Adrena Adrena

Adrena Adrena is a collaboration between visual artist Daisy Dickinson and drummer E-Da Kazuhisa, previously the drummer of the Japanese noise band Boredoms (WEA Japan, Reprise/Warner Brothers) and currently British electronic/post-rock band Seefeel (Rephlex, Warp Records). The duo cut a raw blend of drums, noise and organic visual work, featuring in their performances an eight foot white sphere that hangs above Kazuhisa’s drum kit and which Dickinson maps videos on to; her work was described by William Barns-Graham of Fluid Radio as ‘cosmological and transcendental, drawing attention to the wonder of the earth and our sensuality on it’.^[1]

Their debut was at the International Festival of Projections in early 2016, and they have since performed at End of the Road Festival, Supernormal Festival, Fort Process Festival, Zorofest in Leipzig, Splice Festival and other shows across the UK and Europe with Acid Mothers Temple and members of Wire and Bo Ningen.

In 2016, the pair completed a short film, Man on the Hill, which features E-da playing drums on fire in the mountains. The film has since been featured on the British Council Film^[2] website and in 2016 was nominated for The BFI London Film Festival,^[3] Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival,^[4] BAFTA qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival, The London Experimental Film Festival, Vienna Independent Short Film Festival and the London Short Film Festival.^[5] The film was also featured in i-D Magazine Japan, naming Daisy as one of the 5 most watched filmmakers in Japan at the moment.^[6]

After completing Man on the Hill, they went on to release their first music video Toy, premiering on the Ransom Note in 2017^[7] and following that appeared at various shows across the UK and Europe alongside the likes of Colin Newman & Malka Spigel's Immersion^[8] and London-based post-punk band Snapped Ankles, where their performance was described by Loud and Quiet as "it looked like a planet, a marble, the inside of a brain, or was filled by trapped insects and humans. The effect was transfixing, and comes highly recommended."^[9]

They are featured as one of Cafe Oto's artists, accompanied by a review from Gavin Burrows of Lucid Frenzy which reads "The centre of the stage was taken up by projections which, always simple and often semi-abstract, never stole the limelight from the music. It was more like watching a trio, just one at work on different senses to the others. Pretty soon you weren't taking in the sights and sounds as separate elements at all, but hand been induced into a kind of synaesthesia. And if that seems like we're reverting to Sixties terminology like 'trip' we might as well go with it.... it felt like a trip (man), like being taken through some other reality then dumped back in ours at the end." ^[10]

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