Meira Asher

"Dissected" is singer / composer / percussionist Meira Asher's debut, self-produced album. It was greeted with amazement and shock upon its release last year in her native Israel. As a result, Meira Asher is now considered as one of the most radical and original artists in her country.

Her songs tackle a number issues that few artists dare to approach, especially in the Middle-East: incest, AIDS, torture during the Intifada, feminine sexuality... Her profound & savage lyrics (in Hebrew, Arabic & English) are offset against more serene fragments inspired by great erotic or philosophical texts from the Old Testament.

The music on "Dissected" is mainly based on voices, some electronics, and an array of percussion instruments (played mostly by Meira, with guest appearances by Rony Iwrin, by tabla player Hanif Khan, and by Yuval Gabay from Soul Coughing). Very special atmospheres, inspired by African, Indian and Middle-Eastern traditions, and disrupted now and again by harder, electronic grooves.

Meira Asher is also a very strong live performer. She has studied traditional percussion and dance in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. She has learned Dhrupad vocal techniques and tabla playing with master musicians in North India. She's worked in musicotherapy for autistic children and has taught percussion in several Israeli universities and music schools.

Meira is now involved in contemporary & industrial music. Her second album is a reflection of all these seemingly diverging influences, fused together by her strong will and vision.

Face_WSLOT (Woman See Lot of Things)
In spoken word, sound compositions, and text, the three women’s voices are the core of this publication. Their narratives are transcribed word by word, each one with her own dialect, typically mixing Pidgin English (Krio or Liberian English), English, and local languages (Temne, Bassa). These texts were then translated to English enabling the reader/listener to dive into their unique form of expression and follow the smallest nuances in the electro-acoustic CD compositions.

The women present their biographies in first person, each accompanied by a chronological route map and a video-still-image sequence with a specific theme.

In a further section, ‘Woman see’, they share their views on local female issues, providing additional dimensions to the involvement of women in the Sierra Leone and Liberia wars. Comprehensive description of the project’s structure, syntax and findings, thematic articles written by three contributors, and the documentation of the art installation part of the project, are included.

The income generated by the sales of this CD-book is directed towards third-level education support for women in Sierra Leone (TESI-WSL).

More info: www.bodylab.org

Infantry
Meira Asher is a composer/performer born in Tel Aviv. She studied percussion, voice and inter-disciplinary arts in Varanasi-India, Jerusalem, Ghana and at the California institute of the arts. Guy Harries works extensively as a flutist and vocalist. His current musical work consists mostly of the interactive combination of live electronics and acoustic instruments. 'Infantry'dives headlong into the harsh reality of a child in an adult's world. It is an intimate document exploring manipulation, militarist education and war. The mood shifts rapidly from the violent and tragic to the comic and grotesque, reflecting the ambiguous nature of the subject. The sound material draws from a wide scope of sources: extensive use of text and voice, recorded sounds of children in their natural or unnatural surroundings, acoustic instruments and a variety of the latest electronic techniques in the field of synthesis and sound processing. The album combines different genres; heavy beats, soundscape narratives, noise and theatrical elements merge into one. Both text and sound refer to different places, ranging from the middle east (where the artists grew up) and Africa to Europe. 'Infantry', although a painful and intense listening experience, cannot amount to the harshness of the reality it reflects. It will not leave you untouched. Digipack wallet with 20 page libretto booklet.

meiraasher.net