For Ekko nr.13, Niilas has been commissioned to create a piece for the festival, in collaboration with Lydgalleriet and BEK. He has been working on the piece for weeks, nobody knows what's going to be, but the talent and drive to the often referred to as "very young" producer from Bergen suggests that there will be something to look forward to. Both Niilas and Bethan Kellough will perform on our ambisonics setup, which is both a software and a physical speaker setup for the dissemination of three-dimensional audio.
Throughout this autumn, Niilas has worked with the "Winter" commissioner piece, which will be played during the Ekko Festival for the first time. "Winter" is an attempt to combine the two spheres, sound art and urban contemporary club music through Niilas's own club vision. It includes sound recording from Bergen's night time, a plethora of synth's and deep bass. The melancholic nature of the piece is the origin of the name, and can be recognized consistently throughout the piece as a whole, or split through its different phases. Niilas shows a wide range of sound design, from minimalist field-recordings twisted beyond the sense of reach to strong rhythms hand in hand with melody and harmony.
Bethan Kellough is a sound artist and composer. Her works are designed to open out spaces with sound, creating sound-worlds that inhabit the boundaries between music and sound design, weaving together instrumental materials, electronic sources and ambisonic field recordings. Her recent release on Touch – “Aven” – builds on a recording made at a geothermal site in Iceland, exploring imagined worlds in the invisible layers beneath the surface.