Mira Calix, the electronic producer celebrated for her intricate, extremely imaginative new music and seem artwork, has died aged 51.
Her label, Warp Information, introduced the information, and did not give a cause of dying. A statement posted to social media reported in component: “Mira was not only a massively proficient artist and composer, she was also a wonderful, caring human who touched the life of absolutely everyone who had the honour of operating with her … she pushed the boundaries amongst digital music, classical songs and art in a actually special way.”
Born Chantal Passamonte in South Africa in 1970, Calix moved to London in 1991 to pursue a career in new music, to start with working as a publicist for Warp alongside advertising and marketing club nights and DJing, in advance of releasing her new music with the label.
As with her labelmates, her perform realised the wide options of electronic output in playful and adventurous new music that had roots in club tradition but spanned a remarkably wide stylistic range, touching on ambient, sounds, neo-classical and much more.
She produced songs in the classic album format, beginning in 2000 with One particular on A single and most not too long ago with the sample-major Absent Origin, launched in 2021 and hailed as just one of her biggest is effective. But she also designed audio for installations these kinds of as My Top secret Heart, staged at London’s Royal Competition Hall in 2008, and the monolithic seem sculpture Very little Is Set In Stone, developed for the Cultural Olympiad along with the London 2012 Olympics, with Boris Johnson, then London mayor, stating: “Mira Calix has managed to wrest not blood, but songs from a stone, placing the audio into rock and producing a new cultural attraction.” Other public artworks appeared almost everywhere from a general public bus in Nanjing, China, to the Tower of London.
She also collaborated with opera and theatre corporations, including Opera North and the Royal Shakespeare Company, writing scores for productions of Julius Caesar and Coriolanus for the latter. Her 2003 work Nunu showcased the sound of dwell bugs on stage, whilst Within There Falls, a 2015 collaboration with Sydney Dance Firm, utilised concealed speakers worn by dancers in a mobile, 4-dimensional piece.
She as soon as mentioned of her boldly experimental nevertheless populist strategy, in reaction to elderly listeners who beloved one particular of her installations: “The whole piece was totally summary, but it built them experience one thing. They did not say, ‘This is much too weird’ … People like fantasy. We know this. But people today also like fairytales. And they like abstractions. Art is not just for arseholes. People today can deal with it.”
BBC 6 Tunes DJ Mary Anne Hobbs was amid those having to pay tribute to Calix, calling her “such an ingenious, pioneering artist … constantly questioning, always pushing.” The musician Gazelle Twin reported: “So so gut-wrenching to listen to this news of this sort of an remarkable, inspirational and unanimously cherished creator.”
