Saturday 24 February 2024, 7.30pm
Three-day residency with the great Charles Hayward!
Charles Hayward is an English drummer/singer/composer and was a founding member of the experimental rock groups This Heat and Camberwell Now. He also played with early European improv group Mal Dean's Amazing Band and gigged and recorded with Phil Manzanera in Quiet Sun as well as a short stint with Gong. Since the late 80's he has concentrated on solo projects and collaborations, including Massacre (with Bill Laswell and Fred Frith), Monkey Puzzle Trio and Albert Newton (with Pat Thomas and John Edwards). The project This Is Not This Heat has recently completed a 3 year series of performances in UK, Europe, US and Japan.
Throughout a nearly 50 year career Charles has developed idiosyncratic attitudes and insights into a wide range of soundwork, spanning improvisation, song, sound as sound, using order and chaos as creative energies. He curates a six monthly series of performances, workshops and installation called Charles Hayward Presents on behalf of Lewisham Arthouse for Albany Theatre. Recent releases include ‘Objects of Desire’ cassette on Blank Editions and the piano centred song cycle ‘Begin Anywhere’ on Klanggalerie & God Unknown Records.
“As impassioned and animated offstage as behind his massive drumkit, Charles Hayward radiates a genuine intensity. He first came to wide attention as drummer with the highly influential This Heat as the embers of Post-Punk simmered off into wilder experimental tangents. He has released a dozen solo and colaborative albums, and puts on rare solo live shows which pull the raw muscular percussion at the heart of Rock into new shapes with devastatingly powerful results.” – Freq
"Telepathic magic……. Hayward is one of the most life-affirming people who stalks this dark globe." - SOUND PROJECTOR
Benjamin D. Duvall (b. 1986) is a UK-based artist.
For this show he will present a mesmeric new piece for sampler, trombone, text and amplified strings, exploring his ongoing research into Aeolian (wind-driven) instruments and this native Sefton coast.
He is primarily active as the founding member and creative director of the Liverpool-based group Ex-Easter Island Head (2009-), whose work makes frequent use of the possibilities afforded by mechanical preparations and extended playing techniques of multiple electric guitars, tuned and untuned percussion and other instruments.
Benjamin is also active as one half of the duo Land Trance with regular collaborator Andrew PM Hunt (Dialect, Raft of Trash, Outfit). The group have released two albums to critical acclaim - First Seance and Embassy Nocturnes - their collaborative LP with Manchester-based group Aging.
https://exeasterislandhead.bandcamp.com/
Land Trance (bandcamp.com)
Photo by Simon Gabriel
ABSTRACT CONCRETE is another big step for UK underground heavyweight Charles Hayward on his music journey (This Heat, Camberwell Now, Quiet Sun, Massacre).
ABSTRACT CONCRETE is music which spans a wide emotional landscape focussed on connection and communication using a genre fluid sound world of song, groove and fire with all the lyrical intensity the world demands right now.
Language: abstract/concrete, subject, verb, object.
ABSTRACT CONCRETE brings together some of the most exciting and forward-thinking young London players from a diversity of European underground scenes.
Agathe Max plays viola with the band but is best known as a collaborative violinist and composer with soundtracks for films, theatre and dance and performs solo throughout the UK and Europe.
Roberto Sassi plays electric guitar and electronics. His music world spans techno funk collective Snorkel through to large scale project London Improvisers Orchestra and music and sound design for video, dance and theatre.
Yoni Silver plays keyboards. On the album he extends group arrangements with clarinets and alto saxophone. His work ranges from the song minimalism of Ashley Paul through to the spectral Hyperion Ensemble.
Otto Willberg plays electric bass and double bass, explores the between zones, locks the groove down tight and wild. As part of Sound and Music’s initiative New Voices 2019, Otto created the site Bootleg Spatial Recall, a public sourced archive.
Charles Hayward plays drums and sings, bringing his intense energy to the group, questioning everything, making and sharing.
ABSTRACT CONCRETE sound is now, sound is here
Charles Hayward: begin anywhere
a set of piano songs from the album begin anywhere (2019)
