Actress at Lincoln Center on October 21st

British electronic musician Actress brings his live A/V Radical Frame show to Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on October 21st as part of Unsound Festival’s three-night NYC residency. 

A former footballer, Darren J. Cunningham, aka Actress, moved from Wolverhampton to London where he became immersed in the local club scene. In 2004, he founded the music label, Werk Discs, through which he released his debut album, Hazyville, in 2008. He followed up with 2010’s Splazsh, which was listed by Pitchfork as one of the top 100 albums of the decade so far  with its immersive sound and high-class production. 2012’s R.I.P. was named Best New Album by Pitchfork and placed third on The Wire’s annual critics’ poll for best avant garde, electronic, experimental, and underground releases. On 2014’s Billboard-charting Ghettoville, Cunningham expanded his sonic world to create a textural soundscape mostly devoid of traditional beats, later commissioning artists to create visual interpretations of each of the songs for the album’s enthralling live performances. Following this release, he continued to experiment with other artforms, including taking part in a multimedia interpretation of Steve Reich’s Different Trains for the British Arts Council, a collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra, a short-film accompanying his 2020 album Karma & Desire, and the three-part audiovisual piece, Grey Interiors, for Berlin Art Week in 2021. 

On September 18th, Actress will release his 9th studio album, Radical Frame, from which he has put out the poetic “Live By You” (ft. CASISDEAD) and the hauntingly-sung, string-laden “Overchord.” Amidst his tour for the album, he will put on a series of special performances as part of Unsound Festival, a music festival originating in Krakow, Poland devoted to showcasing avant-garde and experimental music and associated visual media. The theme for this year’s festival, SOFT POWER, “asks what softness and power mean in a time of ‘might makes right,’ global lawlessness, artificial intelligence and algorithmic control – alongside a collective desire for comfort, cosiness, and safety that can feel incongruous” by exploring themes of intimacy, vulnerability, scale, authority, pressure, and volume. Actress’ portion of the show (the second of three that night) will feature an A/V performance that reworks the artist’s expansive two-decade discography (including unreleased music) through a new live system accompanied by a visual component by Filip Popik and lighting design by Shaun Murphy. The highly involved visuality of the show promises to seamlessly blend with Actress’ powerful mix of texture and tension, weaving together sonically and thematically rich soundscapes that pull in and consume the listener with grand-scale vision and masterful production chops. Drawing from a wide variety of art styles from dance to poetry to hip-hop to create stunningly ethereal, at times dark compositions, while occasionally eschewing typical song forms altogether, Cunningham has established himself as a major pioneer of modern experimental electronic music.

Don’t miss Actress at Lincoln Center on October 21st!

How to Get Actress Tickets

Presale tickets for Lincoln Center members go on sale here on September 2nd at 12pm, while general onsale begins on September 9th.

Location: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (Alice Tully Hall)

Address: 1941 Broadway at, W 65th St, New York, NY 10023

Show Time: 7:30 p.m.

Doors Open: 7 p.m.

Ticket Price: Choose-what-you-pay

Ages: All ages