Mira Calix
MIRA CALIX BIOG ::
Skimskitta
"there is something truly hypnotic about the music with flashes of greatness" - The Times "an unconventional beauty" - Mojo "unclassifiable music" accessible melancholy" - The Observer "(her) austere textures and melancholy song fragments can be traced back to Eno and John Cage" - Independent On Sunday "a fastidiously crafted digital earth song" - The Wire
"magical, transporting" little worlds to lose yourself in? 4/5 Muzik
"uplifting and elegant" Uncut
Chantal Passamonte is Mira Calix. She was born and brought up in South Africa before moving to London in 1991. On arrival in the UK, her lifelong passion for music, propelled her behind the counter of record shop Ambient Soho. She began flatsharing, party organising and DJing with Solid Steel/Ninja Tune artist, Strictly Kev and graphic artist David Vallade, who is responsible for the distinctively charming design of her releases. Spending time at the turntables led her to experiment and begin to produce her own music.
As a performer, Mira Calix has DJed for over ten years at countless club nights, playing a variety of slots with a diverse selection of DJs, from ambient more experimental nights to kick ass dancefloor mayhem, playing on bills with a diversity of artists like Derrick May, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Baby Ford and Hecker. She was a resident at Warp Records regular club night - Blech both in London and Sheffield. On occasion, Mira Calix teams up with close friend Andrea Parker, as they did at the 2002 Observatori Festival in Valencia and the Musica contemporary classical music festival in Strasbourg where they re-worked the music of Stockhausen in 2003. In 2002 the festival honoured Steve Reich and Philip Glass, Mira re-contextualised Reich?s work on her own.
She's DJed at many festivals including SONAR, Glastonbury, Prototype, Wilsonic and Test One i n Sheffield?s Industrial Museum, where Mira Calix was also a co-orginaser. She has also played at three All Tomorrow's Parties (the prestigious UK festival which has been curated by Tortoise, Mogwai and Autechre). In 2002 she played Strasbourg's Musica Festival with Steve Reich and appears again in 2003, this time alongside Stockhausen.
Mira's wide musical vocabulary and extensive record collection have resulted in her opening up for several live bands including; Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Radiohead, Boards of Canada, Pan Sonic and Faust. She has toured internationally with Autechre in Canada, Plaid on their 2002 and 2001 US tours, Warp's Magic Bus and 7 Year Glitch tours across Europe, as well performing extensively on her own from Iceland to Africa. As a recording artist, Mira Calix released the EPs "Ilanga" and "Pin Skeeling", then the album OneOnOne in spring 2000.
"If PJ Harvey abandoned bluesy guitars for avant beauty, this is how she'd probably sound?This is a frequently gorgeous, often inspired collage of beats and ambi-textures. A real find."
4/5 Jockeyslut John Peel loved the album, inviting her to do a session which later became her fourth release, the "Prickle" EP.
Her latest album Skimskitta is an enveloping, inviting record created using the organic textures of stones collected from the beach, whispers of guitar and vocals, using vintage instruments and old boxes and analogue synths. "[an] indelible listening experience as she detunes busted sounds boxes to create her broken songs of meditative noise - her most beautiful record yet" i-D
In 2002, Mira Calix took part in a project at the Natural History Museum in Geneva. A group of artists were invited to compose 30 minutes of music made solely from insect sounds. For them she created "Nunu", a haunting composition using the sounds of wasps, flies, larvae hatching and butterflies beating. She made her live debut at London's Royal Festival Hall in March 2003 at
the Ether Festival with an actual array of living insects housed in a glass box and backed byTheLondon Sinfonietta - a first not just for Mira Calix, but also for The Royal Festival Hall!
"Perhaps the most rewarding of the new pieces was Calix's Nunu. Her insects behaved like true professionals, appearing on cue via live video projection, and chirping in pleasing harmony with
the Sinfonietta's scrapings" The Telegraph
Having garnered rave reviews from the New York Times to The Guardian (UK) she has since taken her live show to Europe and across the US. In May 2003, Mira Calix launched the new UK electronic music network; Logarhythm (www.logarhythm.co.uk) with a UK national tour playing solo, leaving the insects behind in her garden this time.
Early in 2004 Mira was commissioned to write a site-specific piece of music for an installation in the conservatory of the Barbican in London, for the re-launch of the Barbican Art Gallery with a retrospective by the acclaimed British Artist; Helen Chadwick. In September of 2004 this piece was released along with the London Sinfonietta and original versions of Nunu, as a mini-lp titled "3 Commisions". Soon after, she was awarded a Britten-Pears residency at Snape Maltings, Suffolk, where she and fellow musicians, whom she met during work with the Sinfonietta; contemporary music pianist, Sarah Nicolls and composer and sound designer, David Shepard, spent a few weeks composing a new piece for piano and electronics. "Push Door To Exit" will debut at the Aldeburgh Festival this summer followed by a concert in Wagner's previous home, the villa Rufalo in Ravello, Italy.
In 2005 she continues to write her forthcoming third album for Warp Records and to tour extensively, as well as working on further installation pieces, and a soundtrack to a series of documentaries featuring four high-profile contemporary artists for the Sundance Channel in the U.S.A.
