Monday 4 November 2019, 7.30pm
Bringing together Charles Hayward (This Heat, Camberwell Now) on drums and US bassist Tim Dahl (Lydia Lunch, Child Abuse) has been anticipated for some time. They finally met on stage this summer, the day after This Is Not This Heat’s final performance in New York (a journey that began at Cafe Oto back in 2016), at the newly opened Public Records, Brooklyn.
The duo instantly committed to an intensely observed reciprocity. Their unrestrained, fast-paced and continually intersecting inventions produced truly exploratory and idiosyncratic improvisation. As exhilarating for the audience as it was revelatory for the artists Charles Hayward later commented that “it was like playing with an alien”; words of serious import from an artist that looms so large in experimental music. For a second set they expanded to a trio introducing guest Alex Ward on both clarinet and guitar. Repeating the format for Café Oto Hayward and Dhal will play one set in duo and will then be joined this time by violinist Agathe Max.
Support comes from Doom Jazz trio GRID (Matt Nelson,Tim Dahl. Nick Podgurski) on their UK debut.
Produced by I-D.A Projects and supported by care in the community recordings.
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
Tim Dahl is a professional electric and double bass player, vocalist, keyboardist, and composer living in New York City since 1998. He is best known as the bass player and co-composer of the noise-rock band Child Abuse, GRID, Pulverize the Sound and Lydia Lunch's Retrovirus. He has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Japan. Tim has also performed with many notable musicians, composers and performers including Yusef Lateef, Archie Shepp, Eugene Chadbourne, John Zorn, Tatsuya Yoshida, Von Freeman, Stanley Jordan, Mary Halvorson, Malcolm Mooney, Marc Ribot, Brian Chase, Hamid Drake, Elliot Sharp, Weasel Walter, Marni Nixon etc. Tim is currently living in Brooklyn and is an active member in the music scene there.
Graduate in Electroacoustic Composition, violinist Agathe Max, besides her collaborations with KURO, Mésange, Papivores… works on different projects including music and sound design for documentaries, animated movies, short movies, theater, contemporary dance and art exhibitions/sound installations. After training in classical music for 1O years, she graduated at the Bourgoin-Jallieu School of Music, France, in 1995. Later on, she was exposed to improvised music and to the experimental scene. Inspired by a world both enchanting and draped in darkness, she has developed a wide range of sound textures, unique and melodious, creating unconventional and magnetic musical pieces reflecting a personality in constant search of rareness in music.
“Agathe Max delivers a drone to keep the earth turning on its axis, with a keen and romantic sense of swing. Everything you need to have a good time” – Jonathan Kane.
With an approach based in free jazz, GRID takes the plunge into darker, heavier and more psychedelic realms of improvised music. The trio, featuring Matt Nelson (Battle Trance: Elder Ones) on saxophone, Tim Dhal (Lydia Lunch; Pulverize the Sound; Child Abuse) on bass, and Nick Podgurski (Feast of the Epiphany; New Firmament) on drums, harnesses the clamorous spirit of free jazz while venturing beyond it’s acoustic borders through the implementation of electronic processing and dirge-like tempos akin to Doom and Sludge. Regarding their 2017 debut on NNA Tapes, Noisey called GRID “a three-way chat. It’s a conversation between musicians with differing musical opinions, but their debut album has become a shared dialogue that is as fluid as it is improvised”.
“The trio’s common denominator is 70’s free jazz - but that genre’s intensity at a gruelling pace, through manipulated electronics.” – NPR
“Though the textures are extreme in nature, and densely layered, GRID doesn’t seem primarily interested in bludgeoning listeners.” - Pitchfork
