Keiji Haino has been at the forefront of the Japanese avant-garde music scene for four decades. A captivating solo performer, he has played two sold out residencies at cafe oto that have demonstrated his versatility - from fleet fingered duo encounters with Peter Brötzmann and Steve Noble to the insane dynamic range of his solo vocal incantations. We've always wanted to work with Haino to present some of more adventurous rock-informed projects and Haino's reinstigation of Fushitsusha is his most potent realisation of rock music's primal energy and radical potential.

The location for the show will now be at St John-at-Hackney Church, Lower Clapton Road.

FUSHITSUSHA

Keiji Haino's extensive career has encompassed a dizzying range of approaches from wild, guitar-led ensemble rock and near-Neolithic drumming; live electronics, untutored explorations of lute and flute, to voice experiments and extended performances for gamelan and other percussion. He has also collaborated widely with the likes of Derek Bailey, Merzbow, Jim O'Rourke and Tony Conrad. Throughout, Haino has retained a visionary focus upon temporary suspension through noise (and silence) whilst refining a mercurial, highly distinctive method and an arrestingly dramatic on-stage presence. In Fushitsusha he is joined by original Fushitsusha/Kousokuya drummer Ikuro Takahashi and bassist Mitsuru Nasuno (who Haino also plays with in Seijaku). Their disc Hikari to Nazukeyo was one of the most hotly anticipating releases of 2012.

"the greatest rock band on the planet... At this point in time I think it’s safe to say that no one else has so successfully and rigorously disinterred and interrogated the basic tenets of rock music as Fushitsusha and to think that at 60 years old Haino is still making the most radical and searching rock music of anyone’s career is a tribute to his commitment to the specifics of vision and his belief in the potential of the form. From where I’m sitting it feels like the whole history of rock music has led up to this." - Volcanic Tongue

JOHN BUTCHER / saxophone

John Butcher is a saxophonist of rare grace and power, who has expanded the vocabulary of the saxophone far beyond the conventions of jazz and other musics, to encompass a staggering range of harmonics, multiphonics, overtones, percussive sounds, and electronic feedback. But his playing is far more than merely an array of special effects; it's characterised by a drive and intensity that propels music into strange new places that are both incredibly beautiful and deeply exhilarating.

“In the hands of London improvisor John Butcher, the saxophone can sound like anything, from a piece of hollowed out brass baubled with pads and valves to a hermetically sealed feedback system, a miniature sound environment teeming with ever-evolving note forms, or a huge echo chamber inflicting dub scale damage on every breath . . .” - David Keenan, The Wire

TEMPERATURES

"Temperatures are a London based duo of bassist/vocalist Peter Blundell and drummer James Dunn, who strip the form back to the bone, relying on the natural properties of their instruments, a handful of pedals and a synth wired up to the drums to create unruly, improvised Noise rock.

The obvious comparison would be Lightning Bolt, but Temperatures have a less bludgeoning, more light-footed approach, with Dunn's drumming owing more to free jazz than hardcore, even hints of Prog. But there's an infectious sense of irreverence and adventure that stops them getting bogged down anywhere too long." Daniel Spicer, The WIRE

James Dunn - drums/synth
Peter Blundell - bass/vocals

"bear witness to a stage-managed collapse into utter formlessness and incoherent, spastic riffing that's simply phenomenal." Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector





This event will now be held at:
St John-at-Hackney Church
Lower Clapton Road
London E5 0PD



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Fushitsusha's UK visit has been made possible with support from The Japan Foundation and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.





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