From Cafe OTO:
UNCONSCIOUS ARCHIVES: THE PERFECT MEDIUM IS THE WRONG MESSAGE
FRI 1 NOVEMBER ’13 • 7:30PM • £9 adv / £12 on the door
Exploring the dual meaning of ‘mediation’ within performance – the physicality of interpretation, and the psychogeographic mode of ritual (intervention, ghost/shadow, chemical/hack, seance/spook and invocation as divergent themes).
The fleeting trick of light from the corner of the eye, the brief contact point of chemicals intertwining and reacting, ghosts trapped in the home movie archive, non-human sounds and bodily digressions – ephemerality as told through the body’s appearance/disappearance.
OTO PROJECT SPACE // GUILLAUME VILTARD / AUDREY LAURO / MARK SANDERS TRIO + RACHEL MUSSON
SAT 2 NOVEMBER ’13 • 6PM • £5 on the door only
Early evening concert in the OTO project space featuring a solo set from Rachel Musson (tenor sax) and a trio of Guillaume Viltard (double-bass), Audrey Lauro (alto sax) and Mark Sanders (drums).
TRIPTYCH: LEVERTON FOX + INCH-TIME + STROBES
SAT 2 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door
TRIPTYCH: An ongoing itinerant soundclash presenting the work of independent labels and collectives based in London – 3 labels : 3 acts : 3 perspectives. This first event presents Leverton Fox (Not Applicable), Inch-time (Mystery Plays) and Strobes (Loop Collective).
THE THING + TOSHINORI KONDO – AFTERNOON SHOW
SUN 3 NOVEMBER ’13 • 4PM • £10 adv / £12 on the door
After a heavyweight 2-day residency in February, The Thing – Mats Gustafsson (sax/electronics), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (bass/electronics) and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) return to Cafe OTO with a free improvisatory style that dives into an expansive songbook including everything from Don Cherry and Norman Howard to PJ Harvey and The White Stripes. Also on the bill – playing solo and joining The Thing after their trio set – is the great Japanese trumpeter Toshinori Kondo. Having collaborated with the likes of Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, John Zorn and Fred Frith, Toshinori Kondo has honed a unique playing style that draws on electronics to seamless and startling effect.
MIYA / TERRY DAY / VERYAN WESTON / DOMINIC LASH / TREVOR WATTS
SUN 3 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £7 adv / £8 on the door
Legendary People Band drummer and improvisor Terry Day presents a quintet with Japanese flautist Miya, pianist Veryan Weston, Dominic Lash on double bass and Trevor Watts on saxophone. Connections run between all 5 musicians, with Terry Day and Miya being regular collaborators – Terry having toured Japan before giving Miya her first opportunity to play in London. Trevor Watts and Veryan Weston have been playing as a duo in the ‘Dialogues’ project for over 4 years, including a couple of tours in America, one in Australia & Brasil and some in Europe. They have also played together in other combinations since the seventies.
THE NECKS // THREE DAY RESIDENCY
MON 4 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • SOLD OUT
TUES 5 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • SOLD OUT
WED 6 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • SOLD OUT
The Necks are one of the most distinctive and compelling groups in music. This November they take up residency at Cafe OTO performing six sets over three nights. Together for 25 years The Necks have enthralled audiences worldwide with their compelling style of improvisation. Defying orthodox description, not entirely avant-garde, nor minimalist, nor ambient, nor jazz, their music is regularly described internationally as, simply, unique. Featuring lengthy pieces of slow-form development which build in mesmerizing, epic fashion frequently underpinned by an insistent pulse, their performances are never less than phenomenal.
TAPE + ÁINE O’DWYER + SLOW LISTENER
THU 7 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door
Swedish trio Tape was set up in 2000 by brothers Andreas and Johan Berthling with Tomas Hallonsten. Taking cues both from pop, experimentalism, and minimalism their sound has become recognized internationally and is clearly something of its own, embracing acoustic and electronic instruments to lyrical effect. Support from Irish instrumentalist and singer Áine O’Dwyer, whose crystaline, dreamlike songs unspool across harp, pipe organ and piano; and Slow Listener, whose most recent release of decomposing drones – ‘The Long Rain’ – has been making waves through Exotic Pylon Records.
