Confetti for the Blind

            Dutch soundartist, musician and interdisciplinary artist Jochem van Tol has ventures into offbeat, unbeaten paths between sound and performance, applying bygone or neglected arts and crafts in creative pioneering ways. Most notably longtime project The Paper Ensemble, which he founded alongside Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti; a holistic study in the musical proponents in everyday objects and materials, deep listening, and acoustics. Using custom-made paper sculptures in their performances, constantly
evolving dialogue where ordinary sounds become sentient characters.

As an alumnus of the The Hague Conservatory Interfaculty for Image & Sound, Van Tol’s work is as much a playground for extensive research as the act of creating. Van Tol’s projects often embody an exercise in patience, using both old and new techniques to explore all the possibilities, with an enthusiasm and passion for discarded and outdated things – materials that require attention and study to unlock their full sonic potential. His music with Ibelisse operates in a fringe pop idiom, yet harnesses Van Tol’s playful insistence to allow sound to have its own agency, with soundscapes, improvisational skirmishes and cinematic suspense to carry the music to unexpected places.

Since 2007 Jochem van Tol  has performed and exhibited extensively abroad, especially in Japan amongst artists like Yoko Ono, John Cage, Mamoru, Yukio Fujimoto, Francis Alys, Germaine Kruip, Toshi Ichiyanagi and Ken’ichi Nakagawa.


Jochem lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

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