Sunday 18 August 2019, 7.30pm
Strange Umbrellas are unique events of experimental music, free improvisation, film and art in London and elsewhere.
It was founded in 2013 by artist & curator Blanca Regina and free improviser & composer Steve Beresford. Later they were joined by experimental musician & musicologist Jack Goldstein and film curator & visual artist Pierre Bouvier Patron.
Music:
- Steve Beresford & Crystabel Riley (piano and electronic & drums)
- Najma Akhtar ( voice and harmonium)
- Art Terry (voice & piano)
- Steven Ball
Short films:
- cadavre exquis (2019) by Pierre Bouvier Patron & Blanca Regina
- The Bathers Series: Swimmer (1987) by Michael Maziere
- Negative Space (2018) by Laura Trager
During the late noughties Crystabel Efemena Riley toured Japan and Europe using drums, electronics and make-up in power-noise trio Maria and the Mirrors. This was the start of her interest in patterns on skins — human and drum. An interest in dimensional patterns existing on (and off) different surfaces has continued to evolve through exploring the idea of 'care and uncare' of various skin surfaces. Crystabel has been a long-term collaborator with Sue Lynch who welcomed her into the Horse Improvised Music Club and later played in the London Improvisers Orchestra. She is currently working on the multi-format duo project @xcrswx with Seymour Wright and recently released a split vinyl with Lolina.
NAJMA AKHTAR, British born, vocalist, songwriter and actor, has an important place in music history by introducing Jazz to the traditional genre of the Ghazal (Urdu ballad), thereby creating the new musical genre of World Music.
Having been at the forefront of the World Music scene for two decades, Najma has proved to be a successful and versatile artist, renowned for using modern jazz influences with Indian vocals, creating a beautiful fusion of eastern and western styles, pushing the sound barriers by introducing Blues, Rock and other eclectic influences to new and undiscovered frontiers.
This iconic pioneer’s presence on the World Music scene had led to a new wave of inspired Asian artists of Indian descent following in her footsteps.
She has released eight critically acclaimed solo albums and has collaborated with many world-class artists, as diverse as Jah Wobble, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Andy Summers (The Police), Basement Jaxx, Jethro Tull, Philip Glass and Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart). She was in several musical and creative theatre projects: ‘Bollywood Dreams’ with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tara Arts and the National Theatre. Najma is set to release her new album, ‘Five Rivers’.
Dr MICHAEL MAZIERE is an artist and curator who studied Creative Photography at Nottingham Trent Polytechnic and Film and Television at the Royal College of Art. His practice encompasses the production of artworks, the curation of exhibitions, lecturing and writing about artists' film and video. Maziere is currently a Reader in Film and Video and before joining the University, he was a Research Fellow at the British Artists' Film and Video Study Collection at the University of the Arts, London.
LAURA TRAGER (*1987) holds a Bachelor of Arts in Media-Culture from Bauhaus-University in Weimar, Germany, and a Master of Arts in Media Studies from The New School, NYC. With a background in media and cultural theory Laura's artistic and academic interest is film philosophy. After moving to NYC in Summer 2011, she started working in 16mm and Super 8mm film, as well as in digital video, still photography and sound. Since 2015, Laura is based in Hamburg, Germany.
Pierre Bouvier Patron is a visual artist based in London. He is currently working with different media, such as digital video and film, exploring the boundaries between them and creating moving image works, performances and installations. He has developed various practices and skills in experimental film, documentary films, music videos, etc.
He is involved in video screenings and video performances, solo or in collaboration. His work has been shown in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Germany, etc.
Steve Beresford has been a central figure in the British and international spontaneous music scenes for over fifty years, freely improvising on piano, objects, electronics and other things with people like Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink and John Zorn. Long-standing groups have included Alterations (with David Toop, Terry Day and Peter Cusack), The Melody Four (with Lol Coxhill and Tony Coe, both RIP) and London Improvisers Orchestra.
He has written songs, composed for large and small ensembles, and scored short films, feature films, TV shows and commercials. He was part of the editorial teams of ‘Musics’ and ‘Collusion’ magazines, writes about music in various contexts, and was a senior lecturer in music at the University of Westminster.
