Testing the Water presents: Melodie Blaison (live), Poole (live), Daksh (dj)

Come see in the spring with us, as we ease into new, warmer waters...\\nFor our first gig of 2026, we’re thrilled to be bringing two artists from out of town to a space we think is perfectly suited to their work.\\n\\nWith soft furnishings, floor mats, and a custom‑built sound system (plus a BYOB policy!), it creates the ideal environment for music that rewards close attention, and punters who are up for getting comfy.\\n\\nMélodie Blaison is a Brussels-based flautist and experimental composer, whose work dissolves the boundaries between instrumental performance, sound art, and immersive listening. Trained at the Conservatoire before expanding into visual arts and sound creation, she has developed a distinctive language rooted in breath, texture, and the evocative potential of sonic memory. \\n\\nAcross installations, concerts, and radio performances - whether opening for Loraine James or playing in a 17th century church - Blaison explores hybrid environments where sound, sculpture, and narrative intersect. Approaching the flute as a vessel for storytelling rather than a fixed instrument, her performances weave together transverse and ceramic flutes, field recordings, and analogue electronics to create sound worlds that feel intimate yet otherworldly.\\n\\nPoole is a Glasgow‑based electronic sound artist working at the intersection of environmental music, post‑digital sound practices, and folk traditions. His live work is immersive and textural, moving between meditative resonance and fractured digital landscapes, inviting listeners to experience sound as a living ecology shaped by touch, weathering, and transformation. \\n\\nSince releasing his sophomore record Ben Beinn, he has deepened his engagement with the materiality of sound, crafting basalt sculptures inspired by Pinuccio Sciola that function as both instruments and geological archives. Alongside these sculptures, Poole has built a lithophone from slate gathered on the Scottish Slate Isles, merging fieldwork, craft, and composition. These stones, activated through physical gesture and electronic augmentation, form the basis of new material developed for this performance.\\n\\nSitting alongside these two performances will be Daksh. Having cut his teeth at Edinburgh's Sneaky Pete’s - where he still regularly programmes his own night Membrane - Daksh has since been busy opening for some of our favourite artists, including James K and feeo. His recent appearance at Ormside Projects (since captured in this highly-recommended mix for Kiosk Radio) took us on a drift through warm ambient textures and field recordings, unfolding through moments of stillness and tension. We’re looking forward to him bringing that same careful ear and steadied, atmospheric touch to Shai Space.