Roel Meelkop and Yiorgis Sakellariou both have a huge experience in field recordings, digital manipulation of sounds and live sound art performances.
Rotterdam Sound Project is a collaborative project between these two sound art and computer music practitioners. Yiorgis Sakellariou (aka Mecha/Orga), hailing from Greece, but now residing in Lithuania, has invited Rotterdam based sound artist Roel Meelkop to explore his hometown for a period of acoustic research. The two artists met in Greece in 2006 when Meelkop was touring there and have been in contact ever since. They are working in the same field of acoustic and electronic sound art and music production. Rotterdam Sound Project is their joint effort to explore the textures and the variety of Rotterdam’s soundscape through field recording, intuitive composition and sound art production.
Rotterdam Sound Project is concerned with juxtaposing, mixing and filtering field recordings from Rotterdam and aims to present them live in an open-ended attempt to construct a soundscape which will give the audience the chance to experience the city through an immersive sonic experience.
•Roel Meelkop
(1963) studied visual arts and art theory at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
During a post-graduate course at the same academy he decided to dedicate his work to sound and music. His musical activities date back to the early eighties when he started THU20, together with Jac van Bussel, Peter Duimelinks, Jos Smolders and Guido Doesborg. THU20 have released several tapes and CD's and performed regularly in Europe.
The working method of THU20 included many discussions about how to compose and why. This period was crucial in forming his ideas and concepts about sound and how to organise it, but it was not until the mid nineties that he was able to fully realise these ideas. The purchase of a sampler and later a computer radically changed his possibilities of working with sound, offering infinitely more control and freedom.
Since then he has worked steadily on a body of work, most of which was recieved enthusiastically in the small but dedicated world of sound art. His other activities include working with Kapotte Muziek and GOEM, together with Frans de Waard and Peter Duimelinks, and organising sound events, mostly in Rotterdam.
Aside from releases, Meelkop also creates site-specific sound installations and performance pieces in collaboration with other artists.
In the last couple of years, Meelkop has focussed on solo works in composition and installation work. A new project with Frans de Waard called Zèbra has also taken up some well spent time.
•Yiorgis Sakellariou
is a self-taught musician working in the fields of non-academic computer music. Having a background in classical and folk (Mediterranean) music, he came to develop his personal language during the '00s. Since then, he is active internationally being responsible for solo albums in acclaimed labels (like Entr' Acte or Absurd), having composed music for short films and theatrical performances, leading workshops and ceaselessly performing his music around the globe.
His practice is founded on the digital manipulation of environmental recordings. His palette of sounds is all-encompassing; from vibrating rail-tracks to refrigerators' static, and from noisy waterfalls to the humming of insects, all may find their place in his arsenal. He only performs in absolute darkness, fostering an all-inclusive and profoundly submerging sonic experience.
He is a member of the Athenian Contemporary Music Research Centre (founded by I. Xenakis), of the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers' Association and of the NYC-based Ear to The Earth Organization. Since 2004 he runs the cdr label "Echomusic" - so far being responsible for 18 releases of Greek and international artists.
Reviews:
-Sounds like they have been recorded near the sea, but then it could have been as easily hiss from cassettes or TV static.
(Frans De Waard, Vital Weekly - issue 664, the Netherlands)
-You have the impression of being buried alive and not able to see anything, no air to breathe, only dull vibrations comes from the outside, indicating your perception is still working.
(Dmitry Vasilyev, IEM magazine - June 2009, Russia)
-It sucks you in, wraps you tight and nearly stifles you.
(Dan Warburton, Paristransatlantic - April 2007, France)
- You better start considering Sakellariou as a serious candidate to the field recording genre’s Senate of Finest Assemblers.
(Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes – May 2011, Italy)
-Underpinning it all is a strong sense that Sakellariou is a composer who knows exactly what he’s doing.
(Keith Moline, The Wire – issue 271, September 2006, UK)
-Minimal and highly ambient, develops at a snail’s pace, seemingly unperturbed by any sense of the pressure of time.
(George Kolyvas, Kathimerini English edition – February 7, 2006, Greece)