Thursday 2 August 2018, 7.30pm

Photo by Hrvoje Goluza

Cafe OTO and Extra Normal Records present a Contra Pop Festival primer: Flower-Corsano Duo + Alex Ward (solo) + Contra Pop DJs

No Longer Available

Cafe OTO and Extra Normal Records present a Contra Pop Festival primer ahead of its return to Ramsgate Beach on the 4th and 5th of August, featuring the incendiary pairing of Mick Flower & Chris Corsano and a solo set from composer, improviser, and performing musician, Alex Ward.

“There are few sounds so unique in improvised music today, and the duo's perfection of this kind of head-on freedom is rarely matched in any circle” – Brainwashed on Flower-Corsano Duo

Contra Pop Festival info and tickets

Flower-Corsano Duo

Formed in 2005, the duo melds the propane-lit, overdriven drone-ragas of MICHAEL FLOWER (Vibracathedral Orchestra, MV & EE, Sunburned Hand of the Man)’s electrified shahi baaja and the melodically kinetic and free drumming of CHRIS CORSANO (Paul Flaherty, Joe McPhee, Rangda, Bjork). In the years since their debut album The Radiant Mirror (Textile, 2007), they have toured and recorded frequently, expanding their range to include a mind-boggling array of free sound with seamless shifts between tumultuous intensity and blissed-out serenity.

Alex Ward

Alex Ward's diverse musical activities since the early '90s have straddled the worlds of free improvisation, contemporary composition and avant rock, and have seen him work with such significant musical figures as Derek Bailey, Duck Baker, Lol Coxhill, Eugene Chadbourne, Simon H. Fell, Thurston Moore, Joe Morris, Steve Noble, Evan Parker, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Pat Thomas and Weasel Walter, amongst a host of others. His work as a composer/bandleader has encompassed his own ensembles such as Predicate, Forebrace, the Alex Ward Quintet and Items 4, 6, 7 & 10, alongside collaborative projects such as his duos with Dominic Lash, Jem Doulton (as Dead Days Beyond Help) and Sean Noonan (as Noonward); while his solo releases have ranged from unaccompanied performances on clarinet and guitar to the layered studio creations found on 2021's Gated. He currently plays guitar and sings in math/noise trio Heckle Chamber (with Roberto Sassi and Jem Doulton), and is working on the completion of the final album by legendary band Pere Ubu (which he joined in 2021) alongside the other surviving members.

"...guitarist Alex Ward [is] a compulsively creative polymath... a reliably unpredictable axe-hero for collaborators of all backgrounds." – Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times Review

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