Semay Wu – cello & fx,
Seaming To – voice & fx
First ever gig as Mayming supporting Simian‘s first ever gig: a secret gig in the Palace Hotel in Manchester back in 2001. Carry on 10 yrs to 2011, we have performed locally, nationally and internationally (UK, Europe and Far East). Some of the gig information is listed below.
Doodlebug, founded by the Manchester-based graphic artist, Michael Barnes-Wynters aka Barney Doodlebug. Barney gave us this early gig at the Urbis.2003
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Our next detonation is Doodlebug presents..MAYMING! on Sunday 29 September at Urbis.This is a rare chance to catch Homelife’s Seeming and Seemay in their own world!
Early Mayming 2003 @Urbis, Manchester for Doodlebug Presents.
“The Other Side Of The Sky UK & Ireland Tour 2006”
[Acid Mothers Temple with Mayming support]
16 Nov. Liverpool (UK) @ Masque
Tsuyama Atsushi : bass, vocal, guitar
Higashi Hiroshi : synthesizer, guitar
Shimura Koji : drums
Kawabata Makoto : guitar
The Long Walk – We worked separately and together on a large-scale 10-yr community project called the Long Walk (mentioned in separate entry) dreamt up and organised by Pete Moser, the Founder and Artistic Director of MoreMusic educational community organisation in Morecambe. We were involved from 2007 – 2009, and I was further involved til 2013.
Liverpool 2008: http://www.artinliverpool.com/mayming-and-the-long-walk/
09 June 2007 Faster Than Sound Festival @Bentwaters Airbase, Aldeburgh
Faster Than sound is a sound experiment joining the dots between musical genres and digital art forms. Following its first step in June 2006, FTS returns to the cold war environment of Bentwaters airbase for more explorations with sound.
Artists from various backgrounds will collaborate and explore the worlds of electronic music genres, contemporary classical practice and interactive visual arts. A range of installations, musical collaborations, a wireless walk in the woods, illuminated cold war buildings and a large dome filled with inspiring sounds will make this a day you wont forget.
There’ll be performances by Haswell and Hecker, Mira Calix and Tansy Davies, µ-Ziq, Modified Toy Orchestra; Installations from Loop, Jem Finer and Touch, and many more to be announced.
They’ll be music by: Murcof, Muziq, Plaid, Philip Jeck, Piere Bastien, Colleen, Dat Politics, Mira Calix, Tansy davies, Exaudi CHoir, Philip Neil Martin, Mayming, Modified Toy Orchestra, Powerplant, Camberwell Composers Collective.
Michael England – animation – visuals – photography
June 2008 Faster Than Sound Festival @Bentwaters Airbase, Aldeburgh
The Bunker – presented by Punchdrunk and Aldeburgh Music; music by Mayming
As part of the experimental music festival, Faster Than Sound, a balaclava-clad man drove audience members to a decommissioned nuclear bunker containing an unexpected sound-based experience. For one night only, they explored the space and discovered the durational performance by Seaming To and Semay Wu at the centre of the installation.
“…We make our way haphazardly through the rooms of dusty cold-war relics towards the echo of music. We find its source in a dimly lit room reminiscent of an old jazz club…wherein two women – one with a cello and the other set up with a microphone and laptop – create the most incredible dream-like ambient soundscapes….” -Ben Yates, Drowned in Sound
Mondo Mancunia @Shunt Lounge, London 2008
http://www.808state.com/Toolshed/news/2008/index.htm
http://kenhollings.blogspot.com/2008/10/mondo-mancunia-three-readings-and-two.html
http://factoryrecords.org/cerysmatic/mondo_mancunia.php
The Long Walk (originally devised in Morecambe, UK) – researched, devised, produced & composed by Pete Moser, MoreMusic. Last event in 3yr project went to Hong Kong, where Mayming was part of the music-making, workshopping and performing.
Mayming went on a China Tour 2009
PR Statement:
“Mayming deconstruct and manipulate conservatoire tropes in cunningly subversive ways. Anarchic chamber music for a new century of chaos.”
Seaming To and Semay Wu first worked together in Ninja Tunes’ Homelife over ten years ago, a highly influential Manchester band that helped shape their ideas on how a variety of musical styles can still fuse a very personal and fluid sound.
They perform regularly as Mayming as well as with highly regarded musicians and performers including; Jean-Claude Vannier (Serge Gainsbourg RIP), The Earlies, Robert Wyatt, King Creosote, Mr. Scruff, Herbaliser and Graham Massey. They have also worked extensively in community and theatre projects, including; Forkbeard Fantasy, Punch Drunk and The Long Walk; a major community project that won the arts council funding award in 2007.
Their project as Mayming is one of the more innovative and inspiring acts in the North West. They are both from a classically trained background and their music is charged with a variety of influences, forging a highly experimental and haunting sound that has reached an unusually wide-ranging audience.
Semay uses the cello as a subtle and powerful instrument that complements and drives Seaming’s stunning vocals. Both are looped and sampled to create a hypnotic free-form soundscape delivering a consistently emotive human story. There is a sense of haunting torch song dramatics adapting to a new world of technical possibilities. A highly cinematic and evocative sound that can shape-shift into diverse environments, turning the most unlikely of venues into their personal world.
