Monday 18 October 2021, 7.30pm
Delighted to host an evening of three groupings featuring the combined talents of Jason Kahn, Mark Wastell, Charlotte Keeffe, and Dominic Lash
Solo
Jason Kahn / electronics
Trio
Mark Wastell / percussion
Charlotte Keeffe / trumpet, flugelhorn
Dominic Lash / electric guitar
Quartet
Mark Wastell / percussion
Charlotte Keeffe / trumpet, flugelhorn
Dominic Lash / electric guitar
Jason Kahn / electronics
With support from:
Born 1960 New York. Moved to Europe in 1990 and is currently based in Zurich, where he is active as a musician, artist and writer.
Kahn's work with electronics involves chaotic feedback systems and placing his body in the circuit flow. Grabbing open leads with his hands makes and breaks circuits, causing the synth to overload or collapse. Various contact microphones and electro magnetic inductors and the synthesizer's own output via a mixing board are used to modulate the parameters of the synth, which oscillates between saturation and a brittle sputtering, like the death rattle of a machine on its last gasp. Live radio captures during the concert and recordings made in the performance space and its environs provide further working material for each concert. These performances are essentially site-specific works, improvising with the space at hand, both in the sense of its physicality and the sounds found there.
Among many others, Kahn has collaborated with Kevin Drumm, Jason Lescalleet, Norbert Möslang, Günter Müller, Axel Dörner, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura, Magda Mayas, Mark Wastell, Oliva Block, Chris Abrahams, Arnold Dreyblatt, Alan Courtis, Ulrich Krieger, Sainkho Namtchylak Z'ev, Shelley Hirsch, Peter Kowald, Taku Sugimoto and Elliott Sharp.
Recently formed trio of Charlotte Keeffe (trumpet, flugelhorn), Dominic Lash (electric guitar) and Mark Wastell (percussion, electronics), who played a blistering debut concert in London back in July. This OTO show will allow the group to further expand their vocabulary and investigate modes of operation as yet undefined.
British musician, trumpeter/flugelhorn player Charlotte Keeffe’s passion for free improvisation, jazz and experimental music-making sees her performing regularly as a soloist and leading a variety of different ensembles, including her own Quartet.
(The) Charlotte Keeffe Quartet (CKQ) performed a sellout performance at Lancaster Jazz Festival in 2019 and their live recording from Jazz in the Round has been featured on radio shows around the world. Her Quartet is Ashley John Long (Paul Dunmall collaborator) on double bass, Ben Handysides on drums, Moss Freed (Let Spin) on guitar and herself on trumpet and flugelhorn; they explore merging together Charlotte’s more composed music with freely improvising.
Fresh from playing London’s Café OTO, Newcastle, Birmingham, Sheffield and the London Jazz Festival; CKQ are delighted to be continuing their UK tour in 2022, celebrating the release of Charlotte’s debut album, Right Here, Right Now, which features a selection of her improvised works for solo, duo, quartet and (the) London Improvisers Orchestra, it’s out now on the Discus Music record label...[more]
Dominic Lash is an improviser and composer. A partial list of musicians he has worked with includes Antoine Beuger, Tony Conrad, Angharad Davies, Jürg Frey, Elizabeth Harnik, James Ilgenfritz, Charlotte Keeffe, Paul Lytton, Joe Morris, Evan Parker, Éliane Radigue, Mark Sanders, Roger Turner, Fay Victor, and Philipp Wachsmann. Best known as a double bass player, he's emerged as a guitarist since the 2020 lockdown, during which he "spent his time developing a very interesting and personal approach to electric guitar... Lash uses the Telecaster's basic yet unique design super-effectively; the biting, percussive nature of the instrument highlighted by the sheer power in his contrabass-trained hands" (Paul Khimasia Morgan).
Mark Wastell has been active as a musician since 1995, making his initial concerts with the trio IST featuring Rhodri Davies and Simon H. Fell. He has performed and recorded extensively and has collaborated with the likes of Derek Bailey, John Butcher, Evan Parker, Lasse Marhaug, John Tilbury, Mattin, Mark Sanders, Tony Conrad, Tim Barnes, Bernhard Günter, Keith Rowe, John Zorn, Peter Kowald, Joachim Nordwall, Otomo Yoshihide, Burkhard Beins, Paul Dunmall, David Toop, Alan Wilkinson, Max Eastley, Hugh Davies, Julie Tippetts and David Sylvian. Mark also runs the Confront Recordings record label.