Sunday 22 June 2025, 6–9pm
Living room music, domestic music, this is 𝐊𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐤.
There is a quiet “tradition” of making art that brings people together, for each other. We exchange together, and some of us get up and perform.
6-9pm, cross-generational, it's for ALL of the community.
Join us June 22nd at our FIRST Kantine Musik outside of Berlin, in Cafe OTO.
June 22nd with music and storytelling from:
PITCHFORK have previously called ZUMMO's trombone work “peerless” and have described his music as “the sound of sublimity…that sends shivers down the nervous system.” In an interview with THE QUIETUS, OPTIMO’s JD TWITCH characterised ZUMMO's playing as “sheer bliss.”
In addition to performing his own compositions and leading his own ensembles, ZUMMO has worked with myriad bands, orchestras, composers and musicians. His celebrated trombone style is recognized as one of the most beloved features of ARTHUR RUSSELL's sound, for whom he played and collaborated with in the recording studio. Among many others are PETER GORDON and his LOVE OF LIFE ORCHESTRA, drummer-producer TOM SKINNER (Hello Skinny), cellist-composer/producer OLIVER COATES, the LOUNGE LIZARDS, including the recording of TEO MACERO’s Fusion, which also featured the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Downtown Ensemble. He lives in New York City.
Caroline Kraabel is a London-based improviser.
In 2022 Kraabel brought together a large improvising group made up of all sorts of women, non-binary, and transgender improvisers: ONe_Orchestra New.
https://oneorchestranew.com/
Other active groups include:
Transitions Trio (with Charlotte Hug and Maggie Nicols); Fit To Burst, a song-based trio with Sarah Washington and John Edwards (https://carolinekraabel.bandcamp.com/album/fit-to-burst); a duo with Pat Thomas (on piano); the Poetry Quintet with Rowland Sutherland, John Edwards and Sofia Vaisman-Maturana, which incorporates live poetry from guest poets, including Moor Mother.
Kraabel has performed and recorded with many other excellent improvisers, including Robert Wyatt, Louis Moholo, Cleveland Watkiss, Hyelim Kim, Susan Alcorn, Veryan Weston, Mariá Portugal, Neil Metcalfe, Mark Sanders, Shima Kobayashi, and Chris Corsano.
Kraabel’s solo saxophone improvisations while walking in London and elsewhere with her infant child/ren in their pushcair were broadcast weekly 2002-2006 on Resonance 104.4 FM as Taking a Life for a Walk and more recently (without children) as Going Outside. Other radio work includes a series of interviews with improvisers in many media (music, dance, visual art, politics, activism), Why is Improvising Important.
Improvisers and Improvisation, made with John Edwards, is a 22-hour radio piece including music, noise, electronics, live performance and new interviews with improvisers; broadcast as part of 2022’s Radio Art Zone: https://radioart.zone/saturday-10-september
Some Kraabel compositions:
Performances for Large Saxophone Ensemble 1, 2, 3 and 4, for 21-piece spatial saxophone/voice ensemble; Get Used To Balancing, a suite of pieces for alto sax, percussion and two flutes; Now We Are One Two, a 45-minute solo performance; Recording The Other, for soprano, cello, flute, piano and four recording devices; LAST 1, 2 and 3 for pre-recorded voice (Robert Wyatt) and large ensemble; many songs; numerous pieces for large improvising ensembles in London and around the world, including Une note n’écoutant qu’elle-même and Missing.
Kraabel’s 40-minute soundfilm about lockdown London (London 26 and 28 March 2020: imitation: inversion, https://vimeo.com/505430655) received its avant-première at Café Oto in 2021, is available on the Jazzed app, and won the 2021 Ivor Novello Award for Sound Art Composer.
Kraabel conducted, devised pieces for, and played with the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO) from 1998-2022, and organised their 20th anniversary celebrations, which featured celebrated LIO members from throughout the group’s history.
http://www.masskraabel.com/
https://carolinekraabel.bandcamp.com/
https://oneorchestranew.com/
https://oneorchestranew.bandcamp.com/releases
https://lonelyimpulsecollective.bandcamp.com/
https://jazzed.com/
Whether combining the rhythmic timbres of wood, metal and audience claps or duetting with the atmospheric and elegiac echoed sounds of water dripping into a metal basin, Bex Burch is a composer, percussionist, instrument maker and improviser who emphasises space, repetition and aspects of chaos. These themes characterise an ongoing approach she describes as “messy minimalism”.
Burch’s critically acclaimed 2023 solo album, 'There is only love and fear' was released via Chicago’s International Anthem and named The Guardian's Contemporary Album of the Month. She runs the label, Vula Viel Records, the domestic music event, Kantine Musik, and has collaborated with influential artists including Thomas Sekgura, Leafcutter John as part of ‘Boing!’, Tamar Osborn, Sarathy Korwar, Al MacSween and Danalogue in ‘Flock’, Peter Zummo, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Ben LaMar Gay, Dan Bitney and Macie Stewart.
Bex completed an 18-month instrument-making apprenticeship in Ghana in 2008 with master gyil player Thomas Sekgura, a formative experience alongside her questing spirit which has informed her career since, from the open-hearted collaborations of her musical releases to the creation of a new xylophone she handmade under Jamie Linwood’s mentorship, tuning its harmonics to maximise the resonances she wanted to hear. – Bex’s music continues to evolve. More is to come as Bex’s wide-eyed approach continues to break new musical ground.
