Remotion (remote/dynamic motion) is the first project of collaboration between the improvising artists; Beck and Drury together in England and Giust in Italy. Neither had heard each others recordings and furthermore the sections were then mixed together in an almost totally improvised way. We took this idea further and did some actual 'cut-ups' producing three more tracks. The swiftness of execution - around 30 days - is an indication of a focused drama of forces and the full process, from playing to making, aims to be as relevant as the resulting musical experience.
BLISTRAP w/ Phil Marks (USA) and Glynn Heppenstall, live @ Freenoise, Sheffield, December 5th 2008.
BLISTRAP w/ Stefano Giust (I) live @ Grind Sight Open Eye, Edinburgh, December 13rd 2008.
"An incredibly powerful trio driven by Italian drummer Stefano Giust, who never loses energy throughout the 40min improv. Complimented by the often textural, often piercing guitar of Jonny Drury and the ever-inventive Mick Beck on sax and slide-whistle. The three seem to blend well together and yet not afraid to follow their own ideas with conviction, a great combination for free playing. Afterwards a friend said to me 'amazing to be able to start with such intensity and then still take it up even higher.' This is free-jazz turned up to 11..." The Noise Upstairs, Manchester.
"Beck, Giust and Drury deliver a tripartite blitzkrieg of full-spectrum dominance skronk, mind-bending improv noise, and a rhythmic assault ranging from butterfly light to neutron star heavy. In a good way, that is. A pantechnicon of dionysian treats for the synapses, sinuses and bowels: you're worth it!" Zali Krishna - Klinker, London.
"Blistrap had a dark funk - a groove out of percussive arcs and balloons tied together with sneaky riffs into a tower of noise that had me rocking and howling." Grind Sight Open Eye, Edinburgh.
BLISTRAP combine crackling but sensual left-field free jazz and improv with an extreme visceral onslaught of pure noise. This focussed harnessing of sonic energy during the fully improvised sets comes from the members decades of devotion to spontaneous, energetic creativity and love of the art. Though every gig is entirely unique, essentially BLISTRAP are Beck and Drury, usually combining a selected free-drummer and occasionally a blower or keyboardist. The acclaimed UK tour in 2008 with Italy's Giust on rapid fire free drums (and occasionally avant garde storm trooper Phil Marks) provided UK audiences with the quintessential BLISTRAP sound. Beck's scorching and utterly lawless tenor is occasionally sprinkled with whistles and balloons that appear from nowhere, screams and shouts plunge listeners into further confusion. With Drury on anarchic Les Paul and manipulating outer limits electronics with his feet, the overall synergy of this trio is best appreciated the way they play - LIVE!
Press pack inc. live samples & document (zip file 25MB) here Press release (MSWord) here
Email: blistrap@gmail.com
MICK BECK is an improvising big band leader to solo performer, he 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 millennium, 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. Since 2005, Gated Community has been revisiting the boundaries between total musical freedom and novel compositions, and has played with Damo Suzuki as guest artist.
Beck's 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 covering a wide age range. He is based in Sheffield, plays regularly in London and elsewhere in the UK, and from time to time in Spain, Germany, Austria, France, Canada and Australia.
Mick Beck has worked among others with J.D. Parran, Alan Wilkinson, Derek Bailey, Hugh Metcalf, Tony Buck, Steve Noble, Chris Corsano, Paul Hession, Marcio Mattos, Simon Fell, Chris Burn, Stephen Grew, Pat Thomas, Steve Baresford.
