Monday 4 December 2023, 7.30pm
Now preparing to drop their sixth CD, recorded live at Prague's Punctum, KONK PACK have entered a state of permanent 25th birthday celebration bringing new levels of high spirits.
‘KONK PACK is a hardcore trio made up of world class improvisers Tim Hodgkinson, Thomas Lehn and Roger Turner. All three members of Konk Pack have been improvising for decades with musicians like Lol Coxhill, Cecil Taylor, Tom Cora, Alan Silva, Evan Parker, Marcus Schmickler, Fred Frith, Charles Gayle.... the way that they improvise together is like a swarm of bees or a school of fish (sometimes piranhas). This is not intellectual music. A heavy rocking swing echoes out of loose noise conglomerations. Their music is an exercise in extreme dynamics that range from spacious and semi-silent tonal streaks to full out onslaughts that open doors to vast tidal waves of static, set to crash straight into the audience.’ DISCOGS
‘excited looks, glowing cheeks and people banging their heads as though they're watching a death metal gig. Right now, however, my impression is foremost shaped by a palpable emotional charge flowing from the performers to the visitors and back again’ – Tobias Fischer
Tim Hodgkinson most recently performed with KONK PACK (w Roger Turner and Thomas Lehn), Iancu Dumitrescu’s Hyperion Ensemble, UT, Fred Frith, gabby fluke mogul, and Zhuyang Liu.
Tim Hodgkinson composes music and also plays lap steel guitar, clarinets, and saxophones. He co-founded the politically and musically radical group HENRY COW with Fred Frith in 1968. He played in The Work, God, and K Space, as well as joining Ossatura and Torba in Italy. Two of his pieces performed recently are the Piano Concerto, played by Daan Vandewalle at Ars Musica Festival, and Under the Void performed by Phoenix Ensemble, Basel. He has a long involvement in improvisation, and from the 1990's researched into music and shamanism in Siberia. Latest recording: This is what happens, on clarinet, in duo with Zhuyang Liu on guzheng.
Schooled both as a concert pianist playing contemporary repertoire and as a recording technician, Thomas Lehn deploys a huge musicality through his unique chosen outlet, the analogue synthesiser. This instrument allows him extremely close and immediate contact with all aspects of sound modification - a vast gamut of living electronic sound produced with unmatched speed and fluency. Thomas Lehn simply represents a coming-of-age of electronic sound production in the domain of concert performance that sets a standard for the entire medium. He is therefore unsurprisingly an essential member of many of the most active and significant projects in this international and dynamic scene.
Born 1946, ROGER TURNER grew up amongst the Canterbury musical life of the 1960s with a strong foundation in jazz. Since 1974 his work has been focused on exploring a more personal percussion language through the processes of improvisation. Solo performances, connections with experimental rock music & open-form song, extensive collaborations with dance, film and visual art, and involvements in numerous jazz-based ensembles and workshop residencies have all formed part of that development.
