Vanishing and Sonia Killmann

Vanishing is Gareth Smith, a Hull-born, Manchester-based artist and former engineer. Smith's music reflects his industrial roots. Words are his raw material; storytelling and communication are created, assembled, and reworked until meaning and purpose are found.

Influenced by electronic, industrial, and contemporary classic music, Smith uses a shifting cast of collaborators, including musicians, dancers, and filmmakers, to embellish and augment the spoken word centre of his work. Together, they create music, movement pieces, and film to help shape a story.

His new album, Shelter of the Opaque, was released in March 2024 and features several musicians from the UK experimental scene on strings, woodwind and modular electronics.

Sonia Killmann is a saxophone player, electronic musician, and audiovisual artist whose practice is deeply rooted in interdisciplinary work and collaborative processes. Sonia's recent work explores the relationship between improvisation, identity and space, drawing inspiration from Pauline Oliveros' concepts of collective listening and sonic meditation.

The composer explores this through experimental jazz, by merging the electronic sounds of modular synthesizers with acoustic instruments, such as the tenor saxophone. Since early 2022, they have been creating immersive experiences as an electronic and multimedia composer associated with Cryptic Glasgow.