Chris Abrahams (Sydney) | piano
Kai Fagaschinski (Berlin) | clarinet

Special guest for the 2nd set: Mark Wastell (London) | percussion

For many years Sydney-based Chris has used his European tours as a springboard for extended stays in Kai's hometown of choice, Berlin. After appreciating each other’s work for quite a while they began collaborating at a friend's piano-armed kitchen back in 2007. Their musical gatherings were a rather private affair for some years until the release of their debut album "The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle", when The Dogmatics turned outwards and toured in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

While Chris is best known for his distinctive repetitive piano playing as a member of The Necks, Kai has focused more on compositional projects like The International Nothing and The Magic I.D. in recent years. Within their duo Chris and Kai are taking an off-road ride, we might better call it an expedition. Their approach is an open process of delicate sonic exploration where the fusion of lyricism and abstraction never needed negotiation. While their debut release "The Sacrifice ..." displayed a broad spectrum of short, at times absurd stories, the new album "Chop Of The Tops" zooms deeply into the nature of sound. And those sounds seem otherworldly substances, maybe liquids navigated through and observed by two true alchemists. Time is stretched towards stillness before they reach sinister territory. The instruments of measurement are still a piano and a clarinet. Instead of investigating distinct parameters they interfere subtly and echo in each other.

https://thedogmatics.bandcamp.com/