Wednesday 31 August 2016, 6pm, OTO Project Space
Early evening performance in the Project Space from Steve Noble (drums) and Martin Küchen (saxophone).
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).
Multireedist Martin Küchen has been a prominent figure on scenes for experimental music and jazz for several decades. Apart from running his groove-based free jazz ensemble Angles, he’s frequently collaborating with musicians such as Keith Rowe, Martin Klapper, Steve Noble and Sophie Agnel (with the latter, he released a duo album in spring 2023). He’s also current with a jazzopera ro Angles plus strings and vocalist Elle-Kari Sander due to be released in spring 2024! His solo music is presented on several records, among them Utopia (2022), about which UK mag Freq wrote: "There is a solitude implicit in the minor tones as they drift, searching for something; but it is a desire to share, for you to be part of the evolution that is the album’s hidden strength. The sibilance of the reeds has a very human quality, and the soft reassurance is enough for the listener to let down defences and enter this abandoned souk, inhaling the odours and revelling in the sense of abandonment.”
