ABATTOIR "They have performed together in various combinations before in Amsterdam and Chen’s home city of Baltimore, but this was their first duo. Chen played cello with more finesse than I have seen her do before. When I have seen her in the past she has employed the cello and electronics mainly as drone instruments, with her often primal vocalizations leading the performance. Tonight her voice fed hungrily and playfully off her capricious cello playing. Devoted to not holding back when she performs, it was a pleasure to see her working so hard to match van Heumen’s often brutal digital transformations of her sound. There were several moments of pure psychedelia as van Heumen allowed untransposed, ungranulated repetitions of Chen’s voice to come through—often considered dangerous territory in some circles but used here in good taste. Van Heumen tends to play forcefully and loudly, and tonight was no exception. However, I noted positively that his choices seemed to be more calculated and considered than usual, with less attention given to his joystick controller and more focus on subtle actions and longer-term transformations. I loved it when, halfway through the second of two extended pieces, he took Chen’s keening voice and filtered it in such a way that, for a moment, it seemed that George Martin, the revered Beatles producer, had entered the room." Review by Keir Neuringer from a live concert at STEIM May 22, 2008. - Audrey Chen is a Chinese-American musician and performance artist born outside of Chicago in 1976. Using the cello, voice and analog electronics, Chen’s work focuses on the combination and layering of traditional and extended techniques. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is often extremely personal and visceral. Her performance work incorporates sound, movement and visual/sculptural concepts. Chen performs solo and in collaboration with a wide number of musicians and dancers. Among musicians, she has worked with many great improvisers, including Phil Minton, Elliott Sharp, Aki Onda, Phill Niblock, Frederic Blondy, Jim Pugliese, Alessandro Bosetti, Mike Cooper, Mats Gustafsson, Mazen Kerbaj, Michael Zerang, Tatsuya Nakatani, Le Quan Ninh, Joe Mcphee, Susan Alcorn, Michele Doneda, Paolo Angeli, and Gianni Gebbia. Some current projects include: duos with Phil Minton, Frederic Blondy, Robert van Heumen, Katt Hernandez, Nate Wooley, a new trio project with Nate Wooley and C. Spencer Yeh, 3AandE: with Seamus Cater, Robert van Heumen and Nate Wooley and Trockeneis: with Andy Hayleck, Dan Breen, Catherine Pancake and Paul Neidhardt. Chen has performed in Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Taiwan,China and the USA. She is currently based in Baltimore, MD USA where she is member of the Red room and High Zero Collective, an on-going series and international festival devoted to experimental improvised music. More PRESS about ABATTOIR: the middle child of the string family, the cello isn't heard from often enough in the improv world. those who do pick up the instrument in jazz and experimental musics—ron carter, tom cora, tristan honsinger, martin schutz and abdul wadud come to mind—only underscore the scarce beauty of its rich tone and broad range. but the unassuming violoncello does seem to be gaining in popularity in recent years and some younger players are joining the small legion of new music cellists. baltimore-based audrey chen is one of the most notable of the young cellists and abattoir, her duo with electronics manipulator robert von heumen, is a full round of beautiful playing and surprising turns. chen's dexterity as both an instrumentalist and a vocalist is fairly striking and with both voices she moves easily between the pretty and the ugly, not always in tandem. the acoustic strings and singing voice give a very human feeling to the cd, only to be undermined by van heuman's live processing. in his hands, chen's voice might start to develop an artificial sustain and within seconds be swirling like water down a drain. fragments of her cello playing seem to be preserved and regurgitated as blipping percussion. at other times, the electronic elements separate themselves fully away from the acoustic, giving the odd sensation of an unstable duet, sometimes merging into a complex solo and then dividing again into two. the guttural sounds both favor at times might prove difficult to some listeners, but the five tracks here are endlessly inventive. kurt gottschalk, 15 may 2010, allaboutjazz.com http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=34812 - with 'abattoir', the title of their first cd, cellist/vocalist audrey chen and electronic wizard robert of heumen give already a clear statement, that they don’t make music for fragile souls. the improvisations they produced and recorded at steim in amsterdam, find their origin in chen's sometimes orthodox and sometimes experimental played cello, and her voice. with the latter, she often seeks the extremes, and screeching or screaming sounds are more often at the order than melodious, beautiful ones. van heumen processes these acoustic sounds with the software on his laptop, so that it completely becomes indistinctly, if we hear chen live, or via a detour. that makes it intriguing, even how uncomfortable the music now and then is. and who is prepared, to make the sound world of the two his own, can find there an own beauty. herman te loo, 9 november 2009, jazzflits.nl - the album cover of "abattoir" looks very stylish. it is unadorned, simple made and perhaps that’s why it reflects fine taste. all evil rabbit records cds have the same outer cover, only the inlay card and the cd itself differ. through a circular opening one can see which specific cd it is. the design is by the recently deceased, young graphic artist, actor and cellist lysander le coultre. the ‘house photographer’ is monique besten.