TOUCH PRESENTS: ACHIM MOHNÉ + SOHRAB + JIYEON KIM
FRI 8 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • £10 adv / £12 on the door
Touch presents a triple bill of exploratory music with 3 artists each defining their own sonic territory. German artist Achim Mohné works across different media formats, blurring the edges between them and exploring unexpected uses of modern and outmoded technology. Sohrab is a Tehran based musician whose ambient works are both a product of his environment and a reaction against it. Jiyeon is a Korean sound artist whose experiments in resonance have led to an unconventional approach to field recording.
BODY/HEAD (KIM GORDON + BILL NACE) + HEATHER LEIGH
SUN 10 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • SOLD OUT
After a sold-out show here in February 2012, Body/Head – the coruscating electric guitar duo of Kim Gordon (CKM, Sonic Youth, Free Kitten) and Bill Nace (X.O.4, Vampire Belt, Ceylon Mange) – return to OTO on the back of new album Coming Apart. Usually performed against a backdrop of slow-motion film projection, Body/Head weave undulating barrages of feedback squall and somnambulic vocals that play around the shifting cross-sections of song structure and free-improvisation. Support comes courtesy of the customarily uncompromising vision and radical soundworld of Heather Leigh.
COLOUR OUT OF SPACE PRESENTS: DINOSAURS WITH HORNS + GEN KEN MONTGOMERY + GREG KELLEY + KENNY MILLIONS & RAT BASTARD
MON 11 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door
Brighton’s peerless experimental international out sound and art festival Colour Out Of Space comes to Cafe OTO for one night only following its sixth incarnation the weekend before. Sets from cryptic LAFMS-related group Dinosaurs With Horns, NY-based visual/sound artist Gen Ken Montgomery, improv trumpeter Greg Kelley, and a duo of avant-garde performance artist Kenny Millions and incendiary guitarist Rat Bastard.
GLENN JONES + DAN MELCHIOR
TUES 12 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door
Glenn Jones is a unique voice working in the decades-long tradition of American Primitivism. What sets him apart from the many devotees to this style is the combination of expressive playing and technical skill, most significantly his inventive use of alternate tunings and partial capos. As anyone knows who has seen him perform, Glenn is a remarkable storyteller, and his songs reflect that talent. The songs on Glenn’s latest, My Garden State, are evocative and redolent, and serve as a testament to Glenn’s talent for conveying a wide array of emotions, many times in one song, without saying a word.
‘THROBBING JESUS’ – HUGH METCALFE’S FILMS WITH.. BICYCLE CLIP SEX / AROSER ALLE / MATT SCOTT AND AMANDA DRUMMOND / STEVE HOMES FLAMENCO TRIO + NO.W.HERE WORKSHOP FILMS
THURS 14 NOVEMBER ’13 • 7.30PM • £5 adv / £6.50 on the door
For this special occasion the instigator, agitator, poet and musician Hugh Metcalfe comes to Oto with invited pack of musicians to share his multiple visions and sound gatherings.
During the past 30 ODD years Hugh has also been shooting films on Super 8, documenting every aspect of his life from birth to death and everything in between. His resultant huge body of film work (two week’s worth of film and counting) veers between hysterical catharsis, shocking provocation, mutant home movie, psycho geographical freefall and achingly beautiful, quasi-structural cine poem. Tonight’s proceedings will be centred around these films and their affinity with music and improvisation.
OTO PROJECT SPACE // FILM INSTALLATION: SOLO SOPRANO – A PORTRAIT OF LOL COXHILL BY HELEN PETTS
FRI 15 NOVEMBER ’13 • 12PM-8PM • PROJECT SPACE • FREE
Video and 5.1 sound installation
SAT 16 NOVEMBER ’13 • 12PM-8PM • PROJECT SPACE • FREE
Video and 5.1 sound installation
SAT 16 NOVEMBER ’13 • 5PM • PROJECT SPACE • FREE
Artist’s talk – Helen Petts, Mick Audsley and musician Steve Beresford.
