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June 21st
Tatsuya Nakatani & Neil Davidson
Martin Archer & Jez Riley French
Collins / Drury / Beck
£4 / 3. Free CD on entry!
Full
picture gallery
Solstice
Sound Ritual - Freenoise Opener at Bar Abbey 21.6.07. Review
Kicking
off in style with a great set from Bathysphere (since renamed
Sub-Merged due to a self-important label with the same name
getting into a girlie-fit about the use of the word!), they
are the new free percussion duo of Drury & Collins with
a (pun intended) floating member for this launch in the shape
of no other than Mick Beck, the tower of free jazz and improv
on tenor sax and basoon. Sparks literally flew as Drury hit
out at a metal ammo trunk with two big sticks of flint while
Collins played all things great and small from kalimba to a
mighty 40" Paiste gong festooned with an iron chain. Living
up to their name, water was at one point poured onto the kit
with an old garden watering can then played into a crescendo
of noise from the two drumsets and Beck's screaming, psychedelic
tenor ending with Drury stamping in a puddle (presumably taking
care with the microphone used for his sticky tape section...).
The range of restraint and minimal experimentation through to
the all out free jazz peak showed a serious commitment and a
lively, promising alchemy for Bathysphere.
An interlude
came in the shape of a premiere for the duo of Jez Riley-French
and Martin Archer taking to the altar with laptop instruments,
zithers and Archer's ecstatic sopranino. A highly meditative
set had the audience concentration gradually rising to an almost
palpable transcendency as layers of washes, drones, grain and
disembodied voice samples built. The unity created between performers
and audience was almost temple-like and wonderful to behold,
particularly with the lovely touches (courtesy of Bar Abbey
staff) of candles, incense and fairy lights.
Finally
Tatsuya Nakatani and Neil Davidson took to the floor (in addition
to Bathysphere preferring the floor for acoustics as well as
intimacy). Tats (to his friends) began pouring with sweat almost
immediately due to a powerful concentration while teasing out
a barrage of estranged and mysterious howls and squeals by scraping
various sized cymbals and pieces of cymbals across a large floor
tom. Neil, at 30 a relative youngster in the current zeitgeist,
meanwhile sat with beautiful sunburst semi acoustic on lap stroking
downward a wooden rod which sat on end on the pick-ups or played
with light pattering runs and smudges. The two had just played
nearly a fortnight continuously around the UK and a strong working
bond was evident not just from closed eyes concentration but
the powerful new sonic flavours and undertones materialising
from this brew. Though utilising the traditional combination
of drums (plus bowls and large bowed wind gong) and guitar a
very refreshing and unique show resulted. Tats also impressed
with his masterful punctuation using small sticks in an frightening,
almost martial style.
Review by
DiV, thanks.
Freenoise @ Bar
Abbey - June 21st 2007.
8pm
Tatsuya
Nakatani created his own instrumentation, effectively inventing
many instruments and extended techniques. He utilizes drumset,
bowed gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, metal objects, bells, and
various sticks and bows to create an intense, organic music
that defies category or genre. His music is based in improvised/
experimental music, jazz, free jazz, rock, and noise, yet retains
the sense of space and beauty found in traditional Japanese
folk music.
In addition to live solo and ensemble performances he works
as a sound designer for film and television. He also teaches
Masterclasses and Workshops at the University level. He also
heads H&H Production, an independent record label and recording
studio based in Easton, Pennsylvania. He was selected as a performing
artist for the Pennsylvania Performing Artist on Tour (PennPat)
roster as well as a Bronx Arts Council Individual Artist grant.
New in 2007, Nakatani has created a 9-piece Bowed-Gong performance,
which includes 40" and 35" gongs.
Tatsuya
Nakatani Website
"
Nakatani's sparse punctuation suggests observance of esoteric
ritual "
Julian Cowley, The Wire Magazine, UK
" Orchestral brilliance, Tatsuya Nakatani is a methodical
musician concerned with the development of an idea in time.
His beginnings are arresting; his endings are satisfying.
The right duration and variety of events are fully charged with
a visceral intensity that can captivate a true listener.....
...merits close listening. It will purify any space. "
Eric Zinman, Improvisor Magazine
" A master of percussive dynamics "
Derek Taylor, One Final Note Magazine
Neil
Davidson is an improvising guitar player.
In 2003 he formed the trio Age of Wire and String with Peter
Nicholson and Jamie Allen. In the same year he joined the Glasgow
Improvisers Orchestra, which has lead to a host of international
collaborations. Since then his playing has expanded to include
work with filmmaker Kate Burton, artists Aileen Campbell, Hanna
Tuulikki and composer Nick Fells.
