Tuesday 21 October 2025, 7.30pm
Please note that Jamie Hamilton's set makes use of stroboscopic video.
Bristol label Collapsing Drums launches its new compilation with a night of playful experimentalism and compelling sonics, showcasing a small slice of the 23 artists featured on the cassette — available in pre-release form for the first time at the event.
Turntablist Mariam Rezaei performs two duo sets: one with Mr AKA Amazing, who crafts vulnerable lo-fi hip hop via Shepherd’s Bush arts centre 54 The Gate; the other with Evo Ethel, polymath lynchpin of Bristol art-rock outfit Ex Agent, whose recent EP on Collapsing Drums was named Cal Cashin’s favourite of the year in Loud & Quiet. The night also features Glasgow's Han (GLARC): expect darkly humorous, skewed spoken word and electronics, framed around her lived experience working in the NHS. Jamie Hamilton’s layered, contemporary classical set will add nuance to the chaos...
The cassette includes tracks from Robyn Rocket, Elaine Mitchener, Graham Dunning, Valentina Magaletti & Fannny Chiarello, Sculpture, DJ Marcelle and many other top artists.
“Collapsing Drums tells the stories that matter in a post-pandemic world” – The Wire
Mariam Rezaei is a multi-award-winning composer, turntablist and performer working across experimental new music, free improvisation, mutant club music and hip-hop. Described by The Wire as “one of the most technically adept and creatively daring artists to use the turntable as a musical instrument,” Rezaei uses a digital vinyl system, allowing her to manipulate an expansive range of samples in real time using classic turntablist skills and her own innovative techniques.
The Anglo-Iranian virtuoso’s latest solo release FRACTURED (Heat Crimes) has been praised by The Wire, Uncut and Bandcamp Daily, and was one of The Quietus’ cassette releases of 2024. Rezaei is a member of the international free music supergroup The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, the pioneering Turntable Trio with Evicshen and Maria Chávez, 1984 with Kobe Van Cauwenberghe and Sakina Abdou, and Fire! Orchestra.
Her co-composition with Matthew Shlomowitz, 6 Scenes for Turntable and Orchestra, was premiered at IMD Darmstadt 2023, while in October 2025, she premiered Scholar’s Record, a major commission for the 75th Donaueschinger Musiktage that draws on the legendary festival’s audio archives. Other recent projects include a collaboration with Ensemble Contrechamps and upcoming commissions from Ensemble Intercontemporain and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
Other collaborators include Pat Thomas, Bill Orcutt, Jennifer Walshe, Edward George, Farida Amadou, Mats Gustafsson, Valentina Magaletti, Robyn Rocket, Thurston Moore, Lasse Marhaug, Evicshen, Fritz Welch, Raymond MacDonald, Lukas König, Okkyung Lee, Dali de St Paul, Kenosist and Ali Robertson.
Duane Warner (known as Mr AKA Amazing) makes distinctively vulnerable lo-fi hip-hop and distorted EDM, which he builds around voice notes using his phone. His softly spoken lyrics are raw and vulnerable, often about feeling misunderstood, although when performing live he enters a hyped-up surrealist MC mode. Duane loves to collaborate, and recently stormed Bristol with an impromptu appearance with super-versatile drummer Dan Johnson, which has led to this first ever London appearance of the duo.
'Illegibility Mistakable: Master AKA Mr Amazing on Collapsing Drums collects several tracks from earlier, self-released albums – Think Big and Am I Being Unreasonable – into one righteous lump of lo-fi hiphop that’s somewhere between cLOUDDEAD and Adam Bohman. “MANGOBAY” sounds like someone wrestling with the ideas of life and relationships while speaking through a broken supermarket tannoy.' — Spenser Tomson, The Wire
Evo Ethel is a Welsh multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, and improviser currently based in Bristol, their solo practise weaves together elements of free-jazz, music-concrete, and electro-acoustic experimentation, often using objects, woodwind, and electronics to craft fractured soundscapes layered with improvised, noise led, multi-phonic woodwind. They have performed solo at En Masse Festival (Bristol), and took part in a one-off duo performance alongside Bridget Ferrill for the ‘Improvised and Experimental’ series at Hosek Contemporary (Berlin).
Rooted in Bristol’s DIY and experimental scenes, Evo’s group work with Ex Agent and Foot Foot has led to a mix of improvised, and non-improvised performances alongside Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Mark Stewart and Gareth Sager (The Pop Group), and Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine). As a co-founder of the No Clique event series with Improv’s Greatest Hits, Evo collaboratively curated evenings of one off, spontaneous musical groups championing an ethos of unpredictability, and community led experimentation.
Han - Han is a part-time noisemaker, part-time healthcare worker, part-time runner of the inimitable Events Research Programme institution (a monthly subscription-based events series), part-time recipient of the title of Scotland's “most successful cash-in-hand DJ”. She lives in Glasgow. With her first release, GLARC 00000000000000000000000000000016, she materialised the audio output of a fictitious institute of ecoterrorism with its unearthly hold music and cautionary reminders to make time to lie flat. Since then she has released a fantastically sludgy mixtape of original work on Trilogy Tapes alongside a slew of singles across various cassette compilations. Catch her in London before she goes off and travels the world.
https://thetrilogytapes.bandcamp.com/album/leaving-a-spoon-in-a-tub-10
Jamie Hamilton is a composer, performer, and multimedia artist.
He combines sound, multimedia, technology, and words to create music exploring the ways in which listening is linked to our perception of the world.
His music has been broadcast on BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, and BBC Radio 3, and he's worked with artists such as Elaine Mitchener, Lucy Railton, Silje Aker Johnsen, and writers like Luke Williams (Goldsmith Prize 2022), and the poet Caroline Bergvall.
His current projects include producing a new album with Meredith Monk and Phaedra Ensemble, and an ongoing project at a Naval Dockyard about stammering and water.
