Wednesday 29 April 2020, 7.30pm
A welcome return to OTO for the trio of John Chantler (electronics), Seymour Wright (saxophone) and Steve Noble (drums) following the release of their new album, Atlantis.
Following closely on the heels of his ravishing solo album Tomorrow is Too Late, Stockholm-based synthesist and improviser John Chantler switches gears to unleash the stunning second album by his trio with saxophonist Seymour Wright and drummer Steve Noble, Atlantis. Chantler is well-known for his solo electronic work, which frequently explodes richly layered ambient soundscapes into visceral explosions and thrilling physicality, to say nothing of his imaginative experimentation with the organ, heard in radically transformed mode on the recent solo recording. But Chantler is equally invested in real-time improvisation and he’s developed a dazzling rapport and sound world with Wright and Noble, two of England’s most distinctive, active, and turbulent figures in spontaneous music over the last couple of decades. The pair has worked together in numerous contexts over the years, but it took Chantler to create an ongoing context for them, and since forming in 2017 the trio’s rigour and level of communication have steadily expanded.
John Chantler is a musician and organiser living in Stockholm, Sweden. He mostly works with synthesizers and electronics to create unpredictable, highly dynamic music where passages of spare, alien beauty bridge distorted washes of masses harmonics.
Originally from Australia he spent a decade in London before moving to Sweden where he directs a small annual festival for 'other music' in Stockholm called Edition. The 'Fifth Edition' is provisionally scheduled for early August 2020.
Chantler has performed in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, North America and across Europe including appearances at Akousma, Montreal; Madeira Dig; +90db Festival, Rome; Issue Project Room, NYC; and London’s Southbank Centre.
His work has been commissioned by Borealis Festival for Experimental Music in Bergen, Norway; Organ for the Senses, San Diego, USA; ElbPhilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany and Tectonics, Glasgow, UK. Chantler has also been artist-in-residence at the ZKM centre for media arts in Karlsruhe, Germany and NOTAM in Oslo, Norway.
Seymour Wright is a saxophonist. His work is about the creative, situated friction of learning, ideas, people and the saxophone – music, history and technique – actual and potential.
Seymour's solo music is documented on three widely-acclaimed collections - Seymour Wright of Derby (2008), Seymour Writes Back (2015) and Is This Right? (2017).
Current projects include: @xcrswx with Crystabel Riley; abaria with Ute Kanngiesser; [Ahmed] with Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip and Pat Thomas; GUO with Daniel Blumberg; XT with Paul Abbott; The Creaking Breeze Ensemble; a trans-atlantic duet with Andy Guthrie, and, with Jean-luc Guionnet a project addressing an imaginary lacunae in Aby Warburg's Atlas Mnemosyne.
@xcrswx
Steve Noble is London's leading drummer, a fearless and constantly inventive improviser whose super-precise, ultra-propulsive and hyper-detailed playing has galvanized encounters with Derek Bailey, Matthew Shipp, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, Stephen O'Malley, Joe McPhee, Alex Ward, Rhodri Davies and many, many more.
In the early eighties, Noble played with the Nigerian master drummer Elkan Ogunde, Rip Rig and Panic, Brion Gysin and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, before going on to work with the pianist Alex Maguire and with Derek Bailey (including Company Weeks 1987, 89 and 90). He was featured in the Bailey's excellent TV series on Improvisation for Channel 4 based on his book ‘Improvisation; its nature and practise’. He has toured and performed throughout Europe, Africa and America and currently leads the groups N.E.W (with John Edwards and Alex Ward) and DECOY (with John Edwards and Alexander Hawkins).
