Audio Foundation presents..
Delphine Dora (France)
Tamagawa (France)
Pumice (NZ)
Friday 20 November 2026
Presales UTR: $20 + BF
Door sales: $30
Members free
Delphine Dora is a prolific pianist and improviser from France. An eclectic explorer of language and
sound, Delphine is one of the most curious and surprising souls on the European avant-folk scene, capable of forging a musical universe in constant metamorphosis, arranged between several languages (English, French, German, Russian, imaginary languages) and genres (minimalism, improvisation, electroacoustic, folk).
Curator of the Wild Silence label, with which she has proposed other atypical experimenters (Powerdove, Sophie Cooper, Jackie McDowell), Delphine Dora has recorded much of her music on audio cassettes in very limited, hand-picked editions. While the best-known of her orchestrated albums is L’inattingible (2020), considered by Julia Holter to be one of the best records of the decade, there are several dozen titles to her name as well as scattered collaborations, from a duet with Marina Gusina on the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva in Russian to noisy and avant-garde projects (playing with Andrew Chalk, Josephine Foster, Keiji Haino and Valentina Magaletti, among others).
A self-taught visual artist and reader of rare sensitivity, she has devoted entire albums to translating the poetic works of her favourite poets into music: Sylvia Plath (Conversation among the ruins, 2013), Kathleen Raine (Eudaimon, 2018), Ingeborg Bachmann (Dunkles Zu Sagen, 2019), Walt Whitman (Multitudes I-II, 2013-2017), not to mention adaptations of verses by Saint-John Perse, Georg Trakl, Verlaine or Novalis, according to a literary sensibility that extends as far as Beckett’s Sarah Kane and Molloy.
Equally at home with old pipe organs, synthesizers and keyboards, immersed in the atmosphere of
churches and nature, Dora often becomes the voice of a place, at once embodied and ghostly, intimate and experimental. Her ecstatic litanies explore the subconscious of folk in forms of bliss both abstract and real, timeless ceremonies woven from voice and piano, bird chirps and rural sounds, electronic intuitions and barely perceptible drones. Close to Christina Carter, Brigitte Fontaine and Meredith Monk, Delphine Dora seems to evoke the American minimalists as much as Satie and Debussy, between fin de siècle phantasmagoria and avant-garde chiaroscuro. This is music without premeditation, a personal cartography made up of radiant flows of incandescence, fragile and iridescent impressions, at the very limit of musicality. A vast and luxuriant sound and literary imagination, encouraging us to become aware of our
sound environment, to turn the pages of the world between sound and silence, acoustics and electronics, instrumentation and field recordings. An invitation to dream the imperceptible, to enjoy impermanence, to be satisfied with the infinite.
Tamagawa is the solo project of Bertrand Gaude, member of Temple Solaire and Le
Club des Gens Speciaux, two noise groups released by the label Standard hi fi…but it
is with Tamagawa that Gaude, originally from Saint Etienne in France, is most active.
Building the mystery around his apartment cell from which he practically never goes
out, except to tour a bit everywhere on the planet (more than 300 concerts in Europe,
Japan and the United States), Tamagawa records records alternating minimalist
glittering guitars and analog synths.
Pumice is the musical moniker of New Zealand artist Stefan Neville, whose work is
characterized by a unique blend of lo-fi, experimental, and noise elements knitted
together with an undercurrent of pop sensibility. Through Pumice, Neville has
established himself as a mainstay of the underground music scene in New Zealand,
cultivating a dedicated following with his raw and often introspective soundscapes.
Much of his work encompasses a medley of unconventional instrumentations, field
recordings, and a DIY approach to production, echoing the ethos of outsider art within
the auditory realm.
Since the inception of Pumice in the late 1990s, Stefan Neville has been prolific,
releasing a substantial body of work that encompasses full-length albums, EPs, and
singles, as well as a host of collaborations and compilation contributions. The
releases “Phylis,” “A Car for a Kennel,” and “Eat Ate Tea” exemplify Neville’s
penchant for blending distorted melodies with fragmentary lyrical content, creating
music that feels simultaneously personal and elusive. With albums like “Quo” and
“Pebbles,” Pumice has continued to evolve, always keeping listeners on their toes,
while the contemplative tones of “Yeahnahvienna” and the textural landscapes of
“Out Of Eden” reflect the diverse facets of Neville’s creative expression. In the often
homogeneous world of music, Pumice stands out as an authentic and enigmatic
figure, inviting audiences into a realm where traditional musical boundaries cease to
exist.
