The duo of Paul Lytton and Nate Wooley have established themselves as one of the most exciting improvising duos working today, a restlessly inventive pairing who resolutely refuse all musical cliché in their search for new forms of sound and expression.
“it’s as if Lytton is cranking up a jackhammer, or commanding a demolition squad, rather than working behind a drum kit. Meanwhile, a possessed Wooley resurrects a Takashi Miike-esque demon-growl with his horn.” - Elliott Sharp, Killed in Cars
Nate Wooley will give a free lecture before the second night of the residency talking about a series of solo pieces he's working on in collaboration with visual artist and percussionist for Graveyards, New Monuments, etc. Ben Hall.
The idea of these pieces was to attempt to work on making solo improvisations/compositions that deal primarily with long sounds while focusing on the micro-activity that occurs with changes of the lip position, oral cavity, tongue position, etc. Nate used the International Phonetic Alphabet and James Tenney's ideas of using biological processes to inform duration as a way to push my mind away from traditional notation and hopefully break out of some of his improvising habits. Ben then took the groupings of IPA symbols and pushed them through a code cipher used during the Vietnam War to create visual work that, in one sense can be read as an alternate score, separating the performer by one more step from their traditional expectations from notation, or can be seen as a visual improvisation/composition on the musical idea in its own right. Purely musically, the solo pieces act, in a very indirect way, like Steve Lacy's seminal Book of H solo etudes.
PAUL LYTTON
According to Evan Parker, Paul Lytton is “happiest with the weirdest shit possible - that's where he seems to really love it.” One of the pioneers of European improvised music, Lytton is a percussion innovator who radically expanded the drum kit with the introduction of amplification and electronics. An incredibly sensitive and selfless improviser, he has collaborated recently with the likes of Ken Vandermark, C Spencer Yeh, Okkyung Lee, Agusti Fernandez and Ikue Mori, as well as being an essential interlocutor for Evan Parker for over forty years in their long standing duo, the legendary trio with Barry Guy, and with Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble.
“Paul dropped a bunch of stuff, making a gigantic sound. It was jarring, loud and amazing, and shocked me out of a stupor I'd gotten myself into by being obsessively dogmatic about my own playing. About a year later, I was still thinking about that musical split second. My musical aesthetic changed a lot because of it.” - Nate Wooley, Paris Transatlantic
“Paul's a remarkable drummer . . . you could play ten minutes of Paul Lytton and they might think, I'm not sure if that person's ever played the drums before in his life, and then you can play another ten minutes where he sounds like Roy Haynes on speed.” - Evan Parker, Paris Transatlantic
NATE WOOLEY
Nate Wooley is one of the rising stars of the American experimental scene, a trumpet virtuoso whose musical explorations have taken him through ecstatic jazz, free improvisation, drone composition, and noise into a place very much his own, characterised by intense dynamics, an acute awareness of space, and a complex and organic sense of structure. Recent collaborators include John Zorn, Chris Corsano, Akron/Family, Peter Evans, Wolf Eyes, Joe Morris, and Evan Parker.
“A word or two is in order about Wooley’s approach to his instrument. While the spatial innovations of Bill Dixon and Wadada Leo Smith are certainly referenced, the humor of Lester Bowie is also in evidence, and I even hear the chronologically disparate but equally luscious tones of Tony Friscella and Arve Henrikson on occasion. An extraordinary listen.” - Marc Medwin, Dusted Magazine
As a duo, Lytton and Wooley have released critically acclaimed duo albums on Broken Research and psi, as well as a trio with David Grubbs on Important Records. On their recent American tour they formed impromptu trios with Fred Frith, Marilyn Crispell, Pete Swanson from Yellow Swans and Torsten Müller. For this Oto residency they'll be playing both as a duo and with a selection of specially invited guests.