JONNY DRURY is a self-taught improvising musician and multimedia artist and currently a full time student of Contemporary Fine Arts in Sheffield UK. In 2004 he set up and still runs the unique and thriving experimental label and events outfit, Freenoise inviting such diverse names as Whitehouse, Psychic TV, Sony Simmons, Sunburned Hand of the Man and many more to play and cross-pollinate at gigs with local musicians. He has co-organised events with Qujunktions, Harbingersound, Singing Knives, Notes & Sounds, No-Fi and [No.Signal]. Jonny's lengthy sojourn into spirituality he feels, has given him some insight into the personal nature of intuitive, experimental art and spontaneous improvising in music. This has brought him very quickly into contact with some of the best, innovative performers on the circuit, performing regularly with Mick Beck, Charlie Collins, Beatrix Ward-Fernandez, John Jasnoch, Martin Archer, Derek Saw (all prime stalwarts of the UK improv community) and recently played live with Chris Corsano (Sonic Youth, Bjork), John Russell and Stefan Keune. He has collaborated on recordings with John Hackett and Genesis P-Orridge and released thirteen albums to date.
Jonny is founder of a number of groups including Blistrap, Sunshine Panic, The Other Orchestra, The Tajalli Vortex, Black Serama and in the 90's one of the first popular European Sufi groups The Hidden Name. Activities include running a successful dance group and production of a commercial DVD with a commissioned soundtrack by the topmost contemporary Scottish musicians. Films continue to be a feature and his offbeat experimental work often provides the projected backdrop for shows. He is also a live artist (performance artist), instrumental in numerous projects in groups and solo.
Jonny’s open-ended and original approach to music and art means he is an innovator and an experimenter: as much at home improvising for the first time ever on piano live recently in a trio’s debut gig as he is playing electric guitar with cutting edge musicians or performing on a cliff-top with a community of live artists.
STEFANO GIUST (Italy) is an improviser musician, drummer, composer of electronic/acousmatic music, performer and producer. Born in 1968, he has started to recording his music at the age of 14. Since that period he has recorded 76 albums, as a leader and co-leader, with projects of improvisation, avant-jazz and electronic music. As acousmatic/electronic composer, some of his works have been used and commissioned by experimental film directors and video-artists.
Among others he has played with Gianni Gebbia, Tristan Honsinger, Luc Ex, Vincenzo Vasi, Roberto Bellatalla, Edoardo Marraffa, Andy Diagram, Roy Paci, Sakis Papadimitriou, Edoardo Ricci, Patrizia Oliva aka Madame P, Carlo Actis Dato, Massimo Falascone, Xabier Iriondo, Bob Marsh, Renato Ciunfrini, Vincenzo Ramaglia, Massimo Ceccarelli, Gianni Lenoci, Roberto Ottaviano, Luca Miti.
He has toured Italy, England, Scotland, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenja, Belgium.
In 1993 he founded the radical label Setola di Maiale, a catalogue of avant-garde musicians that today has produced about 140 discs and involved about 200 Italian and foreign musicians.
Stefano's powerful freestyle drumming has been compared to Robair, Corsano, Hession and his rapid and nimble yet colourful approach and openness to new music has attracted many admirers internationally.
BLISTRAP w/ Jules Vasylenko (USA) live @ Freenoise, Sheffield, September 26th 2008.
BLISTRAP w/ Stefano Giust (I) plus Hugh Metcalfe's poetry live @ Klinker, London, December 9th 2008.
71 minutes of experimental noise jazz.
More info here.
Listen on last.fm.
|˟˟| (pronounced 'gate') is a Tokyo-based experiment in solo improvisation on multiple instruments simultaneously. The project’s music is influenced / inspired by among others free jazz, noise, drone, industrial, and Mongolian and Japanese traditional music. See profile page for more information and links.
Just wanted to let you know (if you're vaguely interested) we're in the
Sheffield Star on Friday 9th - article about our new CD. You can see it
online at www.sheffieldstar.co.uk - just go to the music section.
