Photo Credit : Paul Jenkins
The almighty Ah! Kosmos supported by Johanna Bramil came to TOM for one night only as part of TOM’s In The Box Festival.
TOM said, “How can we push the boundaries of live performance and take our events to the next level? To answer this, we say it’s time for you to get In The Box!”
Developed in 2023, In The Box is an exclusive two-week festival at TOM that takes events and turns them 360 degrees. I can attest that you’ll be surrounded by breath-taking visuals, allowing you the chance to see your favourite artists in a brand-new way.
The atmosphere in the venue was electrifying and the walls vibrated with visuals which seemed to move with the background music as the audience enter. This is a new season of work In The Box with updated tech so this is breaking ground stuff. It’s exciting and electrifying art.
Photo Credit : Paul Jenkins
The support act Johanna Bramli is a local musician, sound artist, composer and performer.
Johanna works with textures, noise, sonic spaces, and audience interaction.
She is a Course Leader for the Digital Music & Sound Arts BA course (DMSA) at the University of Brighton. As well as her solo work she’s one half of electronic/motorik/pop band Fröst and founder of all-female noise/feedback improv choir The Larsens. She is also co-founder of MAMI – supporting Mamas across the Music Industry.
Bramli’s set was heralded with a deep bass beat that seems to inhabit your whole body.
The projections, by the visual artist is called Beth Walker @filmsbybeth, on the walls are earthy and organic. Raised up in the centre of the space. Bramli layers musical elements and found sound before adding on her own ethereal vocals which soar and dip; haunting and beautiful. Throughout the set projections changed and pulsed with the music. The whole room seemed to vibrate with energy and sound.
Photo Credit : Paul Jenkins
Başak Günak aka Ah! Kosmos is a sound artist and composer, in the field of electronic music originally from Istanbul, Turkey but now based in Berlin.
Günak pursues her sound experimentations as a sound artist, composing soundscapes for theatre, contemporary dance, film and visual art projects, and realising site-specific performances. Her works have been featured worldwide in several festivals and institutions, such as Barbican Theatre (UK), Royal Theater Carré (NL), Sonar Festival (SP), Berlin CTM Festival (DE), Tokyo Electronic Music of Arts Festival (JP), Maxim Gorki (DE), Berliner Festspiele (DE), Rotterdamse Schouwburg and Prague Quadrennial.
In the last years, she has done composition and sound design for Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstmuseum Basel, Martin-Gropius Bau and granted residencies in HELLERAU European Centre for the Arts, Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm.
Ah! Kosmos was electrifying from the start with her hands moving from a keyboard, laptop and a myriad of equipment.
The In The Box projections were a compilation of videos for her songs, along with some footage compiled for the live performance. The videos of the songs were created by Harun Güler, Uğur Baltepe, and Arda Funda. were initially black and white followed by colour being overlaid with more organic images. One particular projection, which utterly captivated me, was a black and white sea in which a figure appears and disappears into and out of the water was remarkable.
Throughout the set the intricately layered music and found elements is astounding. Her dextrous movement of hands and body across the set up were mirrored in the electronic inter-weaving of musical colours in perfect harmony constantly surprising and delighting us.
She brought a palpable energy to the space, and the found sounds that she sampled in her music which gave it extra depth and interest to her exquisite soundscapes.
To quote her website “Both timeless and otherworldly, Günak’s work unconsciously defies being tied to a genre, tapping into something beyond an immediate surrounding or experience to communicate something more transcendental.”
This was a cathedral of sound and light created by these magical artists.
Johanna Bramli Setlist – Kingdom drone
Materials (Fröst)
This too shall pass- Solidarité
Send Her Back
Ah! Kosmos Setlist
The songs were from her albums :
Bastards,
Beautiful Swamp
Plus three unreleased songs.
The Old Market, Upper Market Street, BN3 1AS
