Deep Time: I See Red

Fruitmarket’s annual festival of new music, Deep Time, returns for its third edition this November, curated by Diné (Navajo) composer, performer and artist Raven Chacon and titled I See Red.

I See Red is an acknowledgement of current urgencies of ecological, civil and political unrest through the liberation of loud noises. The title comes from a series of paintings by artist, curator and activist Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith that will be on display in Fruitmarket’s galleries at the same time. These paintings were made as expressions of anger; fires to be either lit or extinguished. Over three days, Raven Chacon and artists from the US, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Taiwan and Lebanon – Charmaine Lee, Li-Chin Li, John McCowen, Mazen Kerbaj, and Laima Leyton & Iggor Cavalera – will be prompted by these emergencies and by each other, responding with voice, sound and noise. Together they express present anger for unfolding horrors and reflect on ancestral traumas, while also seeking hope and connection through the experience of collective listening.  

The curator and artists of Deep Time will be in conversation with Carcross/Tagish First Nation curator, writer, and researcher Candice Hopkins over the festival. 

The exhibition of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s work, Wilding, will be open late until the start of the performances for each night of Deep Time. Also, on display on the ramp into the Warehouse, will be an exhibition of drawings by Deep Time artist Mazen Kerbaj made as an urgent call to protest and closely related to his performance, From One War to Another.

The Fruitmarket bar will be open before and after all the performances.

Tickets £10/PWYC

Visit event page and book tickets

Book a £25 three night Festival Pass

See full programme below

Charmaine Lee, Raven Chacon, Mazen Kerbaj

Raven Chacon
Moments of Silence, 2025

Sound performance
First performance, commissioned by Fruitmarket

A series of short, improvised works performed in quick succession. Using a variety of acoustic, electric, and electronic instruments, Raven Chacon’s experimental compositions range from sparse, minimalistic soundscapes to complex, multi-layered works that incorporate voices, noises, and found sounds. (40mins)

Mazen Kerbaj
lungless, 2025

Putin’s organ
UK premiere

lungless is a composition born from the painful nostalgia of Kerbaj’s childhood in East Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. After the war, the previously unbridgeable divide between the inhabitants of East and West Beirut was gradually overcome by the realisation of how similarly they had experienced the conflict, particularly in terms of the shared soundscapes that defined their lives. The title ‘lungless’ refers to the sound generated by an air compressor that activates the instrument with its simultaneously playable prepared trumpets, and figuratively to the inability to speak in the face of war’s violence. The instrument is nicknamed ‘Putin’s Organ’ referencing the Soviet rocket launcher launched in the Second World War which was heavily in use during the war in Beirut. The ‘organ’ here refers not only to the instrument, but also to the organ needed for the most vital of human activities: breathing. (20 mins)

Charmaine Lee
With sound design by Randall Dunn & live video by Mark Dorf

Molt, 2025

Voice, electronics
First performance, commissioned by Fruitmarket

Charmaine Lee explores the extremities of the human voice as material – breath, resonance, distortion and silence. Through extended vocal technique and real-time improvisation, she conjures a sound world that is both intimate and raw, sculpted in the moment. Sound design by Randall Dunn and live video by Mark Dorf expand the music to create a visceral, textural and atmospheric world. (30 mins)

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Charmaine Lee, Li-Chin Li, John McCowen, Mazen Kerbaj

Talk

Candice Hopkins in conversation with the curator and artists of Deep Time
(1 hour)

Charmaine Lee, Li-Chin Li, John McCowen
With sound design by Randall Dunn & live video by Mark Dorf
Noh Age 2025

Voice, electronics, parabolic microphones, tube amplifiers, contrabass clarinet, sheng
First performance, commissioned by Fruitmarket

A world premiere collaboration between Charmaine Lee (voice, electronics), Li-Chin Li (sheng), and John McCowen (contrabass clarinet). Noh Age entwines the breath-driven textures of clarinet and sheng with the volatile sonics of feedback and voice, creating a live dialogue of air, electricity, and resonance. Immersive sound design by Randall Dunn and live video by Mark Dorf expand the performance into an audiovisual space that is elemental and futuristic, woven live in sound and vision. (30 mins)

Mazen Kerbaj From One War to Another, 2025

UK premiere
Trumpet and crackle synth

Mazen Kerbaj blends acoustic, electro-acoustic and electronic sound to reflect on his past fears, his present anger, and his anxiety for the future as he is forced to witness the ongoing genocide in Gaza from a distance and is reminded of his experience of living through the 2006 Lebanon War, which he documented in his work Starry Night, a ‘duo for trumpet and bombs’ recorded from his balcony in Beirut during relentless attacks on the city. For From One War to Another, Kerbaj uses his own adapted version of the crackle synth (invented by his close friend Michel Waisvisz in the 1970s), one of the first battery-operated electronic instruments with integrated speakers which uses the physicality of the performer to generate sound. This is combined with Kerbaj’s personal approach to the trumpet, in which he uses everyday objects to prepare and transform the instrument, altering its form and sound. (40 mins)

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Candice Hopkins, Raven Chacon

Talk

Candice Hopkins and Raven Chacon in conversation about Deep Time: I See Red and the life, work and legacy of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Wilding, the exhibition of her work at Fruitmarket. (1 hour)

Iggor Cavalera, Laima Leyton

Laima Leyton & Iggor Cavalera,
Deep Red Noise, 2025

Toms, drums, synthesisers, voice, lights and visuals
First performance, commissioned by Fruitmarket

Laima Leyton and Iggor Cavalera present a performance that sonically reflects on embodied ancestral traumas of colonisation. Together they create a sonic interpretation of the colour red – associated with the beating heart, our roots, connection and separation from the land, and the womb as the place we all came from – using different frequencies and ‘Red Noise’ as a starting point. This immersive, pulsating cardiac rhythm builds to express vivacity, fear, anxiety, anger, dissolution, love and transcendence, inviting the audience to experience connection through an immersive experience of collective listening. (45 mins)

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Tickets £10/PWYC

Visit event page and book tickets

Book a £25 three night Festival Pass

Fruitmarket’s 2025–26 ‘Attached to Land: Mutual accountability within environmental permacrisis’ strand of creative enquiry continues, with exhibitions of work by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Ilana Halperin; a festival of new music curated by Raven Chacon; an exhibition of artists’ moving image works; plus our year-long collaboration with 2025 Gavin Wallace Fellow, Karine Polwart.

Deep Time has been supported by the Cockaigne Fund, administered by Foundation Scotland; Longrow Capital; the Marchus Trust; and Friends of Deep Time: Frank Krikhaar, Lee Qian.

Support the 2025 Deep Time programme by becoming a Friend of Deep Time – Find out more

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