DIATRIBES+JOAO PEDRO VIEGA+PAULO CURADO Travessia dos Respigadores freejazz/electroacoustic improv album on TEST TUBE netlabel music under CC by-nc-nd, copy & share it, thanks
DIATRIBES on tour: 01.10.2009, with dave kane (doublebass),..., Leeds, UK (TBC) 04.10.2009, with London Improvisor Orchestra, café otto, London, UK (TBC) 05.10.2009, with Hannah Marshall (cello) & Kay Grant (voice), st-leonard church, Shoreditch, London, UK 09.10.2009, with Jason Kahn (analog synth) & Christian Weber (doublebass),festival Musiques Obscures II, Spoutnik, Genève, CH 20.10.2009, with Emmanuel Scarpa (drums) & Pierre-Antoine Badaroux (sax), Grand-Guignol, Lyon, F 21.10.2009, with Daniel Monforte (doublebass) & Cutter_off (electronic), La Cave, Bourges, F 22.10.2009, with Daniel Monforte (doublebass), The Black Hawk, Tours, F 23.10.2009, with Jean Bordé (doublebass) + DR(DR)ONE, Café de Paris, Paris, F 25.10.2009, with suboku (trio), Molodoï, Strasbourg, F) 26.10.2009, with Jason Kahn (analog synth) , Tybolin, Bienne, CH 27.10.2009, with Jason Kahn (analog synth) , FIM, Basel, CH 30.10.2009, with jonas imhof (drums), sonarraum 64, Bern, CH
xNoBBQx Skewer 10" LP (Ltd to 300 copies) - Out May 12th
We first came across xNoBBQx (just call them No Barbeque, I guess) in Piccadilly Records last year when the Siltbreeze vinyl reissue of their first CD-r appeared on its shelves. The Siltbreeze label being a bastion of all that is great in terms of dirgy, lo-fi, transcendental unmusicality, we were thus intrigued to hear this slab. And, we have to say, it was one of the greatest shop-listening experiences of all time. Here was a duo, probably of fully grown men, bashing away at their instruments in a manner that suggested they had never really learned any 'proper' technique. We later read a review, in fact, that put it thus:
"So what exactly is the difference between an xNoBBQx recording and a couple of 14 year olds bashing instruments in the garage with record pressed down on one of their mum’s old tape recorders? Probably not a whole lot, actually, but I get the feeling that’s precisely the point. " (Cyclic Defrost)
Well, yes, that does largely seem to be the point. But it's a helluva point. The duo, in spite of their unabashed simplicity, manage to create sounds that are warm as an old-fashioned blanket, each piece having the ability to induce a state of complete, dribbling mental stasis. It's disjointed, scratchy and 'difficult', yes. But it also manages to be completely absorbing. If you like your rock deconstructed to the nth degree, we highly recommend you dig this.
Evan Parker - saxophones Stephen Grew - piano Phillip Marks - percussion
An all too rare appearance in Manchester by one of the great masters of the saxophone... Evan Parker has been at the forefront of improvised and experimental music for over forty years, with a unique and innovative approach to his instrument that has been hugely influential. A master of extended techniques like circular breathing and multiphonics, he's made over 200 albums with artists like Derek Bailey, Scott Walker, Robert Wyatt, Spring Heel Jack, Michael Nyman, Spiritualized, Cecil Taylor, John Stevens, Gavin Bryars, Brotherhood of Breath, Basil Kirchin, Peter Brotzmann, Han Bennink, Tony Oxley, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, London Jazz Composers Orchestra, Globe Unity Orchestra, Stan Tracey, Chris Corsano, Jah Wobble, Sainkho Namtchylak, Vic Reeves, Thurston Moore etc etc.....
He is joined by Stephen Grew on piano and Phillip Marks on percussion who have been making their own contributions to the world of adventurous improvisation for over 20 years. Those of you who saw them at last years Manchester Jazz Festival will know just how good they are...
One of the highlights of the Vortex London Jazz Festival – TIME OUT
Featuring Fyfe Dangerfield (from Guillemots), Gannets posit an alternative jazz history in which 30's swing developed straight into a combined form of the free jazz and fusion movements, without any of the intervening decades.
Fyfe Dangerfield - keyboards + electronics Alex J Ward - clarinet Christopher Cundy - bass clarinet Dominic Lash - double bass Steve Noble - drums
Online Now!
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