In 1995, Stockhausen was asked to listen to the music of Aphex Twin, commenting that Aphex should ‘immediately stop with all these post-African repetitions’. Aphex Twin responded that Stockhausen might want to ‘stop making abstract, random patterns you can’t dance to’.

GBSR Duo: Stockhausen vs Aphex Twin

Southbank Centre

Originally written for ‘robots’ (solenoid drum machines and prepared player pianos), this transcription for live prepared pianos and percussion becomes a tightly-choreographed dance: the four musicians, freely changing roles and instruments, constantly alter the exact combination of screws, bolts and chains inside the pianos that transform them into the engines of Aphex’s acoustic techno.

After Dark: GBSR Duo Performs Aphex Twin

BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show presenter Kate Molleson describes Oliver Leith’s 2018 composition as “deadpan, subversive, quietly anarchic, disarmingly heart-sore and sweet-sour,” music that makes “masterful use of space, placement, sparse forces and really deft repetition.” Leith calls it a tender look at the simultaneously debilitating and beautiful irrationalities of our everyday lives; how our obsessions and compulsions surface and the rituals, superstitions and routines we all play out to appease our minds… and how that never really works. Created in collaboration with the GBSR Duo (percussionist George Barton and pianist Siwan Rhys, recipients of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award 2025), the work offers disarming reflections on performance, relationships, codependency and mental health, staged within an instrument-strewn setting inspired by the duo’s own flat.

Siwan Rhys

Events

Upcoming events

May 3, 2026

TECTONICS: GBSR Duo · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Past events

Jan 31, 2026

GBSR Duo: Stockhausen vs Aphex Twin · Southbank Centre

Jan 31, 2026

After Dark: GBSR Duo Performs Aphex Twin · Southbank Centre

Future and recently performed repertoire

Piano in Kontakte by Stockhausen

Southbank Centre

Piano in Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments by Twin

Southbank Centre

About

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