RA: Sebastian Mullaert's Circle Of Live

From Rostanga, Sweden to Baskerville Hall in Wales, we tell the story of the first performance from Sebastian Mullaert's live collective.

Circle Of Live is a roving electronic jam led by the Swedish techno artist Sebastian Mullaert. It aims to break down the rigid structures of electronic performance, linking artists and their machines for something collaborative, open-ended and utterly improvised. The players, a rotating cast that can number as many as 14 at one time, follow Mullaert into a fluid volley of musical ideas, jumping in when they have something to add, the rest of the time hanging back and listening. At some point—maybe an hour or two into the set, maybe longer—a kind of lift-off is achieved: the artists find themselves in a state of drift, being led by the music more than the other way around, like a planchette across a Ouija board.

"There was one moment in the night when everyone sort of looked up and looked at each other in shock almost," Johanna Knutsson said of their first performance. "It really felt like we all talked with each other but just through music. We all talked about it afterwards and we all felt it."

That debut performance happened last summer at Freerotation, the small festival at Baskerville Hall in Wales. Mullaert, stood behind a spread of gear worthy of a NASA cockpit, was joined by Knutsson, Alexander Berg (better known as Dorisburg), minimal luminary Mathew Jonson, and Freerotation cofounders Steevio and Suzybee. As dusk fell on the hills outside, their rhythms ebbed and flowed for a crowd that stayed with them through the final note, which sounded some six hours after the first.

Here's the story of Circle Of Live's first performance.

Watch an hour-long excerpt of Circle Of Live's performance at Freerotation 2018.

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Sebastian Mullaert's Circle Of Live

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