Monday 23 May 2022, 8pm
"This residency was originally slated to happen in April 2020, but...well, you know. The line-up was a dream come true; and then it didn't. Looking forward to a time when it finally would happen was, for me, a big beacon sighted through the fog of the past two years." – Chris Corsano
Delighted to welcome the great Chris Corsano back to OTO for a four-day residency. One of the greatest drummers working today, Corsano has developed a percussive language of extraordinary amplitude and infinite resources. His collaborations stretch from free jazz greats (Joe McPhee, Paul Flaherty & more) to noise mavens (Bill Nace, C Spencer Yeh etc) and pop superstars (Björk). Capable of generating narrative out of permanent ecstasy, Corsano never ceases to be profoundly affirmative and imposing of his language, and being an absolute and charismatic virtuoso, he simultaneously is one of the most noble and generous improvisers of the few last decades.
"Corsano, as ever, is a joy to hear - it goes without saying that he has carved out a name for himself as one of the greatest improvisational drummers." - Derek Stone, Free Jazz Blog
Chris Corsano (b. 1975, USA) is a New York-based drummer who has been active at the intersections of collective improvisation, free jazz, avant-rock, and experimental music since the late 1990's. He's been the rim-batterer of choice for some of the greatest contemporary purveyors of "jazz" (Joe McPhee, Paul Flaherty, Mette Rasmussen, Zoh Amba) and "rock" (Sir Richard Bishop, Bill Orcutt, Jim O'Rourke), as well as artists beyond categorization (Björk for her Volta album and world tour, Michael Flower, Okkyung Lee).
Corsano began a long-standing, high-energy musical partnership with saxophonist Paul Flaherty in 1998. Their style, which they occasionally refer to with (semi-)tongue-in-cheek humor as "The Hated Music", combines modern free-jazz's ecstatic collectivism with the urgency and intensity of hardcore punk. A move from western Massachusetts to the UK in 2005 led Corsano to develop his solo music -- a dynamic, spontaneously-composed orchestra-of-one utilizing extended techniques for drum set, non-percussive instruments of his own creation (e.g. bowed violin strings stretched across drum heads), circular breathing on modified reed instruments, and stockpiles of resonant metals. He spent 2007-08 as the drummer on Björk's Volta world tour, all the while weaving in shows and recordings on his days off with the likes of Evan Parker, Michael Flower, and Jandek. He moved back to the U.S. in 2009 and continued touring in an ultrawide array of ever-evolving collaborations. In 2017 he won the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. A renowned solo performer in his own right, Corsano has a new solo record, The Key (Became The Important Thing [and Then Just Faded Away] out on the Drag City label.
His dedication to collective improvisation has led to Corsano to join forces with many kindred spirits and his appearance on over 180 records and thousands of live performances. He's worked with, among others: Paul Dunmall (released by the label: ESP-Disk), Joe McPhee (Roaratorio), Okkyung Lee (Open Mouth), Bill Orcutt (Palilalia), Mette Rasmussen (Hot Cars Warp Records & Clean Feed), John Edwards (OTOroku & Dancing Wayang), Sylvie Courvoisier (Relative Pitch), Nate Wooley (No Business & Astral Spirits), Jim O'Rourke & Akira Sakata (Drag City & Polystar), Merzbow (Family Vineyard), Jessica Rylan (Load Records), Rodrigo Amado (Trost), Nels Cline (Strange Attractors), Heather Leigh (Volcanic Tongue), Ghédalia Tazartès (Ultra Eczema), Ken Vandermark (Audiographic), and Sunburned Hand Of Man (Manhand).
https://chriscorsano.bandcamp.com/music
Elvin brandhi is an improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist from Bridgend, Wales making auto-tune blast beats from field recordings, tapes, instruments and voice. Live shows are unyielding bursts of erupting animation where her caustic stream of consciousness cavorts with restless, glitched out heaviness.