SUN 17 NOVEMBER ’13 • 12PM-8PM • PROJECT SPACE • FREE
Video and 5.1 sound installation
Following its successful launch at the Full of Noises Festival, Helen Petts’ film comes to the OTO Project Space as part of the London Jazz Festival.
An exploration of the nature of creativity, artistic integrity, improvisation and ageing – through an intimate portrait of free improvising soprano saxophonist Lol Coxhill, who died last year. Specialising in the solo improvisation but also known for his work with soul singer Rufus Thomas, progressive rocker Kevin Ayers, the Damned, and film directors Sally Potter and Derek Jarman – Lol Coxhill was a leading member of the international free improvisation scene. He was a much loved personality as well as a great musician. This projected film installation features a 30 minute solo from the 2009 Freedom of the City Festival in London, intercut with archive footage from a documentary made in 1972 by Mick Audsley, Petts’ more intimate recordings of other Coxhill solo improvisations and footage of his personal archive of music, instruments, toys and ephemera.
BLACK TOP #9: PAT THOMAS, ORPHY ROBINSON AND SPECIAL GUESTS: MARCO ENEIDI, NEIL CHARLES, CLEVELAND WATKISS, BYRON WALLEN
FRI 15 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door / £14 2-day pass
Pat Thomas, Orphy Robinson and special guest: Marco Eneidi
SAT 16 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door / £14 2-day pass
Pat Thomas, Orphy Robinson and special guests: Neil Charles, Cleveland Watkiss, Byron Wallen
Black Top is back with the 9th event in the series for two nights for the London Jazz Festival. This time with series founders Pat Thomas (piano/electronics) and Orphy Robinson (vibes) will be joined by saxophonist Marco Eneidi on the first night and bassist Neil Charles, vocalist Cleveland Watkiss, and trumpeter Byron Wallen for the second.
The ad hoc ‘Black Top’ series is dedicated to exploring the intersection of live instruments and technology such as the looping and sampling used in dub, reggae and other worldly noises – using improvisation to explore these black influences but not necessarily from an African American perspective.
LUC EX ASSEMBLEE + SAMUEL BLASER TRIO + ELECTRIC EPIC
SUN 17 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £15 adv
High Octane triple bill of coruscating Euro-improv. Bassist Luc Ex – of cult Dutch proto-punk band The Ex fame – leads a quartet that features the brilliant drummer Hamid Drake alongside a pair of multi-generational reeds players, Ab Baars and Ingrid Laubrock.
The astonishing Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser leads a brand new trio with guitarist Marc Ducret and drummer Peter Bruun, whilst French saxophonist and sound explorer Guillaume Perret returns with the band that’s taken France by storm, winning this year’s talents jazz Adami Award.
URS LEIMGRUBER / JACQUES DEMIERRE / BARRE PHILLIPS TRIO + STEVE BERESFORD / PHILIPP WACHSMANN DUO + LEIMGRUBER / DEMIERRE / PHILLIPS / BERESFORD / WACHSMANN QUINTET
MON 18 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door
First of two nights featuring saxophonist Urs Leimgruber, pianist Jacques Demierre and bassist Barre Phillips for the London Jazz Festival. Tonight sees a Leimgruber / Demierre / Phillips trio, a duo of Steve Beresford & Philipp Wachsmann, and a quintet of all five.
DOMINIC LASH PRESENTS: CONSORTS (ANGHARAD DAVIES / TOM JACKSON / DOMINIC LASH / NICK MALCOLM / HANNAH MARSHALL / BENEDICT TAYLOR / ALEX WARD)
TUE 19 NOVEMBER ’13 • 6:00PM • OTO PROJECT SPACE • £5
Marrella Moulting is a new forty-five minute piece written by bassist Dominic Lash (Convergence Quartet, Set Ensemble, Predicate) for Consorts, a new ensemble he has convened with some of the most exciting and adventurous young musicians in London. Combining written notation with the extensive improvising experience of the septet, the piece also draws on the music of composers such as Phill Niblock and his work with sustained tones (albeit without Phill’s customary high-gain assault). Marrella Moulting promises an intense, dramatic and immersive experience.
