Saturday 16 November 2019, 7.30pm
Three-day residency from incomparible band, The Ex, who after 40 years, more than 25 albums and around 1800 performances still work independently, without record companies, managers or roadies.
• TERRIE HESSELS - guitar
• ARNOLD DE BOER - vocals, guitar
• ANDY MOOR - guitar
• KATHERINA BORNEFELD - drums, vocals
The adventurous, innovative Dutch band The Ex exists 40 years this year and is still going strong. New projects, new songs and new adventures.
The Ex have defied categorisation ever since they started playing in 1979. Born out of the punk explosion, when anything and everything was possible, the band have still managed to retain both curiosity and passion for their music. Using guitars, bass, drums and voice as their starting point, The Ex have continued to musically explore undiscovered areas right up to the present day.
Already the early 1980s saw collaborations with jazz musicians and an Iraqi-Kurdish band. In the 90s the group found a myriad of partners from varied musical and non-musical backgrounds like Kamagurka, Tom Cora, Sonic Youth, Han Bennink, Jan Mulder and Shellac. In 2002 The Ex set up a lively musical exchange with Ethiopia, organised many projects over there and invited several Ethiopian musicians to Europe. Most striking was the collboration with the legendary saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria, which eventually led to two CD recordings and more than a hundred concerts.
The band also started organising the ‘Ex Festivals’, where they invited their favourite musicians. A mix of jazz improvisers, musicians from all over the world and local treasures they came across on tour. The last few years saw collaborations with Brass Unbound (Wolter Wierbos, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark and Roy Paci), Circus Debre Berhan and Fendika, both from Ethiopia, and many, many more.
After all these years, more than 28 albums and around 2000 concerts the band continues to work as they did in when they began, completely independent of record companies, managers or roadies. Because of this ‘do it yourself’ work ethic The Ex is still a great example for other forward-thinking bands and musicians.
“Staying a bird, staying independent, free if you will, for three decades, that takes skill and something else, something more like heart.” – Music journalist John Corbett on The Ex.
Zea plays together with highly explosive improvising electric clavichord wizard Oscar Jan Hoogland. Coming from the Dutch improvised music scene, he is adding and opposing a unique sound to Zea's songwriting which makes their music erratic and greedy with audacity. The two recently recorded an album together which will be out later this year.
The duo toured in The Netherlands and in the UK. In early 2019 they toured together in Ghana and Burkina Faso.
The work of French clarinetist Xavier Charles ranges from noise to electro-acoustic via sound poetry. He has played in numerous new music festivals in France and abroad.
In his work with groups and collectives, he has also collaborated with The Ex, Ingar Zach, Axel Dörner, Ivar Grideland, John Butcher, Jacques Di Donato, Frédéric Le Junter, Otomo Yoshihide, Getachew Mekuria, Emmanuelle Pellegrini, Lionel Marchetti, Michel Doneda and Frédéric Blondy. Different collectifs (Dans Les Arbres, Ouie-Dire, ONCEIM, No Spaguettitti Edition, Chris Burn Ensemble, Atmosphérique).
Currently his musical research ranges from performance on the clarinet to the installation of vibrating speakers, at the edge of improvised music, noisy rock and electro-acoustic sound.
Vocals/Samples/Guitar.
Her father Terrie is The Ex’s guitarist, mother Emma played violin and they both run the adventurous Terp label. Last November Lena released debut 'Billow', recorded in the Witte Villa, where she grew up in the midst of music. Musicians like Han Bennink, Sonic Youth, Konono No.1, Getatchew Mekuria & many more stayed in the house regulary.
When she finished high school, she was determined to make a record. She ‘locked’ herself up in the top room where she started a little studio. After 3 weeks writing, practising, recording and recording again, she was finished.
Now she’s already working on a new release!
“The interrobang, /ɪnˈtɛrəbæŋ/, ‽ is a non-standard punctuation mark intended to combine the functions of the question mark and the exclamation mark. A sentence ending with an interrobang asks a question in an excited manner, expresses excitement or disbelief in the form of a question, or asks a rhetorical question. For example: What‽ What the fuck‽”
Kicking up a righteous racket since 2012, Interrobang?! (based in Brighton and Leeds) create their very own agit-punk-funkstorm. It’s angular, taut, urgent, pulsating and intense.
Interrobang?! are:
Dunstan Bruce vocals | Stephen Griffin guitars | Harry Hamer drums | Danielle Gee Gee keyboard, sampler