Her first E.P ‘Shelf life’ was released on ‘C.A.N.V.A.S’ in 2018. She one half of father / daughter noise-improv berserkers Yeah You who released on Alter, Slip, Opal, Psychik Dancehall and Good Food. She also performs in collaborations such as ‘Bad@Maths’ who also released on Slip, ‘INSIN’ who released their first E.P ‘Sadsun’ on Hizz, and unreleased projects such as ‘Gailvn Keiln’, ‘OCDC’ and ‘0n est Malade’.
PETRONN SPHENE (the solo project from Xapheena aka Q.Q. Utslekk aka Urocerus Gigas of GUTTERSNIPE) is the singular manifestation of queer punk cyborg convulsing body music known as “No Wave Rave”. Deploying disrupted polyceleratrix rhythms via MPC1000 drumviolence in symbiosis with icy, futuristic synth flashes and alien femme fatale vokills, PETRONNE SPHENE induces a deranged state of hyper-mobile xenofeminist hysteria recalling ADHD manic episodes, acid flashbacks from speedcore parties and abduction on the dancefloor! Miss XQQU will have several new traxx prepared especially for the fest so prepare yourselves to submit to yet further psychotic results of the eminent Radical Queer Formula for Rhythm and Tonality applied to dance music structural paradigms. Check out new album ‘Exit The Species’ out now on Arcane Pariah!
https://arcanepariahrecords.bandcamp.com/album/exit-the-species
Cath Roberts (they/them) is an improviser, composer and artist based in Hastings, UK, whose work combines acoustic and electronic improvised music, experimental composition, and DIY publishing practices.
On saxophones Cath has collaborated with a wide range of artists and ensembles internationally for over a decade. Their band Sloth Racket has released five studio albums, touring widely and ‘lurching between riff and abstraction’ (The Wire) since forming in 2015. Other recent exploits include playing with Chris Corsano as part of his 2022 Cafe Oto residency, and being one of two UK artists (with Mandhira De Saram) commissioned by Australian Art Orchestra to co-create and perform Fresh Water – Salt Water in Melbourne and Huddersfield (a hcmf// and AAO co-commission, also in 2022).
Cath works with live electronics (SOMA Lyra-8 synthesiser, samplers, and small tabletop machines) in ongoing collaborations with Kate Carr (as Quartz Sand), Graham Dunning (as Grid & Robots) and Tullis Rennie (as Composite Mashworks). Be unafraid to open things up, a solo improvisation on tabletop electronics, was released on Fractal Meat Cuts in 2022. Cath’s sampler-based solo collage set appeared at hcmf// 2024, Sonics Hastings 2025 and Sacrum Profanum (Kraków) 2025.
In 2021 Cath was commissioned by hcmf// to create And then the next thing you know, a cross-artform installation/performance piece involving a giant, hanging, fragmented graphic score, elements of which are being integrated into a new audio-visual collaboration with Tullis Rennie. In 2024 Cath established the DIY small press Ink-Paper-Sound, and they co-run the Luminous label and the BRÅK concert series.
After leaving Art College in Leeds in the late 1970s Wilkinson became involved in the music scene in the City playing in a variety of bands, whilst pursuing his passion for improvisation, promoting and playing alongside some of the great and upcoming names at his club night 'The Termite Club'. It was during this period that he joined forces with the drummer Paul Hession and the tragically deceased bassist Simon Fell to form the trio Hession/Wilkinson/Fell, described in The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette, as "a band that outdoes the old Brötzmann groups for sheer firepower". In the late 80s he was invited to tour with Company by Derek Bailey and subsequently featured in 2 London Companys one of which he co-curated. When he relocated to London in 1990 he was already a figure on the scene and has continued to play and promote the music through various club nights, especially flimflam at Ryans Bar N16, running since January 2001. Playing in innumerable ad hoc settings in the UK and beyond notable collaborators have included Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzmann, Akira Sakata, Thurston Moore, Chris Corsano, Eddie Prevost, Charles Hayward, Talibam! and Jason Spaceman. Long standing groups include a trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble, Norwegian group Akode, and a trio with Alex Ward and Jem Doulton.
"At its highest points, this session unleashes some of the most preposterously powerful energy jazz heard since Peter Brötzmann's Yatagarasu trio with Takeo Moriyama and Masahiko Satoh" - Daniel Spicer, The WIRE
