Review

Elaine Mitchener redefines what singing means in virtuoso tour-de-force

Flora Willson

★★★★★

The vocalist travels the full spectrum of the human voice, from subdued sounds of mouth and breath to an exhilarating remix of her own hyper-exuberant electronic soundscape

Deep Time: Basquiat & Cage 8424
Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, UK

Claire Sawers

“Bold curating now about bold curating then, Deep Time runs deep and feels vital with satisfying, intermingling art forms.”

Sound
Deep Time:
Basquiat and Cage 84.24

Dan Kidner

“Mitchener’s passions are deeply personal but also resonate with a broader community of artists, curators, writers and researchers who, through sonic and listening strategies, grapple with the question of what it means to pay attention in a world where this capacity is increasingly under threat.”

Elaine Mitchener: Solo Throat

“It’s mischievous, transformative material that helps bring lively, confounding poetry into new dimensions. Anyone who’s interested in all the many forms of sound poetry will find a huge amount of inspiration right here.”

Elaine Mitchener: Solo Throat

Kevin Le Gendre

An uncompromisingly imaginative approach to text that does credit to the power of the human voice, as well as the mind that pushes it on to previously unheard paths.

Elaine Mitchener – Solo Throat

Otoroku DL/LP

Daniel Glassman

“unknown tongue” might be the most impressive piece of all. Multitracking her vocals, she conjures up a drama of communication beyond language: her two characters seem to meet, argue, scheme, get frustrated, hit an impasse, muddle through, and finally begin to play and harmonise with each other.

Elaine Mitchener, Cafe Oto, London

Adrian Cross

“The evening culminated in Mitchener bringing together all the night’s musicians and all of them wheeling into free jazz reaching a crescendo from Mitchener that shook Oto’s golden ceiling filaments and had its audience screaming in delight. Powerful, indelible, of an ilk no stranger to Oto regulars, but utterly mesmerising and original and even disturbing for any crossing its threshold for the first time.”