Sunday 3 May 2015, 8pm
London-based American performer and composer, Ashley Paul, debuts her new trio with Olan Stephens and Ben Pritchard, performing tracks from her albums, Heat Source and Line The Clouds. Support comes from Glasgow-based artist Sue Tompkins, perhaps best known as the distinctive vocalist for the now sadly defunct band Life Without Buildings. Opening the evening with a solo set, will be songwriter Ben Pritchard, hot on the heels of his debut solo album on Wagtail Records – A Drawn Out Line.
Ashley Paul / saxophone, clarinet, voice, guitar
Olan Stephen / guitar, voice, electronics
Ben Pritchard / guitar, voice
“Dissonant chordal pluckings on a guitar, long tones on a clarinet and saxophone, a careful high voice creeping through it, bells and close-up noises of objects being shifted, pushed and scraped. Is it arranged? Is it made up on the spot? It’s almost all coming from Ashley Paul, a Brooklyn musician who sometimes sounds influenced by improvisers like Derek Bailey or Keith Rowe, and sometimes sounds as if she’s got nothing to do with any tradition at all — rather, a songwriter with a diaristic, private and flexible sense of what a song is.” – New York Times
Ashley Paul is an American performer and composer based in London. She uses an array of instruments including saxophone, clarinet, voice, guitar, bells and percussion, mixing disparate elements to create a colorful palate of sound that works its way into her intuitive songs; free forming, introverted melodies. This blend manifests beautiful and simple musical forms against acoustic experimentation.
Ashley has performed or recorded with Phill Niblock, Rashad Becker, Nik Colk Void, Loren Connors, Heatsick, Aki Onda, C. Spencer Yeh, Anthony Coleman, Bass Clef, Joe Maneri, Joe Morris, Seijiro Murayama, Greg Kelley, Bill Nace and Eli Keszler appearing on such labels as Important, PAN, ESP-DISK’ and Tzadik. She received a Masters of Music from New England Conservatory in 2007.
Sue Tompkins (born 1971) is a British visual and sound artist based in Glasgow. She is best known as vocalist for the now defunct indie rock band Life Without Buildings. Tompkins studied painting at the Glasgow School of Art, and graduated in 1994. Since 1997 she has worked collaboratively with the collective Elizabeth go (Victoria Morton, Sarah Tripp, Hayley Tompkins and Cathy Wilkes). Tompkins also provided the vocals for indie rock band Life Without Buildings, along with other students of the Glasgow School of Art. The group broke up in 2002. Sue Tompkins lives and works in Glasgow and is represented by The Modern Institute, Glasgow.
Ben Pritchard's music settles at a fragile point between song and experiment; at once destructive and delicate. Using prepared acoustic guitar, percussion and voice, his live performances draw on a raw spontaneity found in his recordings.
Debut solo album "A Drawn Out Line" to be released March 31, 2015 on Wagtail Records.
