Sunday 1 February 2015, 8pm
We're hugely excited to present a three-day residency from the mighty Konono No. 1! Playing on scrap metal percussion and spiky metal thumb pianos, pounding out exuberant and rhythmic beats that are distorted through amplifiers made from old car parts, they create a sound as immediate as it is unclassifiable. Futuristic and primeval, body-shaking and immersive, these should be a very special few days indeed.
“They don't call this trance music for nothing. Played loud, like it's meant to be, it will take you to another sphere. Heavily amplified bass, tenor and treble likembes throb and weave in and out of each other; traditional and found drums and percussion deliver irresistible visceral grooves; and the amplification's sonic distortions frequently give the music the character of cutting edge Western electronica. This is dance/trance music you can with equal pleasure move to, or sit down to. Truly fantastic stuff” – All About Jazz
Expect extraordinary, radical grooves from this cult Congolese dance outfit. Playing on scrap metal percussion and spiky metal thumb pianos, they pound out exuberant and rhythmic beats that are distorted through amplifiers made from old car parts. Their repertoire draws largely on Congolese trance music, but they've had to incorporate the originally unwanted distortions of their sound system. This has driven them towards a unique sound that resonates with the aesthetics of the most experimental forms of rock and electronic music. The result is both futuristic and primeval. Electronica and avant-rock aficionados have all been equally amazed by this otherworldly dance music, which has driven the international press to come up with some surprising comparisons (from Can and Krautrock to Jimi Hendrix, Lee Perry and proto-techno!).
“Every so often there comes a record of such unlikeliness, of such overpowering rhythmic intensity and such majestic indifference to global musical trends that you're knocked sideways. This is one of them.” – The Daily Telegraph
“As you try to sift through the dense crosstalk of beats, your ears are beguiled ever deeper into Konono’s rhythmic threshing machine.” – THE WIRE
Born in London England 1962 Andy began his musical life in Edinburgh, Scotland playing guitar with the band Dog Faced Hermans, In 1990 he moved to the Netherlands after an invitation to join Dutch band The Ex whuch he is still a full time member of.
In more recent years Andy has collaborated with amongst others Yannis Kyriakides (Cypriot composer)), Anne James Chaton (french sound poet), Christine Abdelnour (Lebanese Paris based saxaphonist). He has also worked composing soundtracks for films with Iranian filmaker Bani Khoshnoudi. His latest projects include a quartet with Ken Vandermark , Terrie Ex and Paal Nilssen Love called Lean Left. The Heretics project with Anne James Chaton more recently with the departure of Thurston Moore has become a duo project which they began touring n 2017. In November 2019 Andy began a new project with Marion Coutts from Dog Faced Hermans . In 2020 he began a duo with Scottish composer and performance artist Genevieve Murphy called “The One I feed “ with guitar text and reel to reel tape machine.. End of 2021 also saw Andy begin work as a live DJ and radio producer as DJ ANDY EX) and has been working with Amsterdam based Echobox Radio and does a live show every four weeks on a Friday. The shows are all archived on Mixcloud and is called Blueprints For A Blackout.
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
• 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.
