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Ninja Tune's Stateless and The Balanescu Quartet set for special Union Chapel collaboration, September 2011

Posted: 12 years ago

It's a bold journey that Stateless find themselves on, from early demos being snapped by mega major Sony, to a solid eponymous debut on the uber cool !K7 label that cemented the band as an NME favourite, Worldwide touring with DJ Shadow, to their latest delivery, Matilda, to the mother of Brit independents, Ninja Tune.

Staying still has never been an option for the Leeds-born, now London-based quartet and this latest collaboration takes them into further uncharted territory. During the Matilda sessions, the band hooked up with the visionary Romanian led, The Balanescu Quartet. Having collaborated with contemporary classical giants like Michael Nyman and Gavin Bryars as well as nu-music innovators David Byrne, Keith Tippett and Spiritualized, they were the perfect foil to realise Gillian Wood's arrangements in the context of a record produced by the band's own Kidkanevil and Bjork / Prodigy draftee, Damian Taylor. The result has been well documented as one of the most sonically explosive records of the year, defying any true definition, except that it is clearly post-everything.

In this one off performance, we see these two forces stripping themselves of the dupstep frippery and take it back to a semi acoustic performance in the beautiful acoustic of the Union Chapel. Expect brand new arrangements, entirely new works, a microscopic attention to detail and an intimate intensity rarely witnessed.