Saturday 14 October 2017, 7.30pm
The Experimental Library: Ornette Coleman
The Experimental Library is a series of Rooms.
Each Room in The Experimental Library houses ‘events’ in response to the work of a specific radical creator.
The series will create a space for reading, objects, dance, music making, and dialogue, and will coincide with a publication of further responses to the artist.
The first room is Ornette Coleman.
The concert is a series of responses to Ornette Coleman:
Still House Plants
Nisha Ramayya
XT (Paul Abbott and Seymour Wright)
Evie Ward
Followed by dancing to Ornette Coleman records.
The publication will include contributions by:
Billy Steiger
Evie Ward
James Jessiman
Jessica Tremaine
Joel Grip
Matthew Welton and Paul Tornbohm
STILL HOUSE PLANTS ARE A UK GROUP MADE UP OF JESSICA HICKIE-KALLENBACH, FINLAY CLARK, AND DAVID KENNEDY.
FROM A BARE BONES SET UP OF GUITAR, DRUMS AND VOCALS THEY CREATE FRACTIOUS AND SHARP MUSIC WITH A MELTING POP HEART. BRIDGING ELEMENTS OF SAMPLING, SLOW CORE, AND REPETITION THE TRIO HAVE DEVELOPED A SOUND THAT CONSTANTLY BREAKS APART AND FUSES TOGETHER AGAIN.
THEIR SECOND LP, FAST EDIT, RELEASED ON BLANK FORMS AND BISON, WAS WRITTEN AIDED BY MOBILE PHONES, DICTAPHONES, LAPTOP RECORDINGS, CONVERSATIONS, AND LIVE SHOWS, BLENDING FIDELITIES AND AURAL SPACES. THINGS SIT ON TOP OF EACH OTHER, FALL OVER ONE ANOTHER, OR CLICK INTO PLACE, WITH HEARTS ON SLEEVES AND SPIRITS IN MOTION.
NOTABLE SHOWS INCLUDE EMPTY GALLERY (HONG KONG), HYPERLOCAL FESTIVAL (WITH NTS/BRITISH COUNCIL, BUENOS AIRES), VARIOUS DIY SPACES IN SANTIAGO DE CHILE, AND A SIX-MONTH RESIDENCY AT CAFE OTO AS RECIPIENTS OF THE OTO PROJECTS UK ARTISTS RESIDENCY FUND, (SUPPORTED BY JERWOOD ARTS). 2021-2022 SEES THE TRIO TOURING EUROPE, NORTH AMERICA, AS WELL AS SHOWS IN MEXICO AND JAPAN.
THE GROUP ARE CURRENTLY WORKING ON THEIR THIRD STUDIO ALBUM.
Nisha Ramayya grew up in Glasgow and now lives in London. Her poetry collection States of the Body Produced by Love (2019) is published by Ignota Books. Her second collection will be published by Granta in 2024. Tentatively called Now Let’s Take a Listening Walk, it hazards a musical journey through history, myth, and sci fi. Nisha teaches Creative Writing at Queen Mary University of London.
Opening possibilities of language and learning from below, XT bounce questions of the specific material conditions, histories and logics of the saxophone and drum kit in a flexible, manifold process of collaboration, augmentation, bifurcation, antagonism and technological and somatic feedback. Increasingly they plug in, using synthetic and amplified saxophone and drums to extend magnify and delay what they do.
The project explicitly folds together their overlapping interests in language, learning, politics and an investigative ethics of emancipation.
Paul Abbott is a musician and drummer. He plays with real and imaginary drums, synthetic sounds, performance and writing.
Recent and ongoing collaborations include: XT with Seymour Wright; XT+Pat Thomas; XT+Anne Gillis; X Ray Hex Tet; F.R.David, very good* & Rosmarie with Will Holder; film sound for Keira Greene; Rian Treanor Duo; RP Boo Trio with XT; The Creaking Breeze Ensemble with Nathaniel Mackey; yPLO with Micheal Speers and performances with Cara Tolmie.
Paul has performed at venues and festivals internationally. He was a co-founder and co-editor of Cesura//Acceso journal for music, politics and poetics, and SAM resident artist at Cafe OTO 2015. In 2022 he completed a PhD at the University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Florian Hecker and Nikki Moran. He is currently undertaking research at Royal Conservatoire/Academy Fine Arts Antwerp.
Recent releases include: solos Nsular, Ductus; XT+Pat Thomas “Akisakila” / Attitudes of Preparation (Mountains, Oceans, Trees); XT Deorlaf X, Palina’Tufa; Creaking Breeze Ensemble & Nathaniel Mackey Fugitive Equation; F.R.David very good*; RP Boo Trio 31.12.18.
Seymour Wright is a saxophonist. His work is about the creative, situated friction of learning, ideas, people and the saxophone – music, history and technique – actual and potential.
Seymour's solo music is documented on three widely-acclaimed collections - Seymour Wright of Derby (2008), Seymour Writes Back (2015) and Is This Right? (2017).
Current projects include: @xcrswx with Crystabel Riley; abaria with Ute Kanngiesser; [Ahmed] with Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip and Pat Thomas; GUO with Daniel Blumberg; XT with Paul Abbott; The Creaking Breeze Ensemble; a trans-atlantic duet with Andy Guthrie, and, with Jean-luc Guionnet a project addressing an imaginary lacunae in Aby Warburg's Atlas Mnemosyne.
@xcrswx
Evie Ward (b. London, 1993) is a poet and writer based in London. Her poems have appeared in Art Licks, SALT, Cesura//Acceso, and '5AM' - a digital release on Takuroku with Ute Kanngießer and field recordist Daniel Kordík. She often works collaboratively at the intersection of writing with music and art, having recently read new poems, stories and journal fragments with Ute Kanngießer for a live performance at Cafe OTO and exhibited a site-specific poem as part of 'Like A Sieve' at Kupfer. She has conducted extensive research on Moki Cherry and continues to work closely with Cherry's archive when possible. Evie is currently working on a book collaboration of interwoven poems & drawings with Corinne Bernard.
www.evieward.com
