11–12 December 2014
Two-day residency from incomparible band, The Ex, who after 35 years, more than 25 albums and around 1800 performances still work independently, without record companies, managers or roadies.
• TERRIE HESSELS - guitar
• ARNOLD DE BOER - vocals, guitar
• ANDY MOOR - guitar
• KATHERINA BORNEFELD - drums, vocals
The adventurous, innovative Dutch band The Ex are still going strong after over 40 years. New projects, new songs and new adventures.
The Ex have defied categorisation ever since they started playing in 1979. Born out of the punk explosion, when anything and everything was possible, the band have still managed to retain both curiosity and passion for their music. Using guitars, bass, drums and voice as their starting point, The Ex have continued to musically explore undiscovered areas right up to the present day.
Already the early 1980s saw collaborations with jazz musicians and an Iraqi-Kurdish band. In the 90s the group found a myriad of partners from varied musical and non-musical backgrounds like Kamagurka, Tom Cora, Sonic Youth, Han Bennink, Jan Mulder and Shellac. In 2002 The Ex set up a lively musical exchange with Ethiopia, organised many projects over there and invited several Ethiopian musicians to Europe. Most striking was the collboration with the legendary saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria, which eventually led to two CD recordings and more than a hundred concerts.
The band also started organising the ‘Ex Festivals’, where they invited their favourite musicians. A mix of jazz improvisers, musicians from all over the world and local treasures they came across on tour. The last few years saw collaborations with Brass Unbound (Wolter Wierbos, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark and Roy Paci), Circus Debre Berhan and Fendika, both from Ethiopia, and many, many more.
After all these years, more than 28 albums and around 2000 concerts the band continues to work as they did in when they began, completely independent of record companies, managers or roadies. Because of this ‘do it yourself’ work ethic The Ex is still a great example for other forward-thinking bands and musicians.
“Staying a bird, staying independent, free if you will, for three decades, that takes skill and something else, something more like heart.” – Music journalist John Corbett on The Ex.
Afework Negussie is a versatile musician and singer from Gondar in northern Ethiopia. He has a background in the Azmari, and he is also partly trained at the National Theatre in Addis Ababa. Azmari are the voice of freedom of expression in Ethiopia. They improvise constantly, and have commented on politics, religion and everyday life. Their style is very specific, both provocative and humorous.
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
Such is the degree to which Richard Dawson has drawn down long drafts from the whirlpools of Elemental North Eastern Archetypes, he may now be one himself. Fearless in his research and willingness to follow his inspiration, Richard has created an impressive catalogue of music and storytelling steeped in both ancient myths and contemporary dread. A fog of sickness, trauma and mute inevitability inhabits these records and is often expressed in the havoc with which Richard's hands produce sounds from his long-suffering guitar, an instrument as bruised, individual and indefatigable as its owner.
Richard's latest release is The Ruby Cord (Domino), his critically acclaimed seventh album, comprising seven tracks that plunge us into an unreal, fantastical and at times sinister future where social mores have mutated, ethical and physical boundaries have evaporated: a place where you no longer needed to engage with anyone but yourself and your own imagination. Breaking of convention with its 41-minute opening track “The Hermit”, The Ruby Cord swiftly garnered critical acclaim for the Geordie bard and picked up several Album of the Year spots. Subsequently, Richard has released The Ruby Cord Live: a 40 minute DVD of his performance at St George’s Bristol in May 2023, filmed by James Hankins.
This benefit gig for Resonance, the best radio station in the world, offers a chance to hear Richard Dawson in an (increasingly rare) intimate setting.
Valentina Campora graduated at the AHK – Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten – Modern Department in 2005. In 2009 she also graduated at the D.A.M.S. Faculty of the University of Literature and Philosophy of Genova, Italy. She danced and collaborated, among others, with Jakop Ahlbom (NL), Chiyo Ogino (J), Manuela Tessi (IT) and Cristina Planas Leitao (PT). Valentina has collaborated to the choreography of SUPERNOVA, the most recent successful work of Gabriella and she often teaches with her in Dutch dance academies, workshops and festivals. Together with Gabriella Maiorino and Adrian Sneeuw she is a co-founder of CLANCARNAL.
RATTLE released their third album ‘Encircle’ on Upset The Rhythm at the start of the 2025. ‘Encircle’ sees the drumming duo expand their unique experiments in rhythm, metre and tension. Rattle have honed the four songs that make up ‘Encircle’ by playing them live over the last few years, adapting and stretching them into endlessly inventive new shapes, playing with the concept of time and expectation. With ‘Encircle’ Rattle have grown, writing songs alive with elemental power. They build-up and disintegrate, existing in two places at once, embracing the nuance, tracing the circle’s edge. These are modes of song as pure gesture and eternal imagination, refined in mirrors after midnight. Rattle have toured the UK with Animal Collective and Thurston Moore and toured Europe with The Julie Ruin and Protomartyr, and have also performed with Hot Snakes, Bill Orcutt Quartet and Codeine.