He has performed in small and large (GIO) ensembles with musicians
such as Tatsuya Nakatani, Michel Doneda, Fred Frith, Keith Rowe,
Evan Parker, Satoko Fujii, Steve Nobel, Maggie Nicols, Olivier
Toulemonde, Nicolas Desmarchelier, Luke Fowler, Barry Guy, Maya
Homburger, Tom Bancroft…
Regular improvising ensembles include duos with Raymond MacDonald,
Peter Nicholson, Aileen Campbell and Una MacGlone.
Compositions include works for the Edinburgh Quartet and the
Scottish Ensemble.
"Davidson is an extraordinary talent; pity there's no
one at home bold enough to put out stuff like this." -
Brian Morton, The Wire
Martin
Archer - Sopranino,
alto and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet, bass recorder,
bass harmonica, harmonium, violectronics, keyboards, software
instruments.
Since his move in
the early 1990s from free jazz saxophonist to studio based electronics
composer, Archer has produced a series of highly acclaimed CDs
which combine electronics-based structures with written and
improvised parts for brass, woodwind, strings and voices. Elements
from jazz, free improvisation, contemporary classical music,
electronica, and cutting edge rock music are all present within
his work. As well as making solo releases, Archer regularly
collaborates in the studio with guitarist John Jasnoch (as ASK),
with Chris Bywater (as Transient v Resident) and with poet Geraldine
Monk. Since 2000, when he developed a live set up known as "violectronics",
which combines played-flat prepared violin with electronics
and vintage synthesizers, Archer's concerts, usually of improvised
music, have become more frequent.
As a live performer, Archer seeks to avoid the inert and inexpressive
performance style inherent in much live electronic music. Current
live performances include solo laptop concerts, improvised music
as part of the Notes and Sounds project, and as part of Gated
Community, Mick Beck's 14 piece improv and compositions band.
Archer acknowledges groups such as Faust, Henry Cow, Soft Machine
and Magma as being highly influential in his work alongside
Cage, Stockhausen, Feldman, and of course the school of European
free improvisation. This combination of sources makes Archer
a unique inhabitant of the school of English maverick composers.
Martin
Archer micro-site
Discus
Records - Archer's own renegade label
Jez
Riley French - improvised music / sound events....regular
in Hull....moments of quiet and of not quiet....people playing
instruments, floors, seeds, turntables, themselves....people
creating.... ....you are welcome to make suggestions for future
events....
"French proved he’s a stunningly accomplished
guitarist, pummeling fantastic melodies into the backing noise
created by the fearless Fonda creators of fascination. And with
Jez, the set always swaggers slowly-but-purely to a monumental
and happily deafening peak of raw guitar power that rocks the
very foundations of genuine originality in music. Jez Riley
is a genius. An absolute genius."
Steve Rudd. Dripfed
Jez
Riley French
Collins
/ Drury / Beck.
Intrepid experimental percussion duo meets head on with reedsmeister
Beck
(*since renamed Sub-Merged)
Charlie
Collins - vibraphone, waterphone, lamellaphones (mbira,
kalimba, karimba, marimbula), darabuka, metal percussion, flute.
Background in performance/improvisation and poetry/jazz led
to involvement in the nascent 1970's industrial scene. Founder
member of ClockDVA and The Box, recording for cult labels Industrial,
Fetish and Doublevision. Through the 1980's played with Derek
Bailey, Mick Beck's Feetpackets and The Modum Quartet and since
1992 also a member of industrial percussion group Left Hand
Right Hand. Has received a number of bursaries for composition,
live performance and research and been a visiting lecturer in
improvisation at Nottingham Trent University. His record production
skills at The Sound Kitchen led to being house producer for
Discus Records. He continues to perform live with poets Geraldine
Monk and Alan Halsey and has recently toured the live soundtrack
to Teinosuke Kinugasa's "Page of Madness". His long
term working relationship with John Jasnoch continues with The
Navigators (with Beatrix Ward-Fernandez), The Para-Music Ensemble
and The Balkh Trio (live interpretations of poet Jalaluddin
Rumi with vocalist Pete White). He remains one of the handful
of musicians to have played both Company Week and Top of the
Pops (with Moloko). (source - Discus)
Offical
site (Found Recordings)
Mick
Beck Composer, tenor saxophone, bassoon, whistles.
An innovative instrumentalist and composer
"Beck plays
tenor with conviction that can border on lawlessness."
Julian Cowley The Wire
"Beck's abstract resources extend to all manner of whistles
and squeals, but his tenor sax playing is a resourceful development
of Evan Parker's".The Guardian, May 2005
"…pushed along by beck's scorching post-Ayler tenor
sax"; Jazzwise November 2005
:"Able to double- and triple-tongue on a double reed, he
creates dissonant textures you wouldn't associate with the usual
orchestral instrument". Cadence Jazz Records no. 1164
"Mick Beck has been causing jaws to drop ….is now
getting something personal and unheralded out of the bassoon".The
Wire:
Current projects
include:
Gated Community - In 2005 Beck initiated a new 15-piece workshop
band to re-explore the interaction of composition and improvisation.