“Wonderful swaying strings…akin to the soundtrack to Wong Ka Wai’s “In the Mood for Love soundtrack” – Dan Hill, BBC Experimental Review
“…We make our way haphazardly through the rooms of dusty cold-war relics towards the echo of music. We find its source in a dimly lit room reminiscent of an old jazz club…wherein two women – one with a cello and the other set up with a microphone and laptop – create the most incredible dream-like ambient soundscapes….” -Ben Yates, Drowned in Sound
Gigs:
March 31st – 191 space – Guangzhou
April 3rd – 021 space– Shanghai
April 14th – 2kolegas – Beijing
April 18th – WAMU theatre D22 – Beijing
April 23rd – C-union – Shenzhen
https://88-bar.com/2008/01/featured-artist-2/#s
We researched and booked our own tour with the help of:
Beijing: XiaoHe – legendary musician on the Underground Music Scene.
Beijing: Yanjun – legendary musician on the Underground Music Scene. Started a big movement.
Beijing: FengHao – amazing improvising musician who supported us in Beijing at 2Kolegas.
Beijing: the Beijinger Magazine – Lisa Liang Music Editor
Beijing: NeeBing AKA DJLychee – translation and contact person in China; let us stay at his apartment in Beijing whilst on tour; and helped promote it.
Beijing: Lu Ming – translation and contact person in China.
Beijing: Robert Allen – translation and contact person in China.
British Council Shanghai: Ophelia Huang, Zhao Bingbing,
Shanghai: Gogo Shan AKA Sheng Jie – Visual Artist who supported us in Beijing
Shanghai: Ben Houge – electronic musician who supported us in Beijing
British council Guangzhou: Echo Fu, Iris
Guangzhou: Artists – Du Lingyan, Victoria Durrer, xiaopeng huang, Wu Muqing,
Fuzhou: Melly Xie
Hong Kong/Shenzhen: PotpourriJazz – Peter Lee – translation and contact person for Shenzhen.
My family members who helped in Shenzhen: Cousin Daniel and Aunty Sinboon.
191 Space
121 Space
2Kolegas
D22
C-Union
Purgatory @St.Luke’s (Bombed Out Church) – Liverpool 15th March 2009: http://defnetmedia.com/publications/defcon/Purgatory_brochure.pdf
Cafe Oto 2009: http://fatroland.blogspot.com/search/label/mayming
Liverpool 2009: http://www.mercyonline.co.uk/who-we-are/what-we-are-up-to/article/gig-mayming
19th July 2009 – Moonlanding Party @Islington Mill
Mayming played Les Baxter’s Lunar Rhapsody and Moon River in honour of the first Moonlanding where Neil Armstrong took Les Baxter’s ‘Music out of the Moon’, to the moon.
Forkbeard Fantasy’s The Dong 2009, with Mayming playing Les Baxter’s Lunar Rhapsody
Made on Super 8mm film by Tim Britton for the Forkbeard Fantasy touring theatre show “Work Ethic” in 1987. The show was set in the loading bay of a dockland warehouse. It’s a Trainee’s Training film to show how vital the corrugated cardboard box is for the smooth running of global commerce. This version, complete with its dust, scratches, splices, fag-ash and beer stains, is the one and only original S8mm copy, shown over a thousand times in the live shows of Work Ethic and thenceforward by the fabulous jet-setting, brycremed, avant-garde film directors The Brittonioni Bros on Tour. Years later we filmed it on video, probably off a white wall, so the original could languish safely in the Archives of The Museum of Forkbeard.
Original Les Baxter – Lunar Rhapsody – taken up to the Moon by Neil Armstrong.
25th July 2009 – Mayming performed at the 25th Anniversary of Castlefield Gallery, an iconic independent artist space in Manchester.
“Castlefield Gallery is the centre to the periphery, which in my thinking is the best position to work from and where I want to be. Castlefield Gallery oozes with explorers and pioneers, and understands that the currency of a scene is its ability to import and export culture, not sit stagnant in its own melting pot.” Ryan Gander OBE, Castlefield Gallery Artist Patron
Established by artists in 1984, Castlefield Gallery is the first public contemporary visual art gallery to have opened in Manchester. The arrival of Castlefield Gallery in the city was a significant catalyst of what became a period of rapid cultural growth, and the increase of the presence of visual artists in the city and city region.
CODEC/X – New British Video and Sound Art2010
Suki Chan, Andy Hunwick, & Mayming:
Music and live performances (as Mayming) with with moving image/installation artist Suki Chan for Shadow Song, at Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, and Green Room, Manchester in 2003, and more recently vocals on Suki’s film Sleep Talk Sleep Walk.
Can’t remember the year of this: but St Clements Church was a great venue in Chorlton, S.Manchester. Triclops were renowned for their use of three ironing boards for their electronics!
Mayming begins to record in London with Gravidhands Record Label (Paul Lewis)..
2009 – 2011.
Front cover of album that never came out would have looked like this:
Love’s Philosophy –
Some of the texts (not our own poems) written in hand in the hope it would be part of the back of the vinyl casing.
Food, and the Great Wall