 the power and essence of the music on "abattoir" is, that robert van heumen exploits and reinforces the expressive potential of audrey chen’s cello and voice with electronic distortions. this creates numerous possibilities. the chinese-american chen expresses her feelings in many different ways, from deep growls to ethereal, high, prayer like sounds and screams to whisper. recalling the album title "abattoir", her distorted voice indeed sounds sometimes as if there is a pig slaughtered. then again entire buildings seem to collapse, with brick and glass that begins to break into countless particles. as a female cat in heat, chen miaows, growls, screams and spins, enchanting all males from the neighborhood. choking and babbling she doesn’t bring up sweet feelings in the listener, who suddenly in his own house doesn’t feel at ease anymore. actually in the track "endless summer", something like a melodic theme is used by the cello; free improvisations around seem, as if they have nothing to do with the subject. the motif is repeated many times and then stops inexorably just when you could get in a trance. in the following, there are voice sounds, reminiscent of classic vocal exercises for articulation, such as chewing and resonance techniques. the song also contains an element of percussion, like someone clicking with a straw on a table. you also can hear this bright and quick clicking elsewhere on the cd, and as well high, fluttering flute tones, giving the prevailing tightness some air. jan jasper tamboer, 14 october 2009, jazzenzo.nl http://www.jazzenzo.nl/pivot/entry.php?id=2365 - featuring audrey chen on cello & vocals and robert van heumen on laptop & controllers. i am not familiar with mr. van heumen who i believe is from the netherlands where this disc was recorded, but i am a big fan of baltimore-based improviser & sonic sorceress audrey chen. i've caught ms. chen on a number of occasions and heard her play an astonishing duo set with tatsuya nakatani last sunday (1/31/10) at the stone. i can't think of a more magical and transportative improv set that i've attended in ages. audrey's approach to the cello and strange vocalizing are completely unique and utterly distinctive. for this disc audrey is working with another sonic wizard and like-minded improviser named robert van heumen. right away on "bloodknot" we know we are in for something special with layers of odd vocal sounds being manipulated and her cello droning suspensefully underneath. van heumen sounds like he is sampling the wind and/or altering static or quiet feedback. ms. chen uses her voice like instrument, bending and twisting it into all kinds of bizarre shapes. each sound is carefully selected and occasionally manipulated so that nothing is as it seems. sometimes that static erupts while different layers of vocal sounds enter from different places. there times when it if difficult to tell the vocals, cello and electronics apart since they are in a similar range and are equally brittle and consistently surprising. considering that this disc is an hour long, i found myself tranfixed and often at the edge of my seat wondering how they were making all of these remarkable sounds and what would come next. something incredible i assure you. bruce lee gallanter, 1 february 2010, downtown music gallery http://downtownmusicgallery.com/ - after a disquieting start, modulating on shrill guttural vocalizations and innervated with noisy and improvisational acts, robert van heumen intervenes on laptops and controller. he generates instrumental arrangements, selected by highly noisy drones, with supplemental clicks, hums, sudden changes of volume and various other audio events. the vocal evolutions of audrey chen are really extreme, as is - in a decidedly unconventional manner - her cello playing, which is also consistent with radical outcomes, channeling bristly and very imaginative audio convergences. digital brutalism in free form, vehement expressions, heightened efforts, wailings and atonal lamentations are all performed with uninterrupted breathing techniques - the electronic manipulation is relentless, full of powerful distortions, melancholic melodies and experimental combinations. authentic, intricate compositions, obviously not designed to please a mainstream audience, or to sit quietly in cautious research styles. aurelio cianciotta, 2 december 2009, neural.it + cyberpunk.biz http://www.neural.it/sound/2009/12/audrey_chen_robert_van_heumen_abattoir.phtml http://www.cyberpunk.biz/?cat=13 - wow. what a mighty blast this is. robert van heumen we know from his previous work in the field of laptops and improvisations while audrey chen on cello and vocals is a new name to me. chen screams, whispers, mumbles, talks and sometimes she does that with her voice, but perhaps more with her cello. its not easy to say that, as it seems that the laptop of van heumen is the overall controller of the sound. he too screams, whispers, mumbles and talks with the input given by chen, and not always at the same time. two worlds that collide and communicate. van heumen takes everything apart, melts them into bricks and builds a new house with it. heavy duty improvised music, but 'silence' is word that they hardly seem to know here. from the very first to the very last second things erupt like volcano. sometimes we are on top of that volcano, watching the eruption, then we see hot lava running down, slow but hot and powerful. this cd lasts about an hour, which seems quite long to me. it has a lot energy, this music, but it also exhausts the listener quite a bit. to give this your full attention is great, but you should be prepared for it. this music is not entertainment, a lazy laid-back recording, but it requires full, 100% attention. perhaps to be taken in a smaller doses then as a large 5inch pill it is now. play half, take a nap and then the rest. its rewarding however. fdw, vitalweekly.net, 14 september 2009 http://www.vitalweekly.net/696.html - (…) vocalist and cellist audrey chen and robert van heumen on laptop and controllers operate no less obstinate on the album abattoir. a permanent analog, as well as digitally originated de-familiarized shrieking accompanies these recordings from the amsterdam steim-music lab. in length between six to 13 minutes, chen & van heumen leave the pieces enough time to develop from formal branching up to a universal structure. especially nice is the shortest piece "endless summer", which is probably influenced by colleague fennesz. andreas fellinger, december 2009, magazin für musik und umgebung, http://freistil.klingt.org