Sunday 23 April 2023, 2pm
This concert will delve into five musicians take on Terry Riley’s ‘Time Lag Accumulator’ system which explores looping/live sampling ideas using two tape recorders. Instead, the musicians will use their individual digital systems to investigate a looping/anti-looping aesthetic. Each musician has personal effects chains that utilise multiple looping assemblages, which enable the creation of loops of different lengths. Their use of silence within the repetitions creates unpredictable reiterations that slowly overlap and evolve. Expect to also hear Steve Reich techniques such as note addition/additive melody, layering and resultant melody. With their distinctive approaches to looping and sonic treatments/playing techniques, the five musicians - presented in three sets of duo, solo, duo - permit the addition of individual and collective personalities to impact on, and mutate the resulting looping/anti-looping soundscape.
Phil Durrant / electric mandolin & electronics
Rogar Harmar / electric guitar & electronics
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Dee Byrne / alto saxophone & electronics
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Sylvia & I
Sylvia Hallett / violin, voice, bicycle wheel, saw & electronics
Chris Dowding / trumpet, piccolo trumpet, flugelhorn & electronics
Born near London in 1957, Phil Durrant is a multi-instrumentalist improviser/composer/sound artist who currently performs solo and group concerts.
As a violinist (and member of the Butcher/Russell/Durrant trio), he was one of the key exponents of the "group voice approach" style of improvised music. In the late 90s, his trio with Radu Malfatti and Thomas Lehn represented a shift to a more “reductionist” approach.
Recently, he has been performing solo and duo concerts with Bill Thompson, Mark Wastell, using a modular synthesizer system. As a mandolinist, he has been performing and recording with guitarist Martin Vishnick, mandolinist Richard Scott and drummer Emil Karlsen.
Durrant still performs regularly with the acoustic/electronic group Trio Sowari (with Bertrand Denzler and Burkhard Beins) and Mark Wastell’s The SEEN.
Roger Harmar is a composer, experimental musician and sound artist based in Hove. He recently performed at the Contemporary Music Prom 2022 and as musical director of The Skeleton Ensemble performed Terry Riley’s In C in Brighton this year. Roger is playing electric guitar and electronics for this performance as a duo with Phil Durrant. Their recordings together, Onward and Undersong are on Roger’s Bandcamp site as well as his solo work.
https://rogerharmar.bandcamp.com/
https://rogerharmar.net/
Dee Byrne (alto sax) is a composer and improviser working in both jazz and experimental music (acoustic and electronic). Since 2019, explorating deeper into the area where structured, composed material meets with free improvisation, Dee came up with a bunch of new music, which has since been recorded with two ensembles: her new sextet Outlines, with an album on Whirlwind Records 2023); and UK/Swiss collaborative sextet MoonMot, with an album due for release on ENJA in 2023. Dee has been playing in mainland Europe as well as the UK, both with MoonMot and European quintet Ydivide (led by Swiss drummer Clemens Kuratle). She is also active with UK/Swiss trio Motherboard Pinball, long-standing duo electro-acoustic duo Deemer with Dutch sound artist Merijn Royaards; and with the London Improvisers Orchestra.
Since 2013 Dee has worked with improvising baritone saxophonist Cath Roberts under the Banner of LUME, a platform for improvised music based in London. Dee and Cath play in a regular duo and will be performing at the Summer Bummer Festival in Antwerp in August 2023.
Sylvia Hallett is a composer and improviser, working with instruments (violin, hurdy-gurdy, saw,) and objects (bowed bicycle wheel, bowed branches etc) alongside simple live sound processing. She has worked extensively with dancers and in theatre, most recently with choreographer Miranda Tufnell on a tour of outdoor site specific venues in Northumberland. Recent albums: Tree Time and Bolt and Latch.
http://www.sylviahallett.co.uk/
Chris Dowding is a trumpeter and workshop leader based in Norwich. He performs regularly around the UK with Natural Causes (www.naturalcauses.org.uk) and Rude 2.0 (with the trombonist Annie Whitehead), and leads the Moonrise Trio. He has been commissioned by Durham Brass Festival, has led workshops with Spitalfields Music and Dartington, and enjoys swimming.
http://www.chris-dowding.co.uk
https://chrisdowding.bandcamp.com
https://chrisdowdinglaurevanminden.bandcamp.com
