Monday 22 April 2019, 7.30pm
Massimo Magee / saxophone
Ken Ikeda / electronics
Joshua Weitzel / shamisen
Eddie Prévost / drums, percussion
A founder-member of AMM (1965-2022)
“[Eddie Prévost’s] is one of the greatest metallurgists that music has produced. […] sparks delicately arcing through the air, of slow lava ingesting its surroundings, of the shifting grind of tectonic plates across each other, of the rustle and glint of a firebird darting between shadows, and of ore smashing into the surface of the earth; but perhaps this language is overwrought: all that needs to be remarked upon is Prévost's industry, his diligence.”
Nathan Moore — liner note to AMM’s ‘Indúsria’
Matchless Recordings mrcd105.
But beyond this work Prévost has also maintained a relationship with the jazz drum-kit.
“His free drumming flows superbly making perfect use of his formidable technique, but his most startling feature is his stylelessness. It’s as though there has never been an Elvin Jones or a Max Roach.” - review of a set with saxophonist Lou Gare, Melody Maker (27.03.1975)
“Prévost, meanwhile, was simply miraculous; it was fascinating to watch him and to compare his approach with that of a Kern or a Nilssen-Love. I can only say that he was possessed of an uncanny, burning intentness that navigated the ensemble through passages of stark, sculpted beauty, grave concentration and full-on, bristling energy.”
Blue Tomato, Vienna 2012. In concert with Marilyn Crispell and Harrison Smith. Richard Rees-Jones
“An excellent release from one of the finest percussionists around, jazz or otherwise.” review of Prévost’s solo CD ‘Collider’
Matchless Recordings mrcd106 – Brian Olewnic, Squidsear (2022).
“Relentlessly innovative yet full of swing and fire.” – Morning Star
Ken Ikeda is a composer and performer, born in Tokyo. He creates unique electric improvisation by a delicate combination of sine waves. After studying at Berklee College of Music, he has exhibited sound art and visual installations around the world. He has released five solo albums and collaborated on albums with David Toop, Eddie Prevost, John Russell, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Chihei Hatakeyama and many other improvising musicians; Also he has collaborated with, amongst others, visual artist Mariko Mori, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Tadanori Yokoo, Darren Almond; and composed and recorded for film maker David Lynch. He released CD albums from Touch, Spekk, Baskaru, White Paddy Mountain and Home Normal. Ken Ikeda currently lives and works in London, UK.
Joshua Weitzel (*1989 in Kassel) is a musician (Shamisen and Guitar) and curator active mostly in the field of experimental music, contemporary jazz and the grey areas in-between. His music is mainly concerned with exploration of contrast, abstract harmony and dynamics and employs a wide array of extended playing techniques.
Founder of Contemporary Shamisen Duo together with shamisen Master Ryota Saito and Ensemble for Experimental Chamber Music Kassel/Interrogation Quartet together with Chie Nagai, Ulrike Lentz and Massimo Magee, which recently debutet at the “Tage Neuer Musik in Weimar” Festival.
He further works/worked with many musicians from all over the world, among them Yumiko Tanaka, Eddie Prévost, Haco, Matthias Schubert, Liping Ting, Tetuzi Akiyama, Katsura Mouri, Simon Rose and many more. His concert series and organising activity in Kassel have become a driving force in the local improvised and experimental music scene, hosting many international artists and being supported in 2018 by municipal and federal funding.
Massimo Magee is a writer, artist and musician based in London. His work is wide-ranging, including fiction, text art, sound and image audiovisual digital art pieces, digital visual art, experimental music (improvised, composed and everything in between), free jazz, radically extended saxophony, electronics, data manipulation and much more. His new acoustic solo alto saxophone record, Toneflower, will be released in August 2022 on 577 Records from New York, a label he has worked with on numerous releases since 2020, including in Cyclone Trio with Tony Irving and Tim Green and in a quartet with Eddie Prévost, Ken Ikeda and Joshua Weitzel. The following month, his new audiovisual novel will be published by Eleusinian Press.
