The artists will perform an original live set designed specifically for the Getty Center’s courtyard stage to complement the exhibition London Calling: Bacon, Freud, Kossof, Andrews and Kitaj. Like the artists in London Calling, who represent some of the greatest achievements in British painting of their time, Demdike Stare exemplifies the sophisticated and thriving electronic music movement that has flourished in Britain.
Demdike Stare is a collaboration between DJ/producers Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker, two childhood friends from north England with voracious appetites for record collecting. Their music weaves together a complex web of sound, exploring everything from Dub, House, Techno, Hip Hop, Psychedelic Rock, Free Jazz, and Industrial and Noise music. Beyond standard recordings, they also mine curiosities from stock library music, found-sounds from everyday life, like church bells, or from staged field recordings, such as the destruction of several pianos. Blurring the line between sampled and original sound, the result is not quite dance music, but a singular, textured, and immersive music of their own.
At the Getty Center, the duo’s bold and cinematic sound is offered up as a kind of soundtrack for the intensity and horror of Francis Bacon’s distorted faces, the psychological complexity of Lucian Freud’s portraits, and the rich and varied styles of the “School of London” painters, who also drew from a vast array of source material, from the mundane to the arcane. Demdike Stare creates a unique comprehensive sound that includes reference-driven, narrative impulse, characterized by the substance of the tangible world.
Saturdays Off the 405 featuring Demdike Stare will be held on Saturday, September 10, from 6:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m. at the Getty Center. Tickets are free, no reservations needed.
Saturdays Off the 405 is a summer concert series that features outdoor music by cutting edge performers against a backdrop of evening views of the city. DJ sets open and close each performance.