John Butcher

Born in Brighton and living in London, John Butcher is a saxophonist whose work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multi tracked pieces and explorations with feedback, unusual acoustics and non-concert locations. He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with a sense of place. Resonant Spaces, for example, is a collection of performances recorded during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands.

Butcher originally studied Physics, but after publishing a PH.D (1982) on quantum chromodynamics he left academia and took off with music. He has since collaborated with hundreds of artists, some for many decades, including Derek Bailey, Eddie Prévost, Angharad Davies, John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Okkyung Lee, Andy Moor, Sophie Agnel, Christian Marclay, Pat Thomas, Phil Minton, Rhodri Davies, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, John Russell, Chris Corsano, Steve Beresford, Ståle Liavik Solberg, and Matthew Shipp.

Additionally he values occasional encounters - with large groups ranging from the WDR Sinfonieorchester (as soloist), and the 20+ piece EX Orkest to duos with Akio Suzuki, Liz Allbee, Keiji Haino, Isabelle Duthois, David Toop, Mariam Rezaei, Fred Frith and Joe McPhee.

Recent compositions include “Fluid Fixations” (an hcmf commission), “Penny Wands” for Futurist Intonarumori, “Good Liquor…” for the London Sinfonietta and “Tarab Cuts” (shortlisted for a British Composer’s Award).

"Over 40 years of sustained performance and publishing, English saxophonist, improvisor and composer John Butcher has shaped much of what soprano and tenor saxophone can do, and what their roles and vocabulary in improvised music might be. I’ve always heard Butcher’s playing as a kind of nose-to-tail saxophony, where the whole instrument from reed-tip to brim of bell is available, accessible and articulate. Few other saxophonists slice as sharply back into the physical history, material (and physics) of the instrument, across its near 200 year history. When Hector Berlioz wrote of his friend Adolphe Sax’s then fresh invention, “the varied beauty of its accent, sometimes serious, sometimes calm, sometimes impassioned, dreamy or melancholic, or vague”, he could have been imagining Butcher's distinctively clean but complex, enquiring soundworld." WIRE - October 2024. The Primer by Seymour Wright

http://www.johnbutcher.org.uk

Dominic Lash

Dominic Lash concentrates on the double bass and electric guitar. He works regularly with musicians including John Butcher, Angharad Davies, Emil Karlsen, Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas, and Alex Ward. He has lived and worked in Oxford, New York and Bristol, and is currently based in Cambridge where he and N.O. Moore curate the monthly improvised music series Soundhunt. He also runs the label Spoonhunt.
http://dominiclash.blogspot.co.uk/

John Russell

“for Russell the fingerboard is apparently multiple. He finds new tones in the same place, new relationships in the same gesture. A second trip across the fingerboard is always a different excursion. The harmonic is a transparent sound: silence and ambient sound pass through it. It accounts for Russell’s unhurried pace and his sense of order, even when he’s playing fast: there’s simply so much going on.” - Stuart Broomer, Point of Departure 

John Russell got his first guitar in 1965 while living in Kent and began to play in and around London from 1971 onwards. An early involvement with the emerging free improvisation scene (from 1972) followed, seeing him play in such places as The Little Theatre Club, Ronnie Scott’s, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Musicians’ Co-Op and the London Musicians’ Collective. 

From 1974 his work extended into teaching, broadcasts (radio and television) and touring in the United Kingdom and, ever extensively, in other countries around the world . He has played with many of the world’s leading improvisers and his work can be heard on over 50 CDs. In 1981, he founded QUAQUA, a large bank of improvisers put together in different combinations for specific projects and, in 1991, he started MOPOMOSO which has become the UK’s longest running concert series featuring mainly improvised music. 

Mark Sanders

Mark has worked with many greats of the British, European and American free jazz improvised music scene including Roscoe Mitchell, Roswell Rudd, Evan Parker, John Butcher, Henry Grimes, Elaine Mitchener, Wadada Leo Smith, Myra Melford, Charles Gayle , Sirone and William Parker

He has also played with Jah Wobble, Harold Budd, Bill Laswell, Christian Marclay, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ilan Volkov and The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

He is a member of many working groups including duos with Nicole Mitchell and Rhodri Davies, Neil Charles' 'Dark Days' with Cleveland Watkiss & Pat Thomas, 'Last Dream of the Morning' with John Butcher & John Edwards, 'Shifa' with Rachel Musson and Pat Thomas and 'Sarost' with Larry Stabbins & Paul Rogers.

As an educator he has taught improvisation at many universities around the country as a lecturer and guest tutor.
Mark has played concerts and festivals around the world and appears on over 220 CD and Vinyl releases.
Mark was a recipient of the Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists 2024

"Drop the needle on the first track — or any track for that matter — and the first thing one is bound to notice is the amazing percussion skills of Mark Sanders" – Peter Thelen... Exposé

"Mark is just incredible and immensely diverse, he is at the center of "Kwingyaw" and it is difficult to tell what he is doing to get some of these sounds." – Bruce L Gallenter, Downtown Music Gallery, NY