas ( from Vanishing Twin )

About

Cathy Lucas is a Brussels-born artist, musician and researcher based in Hackney. She has spent more than a decade collaborating on London’s experimental scene, chiefly as band leader and singer of art pop group Vanishing Twin. Cathy is also a PhD researcher in the nineteenth-century science of sung and spoken sounds.

Arthur Sajas is a chair painter, a semi-chef and an instrumentalist living in Hackney. He is a conductor and musician of HAHA Sounds Collective and l’Ensemble des Jardins, as well as the semi-secret hand in the band Vanishing Twin. His practice is focused on the connection between scores and drawings and drawn lines and melodies.

ISIDORA

Laetitia Sadier, Marie Merlet, Blanca Regina and Pierre Bouvier Patron on visuals – ISIDORA –  will be joining forces again for a new performance, expanding their sonic and visual universe and creating new sounds. This new open ensemble was created in spring 2023 merging new compositions and improvisation on each performance.

Previous performances include presentations in Café OTO, IKLECTIK and Folklore Hoxton.

Laetitia Sadier 

Few musicians can claim to have made such a mark on the British music scene in the last thirty years. As a member of Stereolab, she has released seventeen full albums, gaining along the way, a large dedicated fanbase and acclaim that rightfully singles out Stereolab as “one of the most influential alternative bands of the ’90s”. With influences as wide as Krautrock, bossa-nova, and French pop, the band sculpted a truly original and distinctive sound, one that journalist Simon Reynolds describes as “always the same, always different”.Sadier founded Monade in 1996 as a way to channel and broaden her songbook., which got more complex as time went on though always highly beautiful. Marie Merlet joined Monade in 2003. Sadier has released seven solo albums either as Monade or under her name. Her eighth album ‘Rooting For Love’ is due for release in February 2024. Laetitia Sadier has collaborated with the likes of Mouse On Mars, Atlas Sound, The High Llamas, Blur, Common, Tyler the Creator, Giorgio Tuma, Deerhoof, and Little Tonados to name a few… May 2023 saw her latest release, What Will You Grow Now?, an album where Brazilian band Mombojo and her join musical forces under the moniker Modern Cosmology. She remains one of the most innovative and influential musicians of our time, making this coming show impossible to miss.

Marie Merlet was born and raised in Bordeaux, where she maintained a close, continuous relationship with music while she was a film and electro-acoustic student, playing in various bands and DJing weekly on the local radio station Nova Sauvagine. When she met Laetitia Sadier, Marie was involved in multiple projects: a girl group covering sixties bands, a Washington DC-influenced punk combo, and a few experimental electronic ventures. But when the then-singer of Stereolab asked her to join Monade and they started recording and touring together, there was no turning back. Marie traded Bordeaux for London, where she has since continued her artistic journey following her broad musical interests. Guitarist in psychedelic cumbia outfit Malphino, member of HahaSounds Collective and player with the likes of Yama Warashi and Gina Birch, Marie also has a monthly residency on Soho radio where she celebrates women in music.

Blanca Regina is an interdisciplinary artist, tutor, and independent curator who works with spontaneous composition systems creating multimedia landscapes using voice, objects, electronics, and visuals. She is also looking at book arts, immersive media, and design. Between London and Madrid together with Steve Beresford, she founded the Unpredictable Series, which focused on spontaneous music and experimentation in visual arts following her first collective Mademotion founded in Madrid. She has produced three albums with Beresford, mixed and mastered by Dave Hunt in London, ‘What Blue’ (2020) Duets with Steve Beresford; ‘Duets with Blanca Regina, Spontaneous Music’ featuring duets with Leafcutter John, Jack Goldstein, John Butcher, Benedict Taylor, Matthias Kispert, Aneek Thapar, Steve Beresford, Sharon Gal, and Hyelim Kim and and ‘Art of Improvisers’ (2017) a collection album with several artists concentrating in women improvisers. With longtime collaborator and artist Leafcutter John capturing their live performances in 2017 they created ‘Miga’ a limited edition Pendrive and digital release. Other collaborations in music and audiovisual performances include duos with Steve Beresford, Matthias Kispert, Peter Cusack, Matt Black, Wade Matthews, Sharon Gal, Terry Day, Adriana Camacho, and David Toop…

Pierre Bouvier Patron is a visual artist based in London. He is currently working with different media, such as digital video and film, exploring the boundaries between them and creating moving image works, performances and installations. He has developed various practices and skills in experimental film, documentary films, music videos, etc. He is involved in video screenings and video performances, solo or in collaboration, with musicians such as Syd Kemp, Steve Beresford, Ulrika Spacek and artist Blanca Regina, among others. His work has been shown in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Germany.