Wednesday 8 January 2020, 7.30pm
Takeover night from Jamaica – a band of varying noise musicians from London arts project, The Gate, featuring a range of instruments including percussion. Recently they supported Sly and the Family Drone and they sound like Harry Partch and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Tonight they perform with special guest musicians Robyn Steward (who invited them to their debut OTO show at one of her Robyn's Rocket nights here), Tom Wheatley, Ilan Volkov and Otto Willberg.
"I am a musician author and educator , I play Trumpet through guitar effect pedals,
I was classically trained age 8-15 but didn’t get anywhere as I have always been into Avante Garde minded, but in January 2016 I saw a band called spaceheads.
I also joined Tony Douglas MBE’s beginners big band and learnt how to use my ears." – Robyn Steward
Tom Wheatley is an artist and musician based in London. His work is patterns, rhythms and cycles, at an interface of physical and digital zones. Recently, his music has been documented on video and record.
His main collaborations are ТЕПЛОТА with Grundik Kasyansky, Cast-On with Ilana Blumberg, and various lineups & outputs with Daniel Blumberg, often including Billy Steiger, Ute Kanngiesser and Jim White.
Ilan Volkov, began his career as Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, and was Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from 2003-2009. Since then he has been the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor.
He is a frequent guest conductor with orchestras around the world, including BBC Scottish, and his recordings have won critical acclaim as well as prestigious awards. Volkov is very active in the new music scene and has premiered many contemporary orchestral works, including compositions by Jonathan Harvey, Hans Abrahamsen, Unsuk Chin, Mark-Anthony Turnage and others. Ilan Volkov also works regularly with leading ensembles in modern music such as Ensemble Modern and Musik Fabrik. Volkov has curated various new music events in Israel over the last six years including Hafarot Seder and Hapzura. He has also collaborated with Iancu Dumitrescu, AMM, John Butcher, John Oswald, Zeena Parkins and John Zorn to mention a few. Volkov is a member of the improvisation trio Mines, an ensemble consisting of two violins and drums.
Otto Willberg plays various bass instruments and lives in London. Live, Otto performs unashamedly melodic improvisational workouts created almost entirely with heavily filtered bass harmonica and electric bass. Strangely abstracted funk and fusion, a blend of the abstruse and immediate. silky smooth, luxurious, odd and compelling, "like listening to Eberhard Weber through a drainpipe”.
Otto is often heard on acoustic and electric bass with Laurie Tompkins (Yes Indeed) and Charles Hayward (Abstract Concrete//This Heat), as well as the fractured No Wave unit Historically Fucked. His previous solo releases have ranged from extended technique double bass to explorations of the acoustics of a 19th century artillery fort.
He has a solo record called ’The Leisure Principle’ out on Oren Ambarchi's the Black Truffle label. 6 unashamedly melodic & profoundly strange workouts for heavily filtered bass harmonica & electric bass!
