Since the early 2000's I have been collaborating with the Kurdish performance artist and musician Adalet Garmiany. Whilst a student at an art school I was working at in Hull , Adalet required my assistance in creating a sound piece for an installation he was making. Through this I became interested in Kurdish music and discovered that Adalet could play a variety of Kurdish instruments including the frame drum called a Def. The mesmerising fluid rhythms Adalet could create with this single drum resonated with the kind of electronic music I was making. Consequently we began to play together, improvised experiments combining elements of Kurdish folk and electronically generated sound which has led to number of live performances and recording sessions.

Adalet went on to establish the art organisation Artrole in 2004 which is dedicated to building a cultural bridge between the Middle East and the UK . Through this I have participated in events playing with other Kurdish musicians and UK sound artists, and in November 2009 was invited to perform at the festival of Post War Art & Culture in Iraq-KRG. Together with the artists Anne Bean, Richard Wilson and Miyako Narita, we created an audio visual performance piece entitled "GAMAI YARDAWARYAKAN (memory game)" staged at the notorious Red Jail in Sulymaniyah, a prison and interrogation center during Saddam Hussein's regime. The work featured members from a Kurdish folk band (Garian), an army of local university students, bells, watercooler shakers, rape-alarms, a bullet hole riddled watertank marimba, electronic noises, video projection, a lot of glows-sticks and Adalet's mother.

More about the artist Adalet Garmiany can be found on his website, http://www.adaletg.net/ ,and the projects of Artrole here, http://www.artrole.org/index.php