This is a taster for Five Haiku, a series of livestreamed performances blending shakuhachi, birdsong, and electronics - performed live on-location from five nature spots in Waltham Forest, you are invited to take a walk and tune in as the day breaks.

Free at 7am on Saturdays: 20/03, 27/03, 3/04, 10/04 and 17/04, sign up here: https://www.wereallbats.co.uk/fivehaiku

Five Haiku (taster)

Livestreamed from River Lea, East London at 7am on Sat 3 April 2021 as part of a series of livestreams commissioned by We're All Bats.

Performed on shakuhachi with live electronics and contributions from the birds, it is partly an improvisation on the Japanese folk song, "Sakura sakura" and was inspired by this haiku by Basho:

"if I had a good voice
I would chant until
cherry blossoms scatter"

Haiku Three

With @aidajk as part of Making Tracks Residency and Tour 2020.

Kokû-Kökil (with Aida Zhakhanbek)

This shakuhachi and live electronics improvisation was streamed live at 5:31am on Saturday 1 May 2021 from River Lea, East London as part of Reveil Soundcamp (@soundtent) and in celebration of International Dawn Chorus Day. 

I had been returning to the same spot on the River Lea to play with the birds and the land every week for five weeks earlier in the spring, witnessing the broadening of the day and the arrival of the various inhabitants of that place, and finding my place within it.

Shakuhachi music is not defined by consistency of pitch and rhythm, but by blending the musical and the non-musical, inviting the sounds of the breath and imperfections in the construction of the instrument into its aesthetic. By letting those sounds in, we open up possibilities for listening to the world around us in different ways, creating a musical experience that includes the non-human.

Reveil Sound Camp 2021

River Lea x shakuhachi

A structured improvisation using shakuhachi and live electronics, a performance of a graphic score by Matthew Lee Knowles.

Performed on a 2.4 jinashi shakuhachi with VCV Rack.

New Graphic Score 2023

This year, on #InternationalDawnChorusDay, I took to the banks of River Lea, East London, to stream the sounds of dawn. I have visited this place since 2017 and have streamed dawn soundscapes since 2020 as part of @sound_camp #Soundtent #Reveil. After my broadcast is finished, I take my shakuhachi out and try to play some earth jazz.

This is one of the places closest to my heart - it is a really magical place where life comes into full spring in these early Spring days. To have visited this place regularly and tuned into the critters and more-than-human residents and neighbours is a privilege and real joy.

This is a short extract from an improvisation for shakuhachi and the River Lea.

#shakuhachi #尺八 #RiverLea #EastLondon #improvisation #morethanhuman

The Sampler Mixtape

beingwith dawn (5 May 2024)

Track #4 from umami-music EP launched in 2016, London.

Laonikos Psimikakis-Chalkokondylis (GR/FI) — xiao bamboo flutes
Chris Bartholomew (UK) - live electronics.

umami-music

four - umami-music EP 2016

David Rothenberg
Petri Kuljuntausta
Laonikos Psimikakis-Chalkokondylis
Carolyn Goodwin
Antonio Alemanno

3corners of the world PLUS guests

Remix of Gold Panda: Back Home, and 5th Ave
With extracts from Alan Watts' "Who is it that knows there is no ego?" lecture.

Gold Panda - BACK HOME (Laonikos remix, feat. Alan Watts)

taking a 1 minute walk through some of the sounds I like on the shakuhachi

shakuhachi walk

honshirabe 本調

hon-shirabe literally translates to "basic melody/tune" - it is considered one of the core pieces of the honkyoku school / tradition (zen monastic shakuhachi music)

Recorded on the banks of River Lea, London, mixed by Chris Bartholomew (@chrisbartholomew).

Photograph by Sean Kelly (https://www.seankellyphotos.com/)

Honshirabe

I am a creative artist and wilderness guide. I believe music happens everywhere in nature and humans, as part of nature, also partake in it but by no means exclusively so. 

I am in love with Finnish wilderness, hooked on Japanese philosophy and poetry, and really enjoy improvisation.

What fascinates me about improvising and being in the wilderness is that they both almost demand a certain presence, a being in-tune, listening. I see improvisation as a yet-unvisited wilderness, with its surprises and risks, the need for a certain humility and honesty; a landscape unravelling moment to moment as one treads through it.

I play the shakuhachi, dabble with eletronics, and love listening to birdsong.

Profile and cover photos taken by Sean Kelly (www.seankellyphotos.com)

laonikoss

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