Friday 18 April 2025, 7.30pm
Doors are at 7:30pm and music starts at 8pm.
Robyn Rocket will perform with Elaine Mitchener.
Brainwaves - a project created by David Ross to make music-making accessible to people with limited movement and learning disabilities - will present brain waves with Clive Bell and another artist to be confirmed.
It will be the launch of Robyn Rocket and People You May of Heard Of, a vinyl record funded through Kickstarter. The record was recorded over 3 days, in 3 different studios. Each day Robyn invited a different group of musicians, and each group had a mix of people from Cafe OTO, Total Refreshment Centre and the Learning Disability / Autism community.
We will listen to the album on vinyl while Rucksack Cinema and Samir fill the space with visuals accompanying the music.
“Robyn is doing brilliant and important work - the world needs more music like this. Just one word: listen!" - Giles Peterson
“Improvisation is an even, level, open field where we can share without fear or division.
Love when we come together to make sound
Love when we make sound together.
Don't you just love it when it all comes together?“
- Charles Hayward
“It has been such a joy to work with Robyn, especially when entering the fascinating world of Robyn’s Rocket and Avant Garde jazz. We had our fun moments, like when the fire alarm went off during our recording session of Mystery Man, and we just rolled with it and kept it in. It’s like nothing matters. It’s such an honour to be part of the world of Robyn’s Rocket and to listen to the many stories, expressions and colours that shine throughout the album.” - Sebastian Golgiri
Robyn's Rocket Social Story (docx)
Robyn Rocket : "Hi I'm Robyn Rocket I play space trumpet which is trumpet through guitar pedals. I am supported by arts Organisation Heart N Soul who believe in the power and talents of people with Learning Disabilities and Autistic people. I love making visual art too and make comics/zines and also enjoy making radio. I have a radio show on resonance fm called Robyn Rocket's Zoom Zoom and podcast series Robyn Rocket Zoom Zoom . I like playing with other people and making it up as we go along , because I think its a really honest way to make music your just responding to each other in the moment , rather then trying to play something perfectly , I am disabled and my disabilities inform my practice, both in the way I play , I have a very short , short term memory so cant really learn tunes by ear , but I can use a loop pedal to be like a extension of my memory But also I can use my creative practice to include more people firstly informed by my own experiences of feeling unwelcome in a space and then trying to change things to address the barriers I faced and then by actively trying to welcome people in who may not normally feel welcome in a space, and ask for their feedback on how to be more welcoming and try to do the feedback. I now provide access consultancy for promoters, venues and festivals. You can hear my music at https://robynrocket.bandcamp.com/"
Elaine Mitchener is a British Afro-Caribbean vocalist, movement artist and composer working between contemporary / experimental new music, free improvisation and visual art. She is currently a Wigmore Hall Associate Artist; was a DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Fellow (2022) and was an exhibiting artist in the British Art Show 9 (2021-22). In February 2022 Mitchener was awarded an MBE for Services to Music. Elaine is founder of the collective electroacoustic unit The Rolling Calf (with Jason Yarde and Neil Charles). Her regular collaborators include: composers George E Lewis, Jennifer Walshe, and Tansy Davies; visual artists Sonia Boyce, Christian Marclay and The Otolith Group; chamber ensembles Apartment House, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble MAM, Ensemble Klang, and Klangforum Wien; choreographer Dam van Huynh’s company; and experimental musicians such as Moor Mother, Loré Lixenberg, Saul Williams, Pat Thomas and David Toop. While developing her own projects, Elaine continues to work as a collaborative and interpretive singer.
Clive Bell is a musician, composer and writer with a specialist interest in the shakuhachi, khene (Thai mouth organ) and other East Asian wind instruments. He has travelled extensively in Japan (where he studied shakuhachi with the master Kohachiro Miyata), Thailand, Laos and Bali, researching music and meeting local practitioners. He currently tours with UK-based Japanese drumming group Taiko Meantime, and joins koto and shamisen players to perform the Japanese classical repertoire. He toured for over a decade with Jah Wobble, including shows at Ronnie Scott’s and the Glastonbury Festival.
Clive is the shakuhachi player on Karl Jenkins's album Requiem on EMI Classics, the final two Harry Potter movies, and the Hobbit. His shakuhachi playing has been featured live on Radio 3’s Late Junction and In Tune. In 2013 at the BFI, Sylvia Hallett and Clive Bell performed a live soundtrack for Walk Cheerfully, Yasujiro Ozu’s 1930 comedy gangster movie.
Clive Bell has a substantial recording history as both a solo artist (his solo album, Shakuhachi: The Japanese Flute was reissued in 2005 by ARC Records) and as a composer for film, TV and theatrical productions (Complicite, Kazuko Hohki, IOU, Whalley Range Allstars). Jazz pianist Taeko Kunishima, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, David Toop, Jochen Irmler of Faust and Bill Laswell number among Clive Bell's collaborators. Based in London, he writes regularly for the music monthly The Wire.
David Ross was born in 1967 in East London and lived and worked there until moving to rural Norfolk in 2016. He is a restless and eccentric artist who touches every instrument with his own unpredictable and disorientating sound.
David is a maker of bizarre electronics such as The Davestation, The Drosscilator, and is reportedly the only musician to have composed an album entirely using an analogue synthesizer built into a kettle. Alongside these devises, he also plays more conventional instruments such as Jew's Harp, Drums, Kalimba and Kantele.
He drummed in the 90s cult band Kenny Process Team and is currently a member of Twinkle3.