JACQUES DEMIERRE & URS LEIMGRUBER 6IX (JACQUES DEMIERRE / OKKYUNG LEE / URS LEIMGRUBER / THOMAS LEHM / DOROTHEA SCHÜRCH / ROGER TURNER) + BARRE PHILLIPS / PHILIPP WACHSMANN DUO
TUE 19 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door
Second of two nights featuring saxophonist Urs Leimgruber, pianist Jacques Demierre and bassist Barre Phillips for the London Jazz Festival. Tonight sees a Philips/Wachsmann duo plus a set from the Jacques Demierre & Urs Leimgruber 6ix (Demierre/Lee/Lehn/Leimgruber/ Schürch/Turner).
OTO PROJECT SPACE // EMBEDDED IN THE FOREST: ANTOINE BERTIN + DAWN SCARFE
THU 21 NOVEMBER ’13 • OTO PROJECT SPACE • 5:30PM • FREE ENTRY
Over the past 18 months Antoine Bertin and Dawn Scarfe have been exploring England’s forests and developing work in response to these unique environments. In this special event the artists will present and discuss their work as Sound and Music’s first ever Embedded Composers-in-Residence with the Forestry Commission’s ‘Forest Art Works’ programme.
WADADA LEO SMITH: TEN FREEDOM SUMMERS
THU 21 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £18 adv / £22 on the door / £50 3-day pass
First Collection: Defining Moments in America
FRI 22 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £18 adv / £22 on the door / £50 3-day pass
Second Collection: What is Democracy?
SAT 23 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £18 adv / £22 on the door / £50 3-day pass
Third Collection: Ten Freedom Summers
Wadada Leo Smith presents the European premiere of his phenomenal large-scale masterwork – the complete Ten Freedom Summers suite – More than seven hours of music spread over three nights at Cafe OTO, with his Golden Quartet, a string section and a video projectionist. Ten Freedom Summers is inspired by the story of the civil rights movement, capturing defining moments in the history of the USA from the Niagara Falls Congress in 1905 to Martin Luther King’s Memphis speech. “Hope, anger, abstraction and grand aesthetic ambition come to bear in Smith’s inspirational work, bolstered by the charge of the new.” – Josef Woodard, LA Times (review of the Los Angeles premiere of Ten Freedom Summers).
NATE WOOLEY + SEYMOUR WRIGHT
SUN 24 NOVEMBER ’13 • 6:00PM • OTO PROJECT SPACE • £5
A special concert to mark the release of Nate Wooley and Seymour Wright’s debut duo recording “About Trumpet and Saxophone” on Fataka. Two of the most interesting improvisers from either side of the Atlantic, Wooley and Wright delve deep into the physicality and history of their chosen instruments, producing music that is by turns abrasive and delicate, considered and explosive, stripped down yet overflowing with possibility and event.
PREDICATE (ALEX WARD / TIM HILL / DOMINIC LASH / MARK SANDERS)
SUN 24 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • £7 adv / £8 on the door
Predicate is led by Alex Ward (“a compulsively creative polymath” – Stewart Lee; “one of those musicians who seems to get interesting music out of anything he touches” – Nate Dorward) and features Tim Hill on saxophones, Dominic Lash on double bass and Mark Sanders on drums.
Ward writes the compositions for the group and plays electric guitar (he is also known in other contexts as a clarinettist). The music, while often taking a high-energy free-jazz approach as its starting point, also incorporates the electric aggression of rock, the abstract interplay of non-idiomatic improvisation and a diverse range of compositional tactics into an intense and unclassifiable whole.