Steve has worked with Christian Marclay on various Marclay mixed media pieces. He has also worked with The Slits, Najma Akhtar, Stewart Lee, Ivor Cutler, Prince Far-I, Alan Hacker, Tania Chen, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Faradena Afifi, Blanca Regina, Ray Davies, Mandhira De Saram, The Flying Lizards, Zeena Parkins, The Portsmouth Sinfonia, Ilan Volkov, Rachel Musson, Vic Reeves, Lore Lixenberg, Valentina Magaletti and many others.
Beresford has an extensive discography - around 500 releases - as performer, arranger, free-improviser, composer, conductor and producer. He was awarded a Paul Hamlyn award for composers in 2012.
In 2021, Bloomsbury published a book by Andy Hamilton: ‘Pianos, Toys, Music and Noise: Conversations with Steve Beresford’.
In 2022, Siglio published the book ‘Call and Response’, which partnered photographs by Christian Marclay with notated improvisations by Beresford.
Blanca Regina is an interdisciplinary artist, tutor, and independent curator who works with spontaneous composition systems creating multimedia landscapes using voice, objects, electronics, and visuals. She is also looking at book arts, immersive media, and design. She has produced three albums with Beresford, mixed and mastered by Dave Hunt in London, ‘What Blue’ (2020) Duets with Steve Beresford; ‘Duets with Blanca Regina, Spontaneous Music’ featuring duets with Leafcutter John, Jack Goldstein, John Butcher, Benedict Taylor, Matthias Kispert, Aneek Thapar, Steve Beresford, Sharon Gal, and Hyelim Kim; ‘Art of Improvisers’ (2017) a collection album with several artists concentrating in women improvisers. With longtime collaborator and artist Leafcutter John capturing their live performances in 2017 they created ‘Miga’ a limited edition Pendrive and digital release. Other collaborations include performances with Laetitia Sadier & Marie Merlet ( ISIDORA) Matthias Kispert, DFuse, Peter Cusack, Matt Black, Wade Matthews, Terry Day, Adriana Camacho, and David Toop.
Art Terry is a songwriter/musician from Los Angeles. His songs explore sexuality, black politics and religion, through a lyrical fusion of psychedelic folk music and orchestrated funk. A singer and pianist, Art underpins deeply personal lyrics with dense melodic textures.
He presents 'Is Black Music' on Resonance FM: an alternative music radio show featuring Black folk, country and avant garde classical music.
Brought up in the gospel tradition – from which he was ejected for singing wild salacious songs – Art evokes the figure of the robed and commanding preacher in his live performances. Whether playing solo or with his collective of musicians, the Black Bohemians, his live performances are theatrical and compelling.
Art collaborates with the artist Stew, who created the musical Passing Strange, exploring his and Art’s youthful experiences on the seamy streets of downtown Los Angeles and in Europe, living in squats and art collectives and surviving on a diet of shoplifted food, hashish and freaky music. Passing Strange was made into a film by Spike Lee.
'Art Terry has a vivid element of meta-theatre as well as a broad sound palette, and he remains a genre of his own.' - Kevin LeGendre, BBC Radio 3
'An amazing album, jaw-dropping for its deceptive simplicity' - review of Art Terry's Sex Madness album in THE WIRE
www.artterry.co.uk
isblackmusic.com
Steven Ball has worked in film, video, sound, and installation since the 1980s. His early practice combined super 8 film and video, and more recently encompasses digital audio-visual media, in exhibition, online and live, audio-visual and spoken-word performance. He also writes, performs, and releases music, both as a solo artist and as a member of The Storm Bugs. In the last few years he has concentrated on writing and recording suites of songs, which have been described by Radio Free Midwich as “…the missing link between reductionist improv and the intimate breathy song cycles of a Robert Wyatt.” His latest album ‘Bastard Island’ (Linear Obsessional 2019) is a collection of speculative fiction dispatches from spatio-temporally ambiguous elsewheres and elsewhens. For Strange Umbrellas he will perform new and recent songs.