Ideal for festival performances. Solo tours particularly featuring
bassoon, eg Madrid, Barcelona, Australia, London. Work with
master drummer Paul Hession as a duo (recent tours to Canada
and Germany), and with other musicians (e.g., Derek Bailey leading
to issue of CD Meanwhile back in Sheffield (May 2005); Dave
Tucker leading to CD Shkrang: Some thoughts about, to be issued
shortly); Matt Wand; Tom Jenkinson; Steve Beresford; Pat Thomas
leading to CD The Three Bs; Milo Fine leading to CD Motion Ejecta;
J.D. Parran. Beck/Drenching/Pleasure, bassoon, bricks, and Dictaphones,
live performances plus CD Live at HOTS-OD, plus new release
"A low carbonation" to be issued shortly. Member of
Stephen Grew's Grew Trio (CDs … To Play Music, and It's
Morning). Beck/Lunch Improvors (bassoon plus writer/poet Out
to Lunch Ben Watson); Member of Hugh Metcalfe's Microtonal Megastars,
with Hugh on guitar and drum, and Alan Durant on bass. Work
with some DJ and electronics artists, e.g. Tom Jenkinson (Norwich
and London as part of the Squarepusher tour November 2005),
and with UTT Foster and Martin Archer in Varispeed. Jazz groups
working mainly with his own compositions, eg Linden Owen's The
Big Clutch (Monmouth Music Festival 2005), and other players
such as Pete Fairclough (drums) Pietro Lusvardi (bass).
As an improvising
big band leader to solo performer, Mick is known for his energy
and originality: his playing covers the full emotional gamut
from heartbreaking to mischievous, and from abstracts to compelling
swing. His improvising big band Feet Packets was unique in the
UK and influential in the late 1980s. In the 1990s he led many
small groups including the powerful free jazz trio Something
Else with Paul Hession and Simon Fell, which released two acclaimed
CDs. Since the nillennium, Beck's ground-breaking work with
the mysterious and humorous bassoon, supplemented by his use
of other wind instruments add many new sounds and moods. His
technical innovations and musical ideas are often a source of
inspiration to his collaborators on stage, and hehe works with
many of free music's best-known exponents. He is based in Sheffield,
plays regularly in London and elsewhere in the UK, and from
time to time in Spain, Germany, Austria, Canada and Australia.
He has worked with
many great musicians from saxists J.D. Parran to Alan Wilkinson,
from guitarists Derek Bailey to Hugh Metcalf, from percussionists
Tony Buck to Steve Noble and Paul Hession, from bassists Marcio
Mattos to Rainer Kuhn and Simon Fell, from pianists Chris Burn
to Stephen Grew and Pat Thomas.
Source - Discus
Jonny
Drury (aka Moodi) - drums, percussion, tabla,
guitar & FX, clarinet, vocals. Drury is an experimental
musician and visual artist from Sheffield, England with a strong,
driving rhythmic vein running throughout. Collaborated with
Genesis P-Orridge, flautist John Hackett (Steve Hackett Trio)
and in 2004 co-formed the duo Sunshine Panic with Glynn Heppenstall
(The Anti Group Conspiracy / Clock DVA) and in 2006 when Matt
Harling joined them on saxes The Tajalli Vortex was born. Established
reeds master Martin Archer joins the group occasionally, as
does the young and highly talented alto sax player Karl D'Silva.
Bassist Dan Sumption (Cathy Ray) joined the group in February
2007 and in March '07 Jonny's sister Annabel joined in with
vocals. On April 26th 2007 at the Nether Edge Club, Sheffield,
the group played a historic gig with Damo Suzuki (Can) and improv
'supergroup' Gated Community which set a precedent for outrageous
free music. As well as Freenoise prime mover, a painter and
(from Sep 07) a full time Contemporary Fine Art student, Drury
is also currently active with Charlie Collins (Clock DVA / Left
Hand Right Hand / The Box) in the new extreme percussion duo
Sub-Merged which incorporates a third floating member usually
on (but not limited to) reeds, brass or strings.
www.thetajallivortex.com
Bar
Abbey, Abbeydale Rd, S7 1FS.
On A61, 1.5 miles South of town centre, just before the Broadfield
pub. Local buses: 25/75/76/97
MAP
Access: one straight flight of stairs.
If you need assistance please ask, we are here to help. mob:
07754 910156
Further
Info
Some
of these events will have guest DJs so you can freak out more
after the show - we are working on it.
Support
for Freenoise Monthly Live comes from Notes & Sounds, the
event arm of Discus.
Bar Abbey
is situated inside the beautiful Grade II listed building of
the old Abbeydale
Picture House
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Freenoise 2007
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