PAUL CLIPSON / LUKE YOUNGER (HELM) + DALGLISH
MON 25 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • £7 adv / £8 on the door
Film maker Paul Clipson pairs his saturated super8 film projections in a new collaboration with Luke Younger aka Helm. Since 2003, Clipson has collaborated on film/music performances, documentaries and short films with sound/music artists such as Tarentel, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Joshua Churchill, Robert Rich, Jim Haynes and Metal Rouge, projecting largely improvised in-camera edited experimental films employing multiple exposures, dissolves and macro imagery, that bring to light subconscious preoccupations and unexpected visual forms. Younger’s compositions build a dense aural landscape that touches on musique concrete, uncomfortable sound poetry, noise, and hallucinatory drones. Also on the bill is Berlin-based musician and producer Dalglish (aka Chris Douglas), who’s been crafting richly immersive algorithmic sound constructions over the past 20 years that play with and reconfigure the roots of electronic music.
KAMMER KLANG: PLUS-MINUS PERFORM MUSIC BY JOHANNES KREIDLER/NEWTON ARMSTRONG/BERNARD LANG + LEAFCUTTER JOHN
TUE 26 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8PM • £7 adv / on the door
For the final Kammer Klang of the 2013 series, ensemble Plus-Minus perform music by Johannes Kreidler, Newton Armstrong and a UK premiere by Bernard Lang, and electronic musician and improviser Leafcutter John presents his latest experiment with light controlled algorithmic music.
THE APOPHONICS (JOHN BUTCHER / JOHN EDWARDS / GINO ROBAIR)
WED 27 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door
John Butcher has played, separately, and mainly in duo, with Gino Robair and John Edwards since 1997. In 2008 the three first played together in the seven piece John Butcher Group – and the idea of forming a trio – The Apophonics – came to fruition in 2011 with some concerts in France and Belgium. In Spring 2012 they performed in Germany and Austria – and recorded a special session for BBC Radio 3′s Jazz on 3.
SOUNDCRASH PRESENTS: TERAKAFT
THURS 28 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • £15 adv
Comprised of two original members of Tinariwen, their sound is perhaps a more intense, purposeful slant on the desert-rock sound, with the subject matter of the songs adding an urgency to the delivery and the intensity of the beats, creating an atmosphere that celebrates a culture rich in artistry and diversity.
OTO PROJECT SPACE // WASTED FIVE YEARS RELEASE // JACK HARRIS + SAMUEL RODGERS / SARAH HUGHES + KOSTIS KILYMIS
FRI 29 NOVEMBER ’13 • OTO PROJECT SPACE • 6:00PM • £4 on the door
Organized Music from Thessaloniki is celebrating its latest release, ‘Wasted Five Years’, from the duo of Samuel Rodgers and Jack Harris. Rodgers and Harris have been close collaborators for a number of years, meshing feedback, amplification, electronics and field recording approaches into their own blend of improvised music. Going to great lengths to welcome the influence of ambient and environmental sounds into their work, this latest recording finds them playing along to the sounds of an empty office complex at Nuneaton, UK. For their performance at OTO Project Space, they will be performing alongside the urban noise of Dalston.
NOTATIONS – A FILM BY VICKI BENNETT WITH A LIVE SCORE BY JAAP BLONK + PHILIP JECK
FRI 29 NOVEMBER ’13 • 8:00PM • £8 adv / £10 on the door
Sound And Music and Tusk Music present Vicki Bennett’s film-collage-as-visual-score Notations, with a live score from visceral Dutch vocal improvisor Jaap Blonk and iconoclastic turntable alchemist Philip Jeck. Notations has been created by Vicki from hundreds of different film clips, where the content conceptually or literally portrays different kinds of ‘gestures’ or ‘instructions’ to be read by the improvising artists on stage as a visual score. This concert forms part of a tour for which Vicki and Tusk have recruited an impressive international cast of improvisers, each with radically different approaches and, as each show will feature a different combination of artists, every performance on the tour will be completely unique. The event will also begin with an audiovisual performance by People Like Us of Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another).
Filed under: Performances 
