Monday 11 January 2016, 8pm
Great to have American composer / performer, saxophonist, and sound designer, Bhob Rainey, presenting new electronic works at OTO.
Joining him on the bill will be Vactrol Park – the duo of Guido Zen and Kyle Martin – and the improvising quartet of Mark Wastel, Olie Brice, Dominic Lash and Alan Wilkinson.
Bhob Rainey is a composer / performer, saxophonist, and sound designer. In 1998, with trumpeter Greg Kelley, he founded the duo Nmperign, which quickly became a model for a new phase of non-idiomatic improvisation often referred to as "lowercase" or "EAI" (Electroacoustic Improvisation). In 2000 he founded The BSC, an improvising large ensemble, in which he developed techniques for an improvisational discipline that were eventually outlined in his 2011 publication, Manual. Throughout the late 1990's and early 2000's he performed globally and collaborated with numerous improvisers of both the (then) current and previous generations, including Axel Dörner, Andrea Neumann, Günter Müller, Michel Doneda, Lê Quan Ninh, and many others.
By the mid-2000's, while continuing to work in the realm of improvisation, Rainey began to produce electronic and algorithmic works. He spent five years collaborating with German composer Ralf Wehowsky (RLW) on the 2007 release, I don't think I can see you tonight, which, along with Nmperign and Jason Lescalleet's Love Me Two Times (2006), established him as a formidable electronic composer who synthesizes streams of Musique Concréte, computer music, and improvisation.
Throughout his career, Rainey has sought out cross-discipline collaborations, working with dancers, filmmakers, and theater companies. From 2012-2014 he worked with theater company New Paradise Labs to create The Adults, which premiered at the 2014 Philadelphia Fringe Festival to much acclaim. He created the soundtrack to Leah Ross's 2013 film, Levitate, which premiered that year at the Rooftop Film Festival in New York City, and he performed live in Jungwoong Kim's and Marion Ramirez's site-specific dance work, Capsized, at the National Asian American Theater Festival in Philadelphia in 2014.
Rainey was awarded the Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2013, and in 2014 he received a Subito grant from the American Composers Forum to complete a multimedia project with filmmaker Catherine Pancake. Among other things, he is currently working on a long-term project with New Paradise Labs dealing with radical contingency, as well as creating multichannel electronic works in collaboration with Chris Cooper under the moniker "Prants". To date, Rainey has over 30 releases as a leader or co-leader.
Vactrol Park is an honest outpouring of thematic obsession, a celebration of championed studio components and the mastery of their nuance, an avant garde collaboration between Kyle Martin (Land of Light, Spectral Empire) and Guido Zen (Gamers in Exile, Brain Machine, Potter Natalizia Zen).
ESP Institute have recently released "I" (the first of a 2 part EP series). This debut EP opens the door to a world of ebb and flow, layers of oscillation falling in and out of sync, keeping us on the brink of vertigo and, as cliché as it may sound, we find solace in its chaos.
For their performance they will be mainly using self-built modular synthesisers and analog drum machines.
Mark Wastell is a versatile improvising musician who has played a central role in the British improvised music scene for over a quarter of a century. He has performed and recorded extensively and his varied resume includes projects with Derek Bailey, Phil Durrant, John Butcher, Lasse Marhaug, Rhodri Davies, Simon H. Fell, Burkhard Beins, John Tilbury, Mattin, Mark Sanders, Tony Conrad, Evan Parker, Tim Barnes, Bernhard Günter, Keith Rowe, John Zorn, Peter Kowald, Joachim Nordwall, Otomo Yoshihide, Paul Dunmall, David Toop, Alan Wilkinson, Max Eastley, Hugh Davies, Julie Tippetts, Alan Skidmore, Mike Cooper, Chris Abrahams, Stewart Lee, Clive Bell, Arild Andersen, Jan Bang, Maggie Nicols, Thurston Moore and David Sylvian.
Olie Brice is a double bassist, improviser and composer. Raised in London and Jerusalem, he now lives by the sea in Hastings.
Olie Brice leads and composes for two groups, a trio (with Tom Challenger & Will Glaser) and an Octet (with Alex Bonney, Kim Macari, Jason Yarde, Rachel Musson, George Crowley, Cath Roberts & Johnny Hunter). Both of these groups were featured on the critically acclaimed double album ‘Fire Hills’. Previously Brice lead a quintet – “one of the most interesting and satisfying bands on the current UK scene” – which released two albums, ‘Immune to Clockwork’ and ‘Day After Day’. He has also composed a piece for improvising string quartet, ‘From the Mouths of Lions’, which will be released in 2024.
Brice is a committed free improviser, who has performed, toured and recorded with many of the leading names in the music. Frequent collaborators include Mark Sanders, Paul Dunmall, Rachel Musson, Tobias Delius, Cath Roberts and Luis Vicente, and he has also appeared with the likes of Evan Parker, Tony Malaby, John Butcher, Ingrid Laubrock, Ken Vandermark, Eddie Prevost and Louis Moholo. He is part of several ongoing improvising ensembles including Somersaults (with Tobias Delius & Mark Sanders) and The Acrylic Rib (with Albert Cirera & Nicolas Field).
Brice is also in demand as a bass player in creative ensembles led by many artists, including Dee Byrne’s Outlines and Out Front (Nick Malcolm’s quintet playing the music of Andrew Hill and Booker Little). He regularly performs at venues and festivals across Europe. Brice has been the recipient of Arts Council England funding multiple times and in 2021 received a composition commission from Jazz South.
“Brice makes the entire body of his bass sing. He has the ability to deliver a fractal line that is as purposeful as any by the great jazz bassists, but to do so within an entirely abstract setting” - Brian Morton, Point of Departure
Dominic Lash concentrates on the double bass and electric guitar. He works regularly with musicians including John Butcher, Angharad Davies, Emil Karlsen, Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas, and Alex Ward. He has lived and worked in Oxford, New York and Bristol, and is currently based in Cambridge where he and N.O. Moore curate the monthly improvised music series Soundhunt. He also runs the label Spoonhunt.
http://dominiclash.blogspot.co.uk/
After leaving Art College in Leeds in the late 1970s Wilkinson became involved in the music scene in the City playing in a variety of bands, whilst pursuing his passion for improvisation, promoting and playing alongside some of the great and upcoming names at his club night 'The Termite Club'. It was during this period that he joined forces with the drummer Paul Hession and the tragically deceased bassist Simon Fell to form the trio Hession/Wilkinson/Fell, described in The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette, as "a band that outdoes the old Brötzmann groups for sheer firepower". In the late 80s he was invited to tour with Company by Derek Bailey and subsequently featured in 2 London Companys one of which he co-curated. When he relocated to London in 1990 he was already a figure on the scene and has continued to play and promote the music through various club nights, especially flimflam at Ryans Bar N16, running since January 2001. Playing in innumerable ad hoc settings in the UK and beyond notable collaborators have included Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzmann, Akira Sakata, Thurston Moore, Chris Corsano, Eddie Prevost, Charles Hayward, Talibam! and Jason Spaceman. Long standing groups include a trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble, Norwegian group Akode, and a trio with Alex Ward and Jem Doulton.
"At its highest points, this session unleashes some of the most preposterously powerful energy jazz heard since Peter Brötzmann's Yatagarasu trio with Takeo Moriyama and Masahiko Satoh" - Daniel Spicer, The WIRE
