Friday 2 September 2016, 8pm
Tim Hodgkinson / lap steel guitar, electronics, clarinets
Thomas Lehn / analogue synthesiser
Roger Turner / drumsets and percussion
Since 1997, KONK PACK have toured regularly throughout Europe, completed four major tours of the US, and have been described by The Wire magazine's Lee Henderson as "one of the most exciting improv groups in the world." The group have released four compact discs on the German label GROB, and have a fifth CD out on the Megaphone label in Baltimore, USA. They have performed at many major music festivals from Vancouver to Belgrade. The musics they've made individually are reason enough to take note of this trio, but the music they make together leaves audiences amazed and inspired.
Joining them on the bill will be Stockholm-based Australian musician, John Chantler, marking the launch of 'Which way to leave?’, his latest LP for Lawrence English’s ROOM40 label.
John Chantler's visit has been made possible with support from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee.
With compositions featured at international festivals, such as Tectonics, Huddersfield, Spectrum XXI, Nordlyd, and Ars Musica, and two sets of works for ensemble out on the Mode label, Hodgkinson also has a powerful commitment to intense and highly energised performance practice. In over forty years' work he has placed himself in a series of definitive projects, whether as cofounder of the seminal Henry Cow group, as saxophonist with influential avant metal band God, or as bass clarinet soloist in the spectral compositions of Iancu Dumitrescu. His lap steel guitar playing remains completely uncategorisable, bringing subdued and not so subdued echoes of rock musics and other ethnicities.
http://www.timhodgkinson.co.uk/
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.
Over decades Roger Turner has brought the renowned volcanic power and finely-honed precision of his drum work to ensembles that have forged substantial connections with musicians both sides of the Atlantic and more recently from Japan. In addition to pioneering an acoustic percussive language that can run in tandem with approaches to contemporary electronic instruments, he has worked extensively in the microscopic laboratory of the acoustic duo situation where he acquired a highly developed sense of detail and of dynamic control. One of that select group of world-class players who have collectively redefined the language of contemporary percussion, in Turner's hands minute inflections of tension can shape the group's musical direction and galvanise a new level of audience experience.
John Chantler is a musician and organiser living in Stockholm, Sweden. He mostly works with synthesizers and electronics to create unpredictable, highly dynamic music where passages of spare, alien beauty bridge distorted washes of masses harmonics.
Originally from Australia he spent a decade in London before moving to Sweden where he directs a small annual festival for 'other music' in Stockholm called Edition. The 'Fifth Edition' is provisionally scheduled for early August 2020.
Chantler has performed in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, North America and across Europe including appearances at Akousma, Montreal; Madeira Dig; +90db Festival, Rome; Issue Project Room, NYC; and London’s Southbank Centre.
His work has been commissioned by Borealis Festival for Experimental Music in Bergen, Norway; Organ for the Senses, San Diego, USA; ElbPhilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany and Tectonics, Glasgow, UK. Chantler has also been artist-in-residence at the ZKM centre for media arts in Karlsruhe, Germany and NOTAM in Oslo, Norway.
