I went to SouthBank for the Ether festival the other night, and caught two very inspiring performances by Anna Meredith and James Blake (among others).

Anna Meredith

Anna Meredith [homepage] is a composer and performer of electronic and acoustic music. Her acoustic material has been performed around the world by many leading orchestras and ensembles. She has been composer in residence with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and is currently the PRS/RPS Composer in the House with Sinfonia ViVA.

Nautilus by Anna Meredith

She came to public attention through her 2008 work froms for the BBC Last Night of the Proms and has since written another BBC Prom commission, her first opera (Tarantula in Petrol Blue - with libretto by Philip Ridley) and collaborated with the beatboxer Shlomo - writing the acclaimed Concerto for Beatboxer and Orchestra. Anna is also a judge for the BBC Young Musician of the Year, a mentor for Goldie for the TV show Classic Goldie and a frequent guest and commentator for the BBC Proms and other Radio 3 and 4 shows.

James Blake

James Blake [wikipedia | homepage | youtube]is a British electronic composer from London, UK. James began his final year at Goldsmiths in September 2009 studying popular music while recording songs in his bedroom. Blake attended The Latymer School and released his debut 12” “Air and Lack Thereof” on Hemlock Audio in July 2009. It was a firm favourite with Gilles Peterson from BBC Radio 1. James was invited to do a special mix on Gilles Peterson’s worldwide show which included an exclusive Mount Kimbie track. On 6 January 2011, Blake was announced as runner-up in BBC's Sound of 2011 poll[1]. His self-titled debut album was released in the UK on 7 February 2011 a review here.

The performance the other night at the Purcell Room was magical: I found this video on youtube, it's not very good but the sound is ok:

Tim Exile

http://www.timexile.co.uk/ I've never heard about this electronic artist [homepage] before - but the other day I saw his name on the Ether festival program and got interested, so I looked for some his stuff online. Well, it's a pretty interesting character I must say! Real sorry to have missed his performance at Southbank. Definitely worth checking out his stuff.. he's now also working with electronic instruments seller Native Instruments (eg check out 'The Mouth' virtual instrument: video#1 and video#2.. very funny!).