Overview
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musical style:
In 1996 Stenger moved to London and formed The Brood, a unique gathering of musicians from the fields of rock, electronics and improvisation with a common interest in classic experimental music. Performers have included Finnish electronicists Pan Sonic, Justine Frischmann of Elastica, Bruce Gilbert and Robert Grey of Wire, David Thomas of Pere Ubu, Robin Rimbaud (Scanner), and composer/bassist Gavin Bryars. The Brood has performed in major London festivals at both The South Bank Centre and The Barbican.
Big Bottom was formed in 1997 when Stenger recruited visual artists Angela Bulloch, Cerith Wyn Evans and Tom Gidley, as well as bassist J. Mitch Flacko, to join her in what Art Monthly has described as a serious performance-art endeavour "carried along by a dash of the idiocy of Spinal Tap." Stenger's music for Big Bottom explores the fundamentals of sound and structure through the primal power of five electric basses and a drum machine, incorporating both original material and fragments of familiar riffs. Upon hearing the band play, dancer/choreographer Michael Clark invited Stenger and Big Bottom to appear in his 1998 comeback show, current/SEE, for which Stenger composed new solo work as well as pieces for the full band. They toured together in the UK and Europe, playing live in a Stonehenge-like array that provided both music and set for the dancers. In addition to touring with Clark's company, Big Bottom has performed in such contrasting venues as London's Scala and The Disobey Club (with Japanese noise band Merzbow) and Zurich's Museum For Contemporary Art, and can be heard on Candy Record's We Love You compilation of art/music productions. Stenger composed and performed music for fashion designer Hussein Chalayan's October 2002 show in Paris, for which she assembled a band that included Michael Clark and Chalayan himself on bass, as well as regulars Wyn Evans and Flacko. Other Bottoms have included Gina Birch, formerly of The Raincoats. Big Bottom will perform at Berlin's Volksbuhne on New Year's Eve, 2005, opening for Throbbing Gristle.
Her 96-day musical installation, Soundtrack For An Exhibition, opened at Le Musée d'Art Contemporain in Lyon, France on March 7, 2006, and includes contributions from Robert Poss, Alan Vega, Alexander Hacke, Kim Gordon, Mika Vainio, Ulrich Krieger and Jennifer Hoyston among others. [Link]
In addition to her own work, Stenger continues to perform the music of other composers on flute, guitar and bass, most recently that of F. M. Einheit in Paradise Lost And Found, a 2004 production at Munich's Haus Der Kunst based on Milton's Paradise Lost. She has also toured America with The Creatures and John Cale and for three years performed regularly as a bassist with Nick Cave in a band that also included Jim White and Warren Ellis of the Dirty Three. Read more about Susan Stenger on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.