Istanbul-based free music ensemble Konstrukt perform alongside special guest Alexander Hawkins. Having played with the likes of Joe McPhee, Peter Brötzmann, William Parker and Marshall Allen, Konstrukt have carved a niche for themselves at the very forefront of Turkish free music. Their heady mix of electronics and traditional instrumentation sets Hawkins swinging, and the group get an irresistible groove going in the sweaty OTO summer.
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Korhan Futacı / alto & tenor saxophones, gralla, flutes, voice, loops
Umut Çağlar / electric guitar, zurna, gralla, flutes, tape echo, rythymbox
Barlas Tan Özemek / electric bass
Berke Can Özcan / drums, electric drum module
Alexander Hawkins / acoustic piano, melodica
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Recorded on August 10th 2015 by Luca Consonni. Mixed & Mastered by Barlas Tan Özemek in Istanbul. Photograph by Dawid Laskowski
Available as 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC
Tracklisting:
1. Set 1 - 45.51
2. Set 2 - 39.06
“Konstrukt comprises; guitarist Umut Çağlar, saxophonist Korhan Futaci, drummer Cem Tan & Berke Can Özcan and bass player Barlas Tan Özemek. The band has been garnering attention not only at home in Turkey but in European improvised music circles. They have performed with Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Akira Sakata, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, Michiel Braam's Bik Bent Baam, Alfred Harth, Eugene Chadbourne. To record with these jazz giants is, indeed, a stamp of approval and hopefully their message of liberating music can be heard by a larger audience. Their albums have been released by prestigious labels on LP and CD formats.”
Alexander Hawkins’ work ranges from his acclaimed solo performances (‘intensely intricate…powerful, technically brilliant and melodically inventive’) through to works on a much larger canvas, such as his Togetherness Music ('[a] masterpiece that can stand next to the best works of Mitchell, Braxton or Parker’). He collaborates regularly with all generations of creative musicians, including the likes of Anthony Braxton, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, John Surman, Joe McPhee, Hamid Drake, Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, Sofia Jernberg, Shabaka Hutchings, and many others. Further creative associations, with two very different icons of African music, Louis Moholo-Moholo and Mulatu Astatke, stretch back for well over a decade. He has been widely commissioned as a composer, including by the likes of the BBC, Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal, and numerous festivals. His performance schedule takes him to club, concert hall, and festival stages worldwide.
"Sounds like all the future jazz you might imagine without ever being able to conceive of the details" – The Guardian
