Tuesday 18 April 2017, 7.30pm
“Moor Mother might be the most radical – even the most useful – Afrofuturist artist to emerge for years. Fetish Bones works not just as an atlas and an archive but as a mausoleum, housing the bones of those who have fallen along a bloody trail stretching all the way back to 1886.” – WIRE
Moor Mother is the viscerally charged output of Philadelphia based interdisciplinary artist, Camae Ayewa. Her music is often harsh and strange, projecting both the cathartic anger of punk and the expansive improvisatory spirit of Sun Ra. Using a variety of machines, field recordings, and analog noisemakers, Ayewa constructs fractured, cacophonous waves for her words of punishing pertinence to ride.
As a musician performing under the name she has toured in Europe and the U.S. at numerous festivals, colleges and universities sharing the stage with King Britt, Islam Chipsy, Claudia Rankine and Bell Hooks. As a soundscape artist she has had work featured at Samek Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art Chicago, and Everson Museum of Art.
Her latest album, Fetish Bones, was released through Don Giovanni Records in September 2016. The album features 13 songs conceived and recorded in Camae’s home studio and it is an album intended as a form of protest and as form of time travel — a collection of sounds that are events themselves, telling stories rich in history about the journey that brings us to today and the future we are creating. Fetish Bones is not an album meant to help you forget. It is made so that you will remember the injustices that we bear witness to and participate in.
Ayewa is also a renowned poet and author of the forthcoming poetry book, also named Fetish Bones, and a member of Black Quantum Futurism, A Collective which has recently released its first book, Black Quantum Futurism theory and practice Vol. 1. BQF has presented in Copenhagen Perspectives on Time Conference, Ferguson is the Future at Yale and Afrofuturism Now festival in Holland. Camae is a 2016 Leeway Award recipient and 2016 Blade of Grass Fellow.
Pat Thomas studied classical piano from aged 8 and started playing Jazz from the age of 16. He has since gone on to develop an utterly unique style - embracing improvisation, jazz and new music. He has played with Derek Bailey in Company Week (1990/91) and in the trio AND (with Noble) – with Tony Oxley’s Quartet and Celebration Orchestra and in Duo with Lol Coxhill.
"Sartorially shabby as Thomas may be, and on first impression even rather stolid, he has a somewhat imperious charisma that’s immediately amplified when he starts to play. Unlike other pianists whose virtuosity seems to be racing ahead of their thought processes Thomas always seems supremely in command of his gift, and his playing, no matter how free and ready to tangle with abstraction, always carries a charge of authoritative exactitude." - The Jazzmann
Orphy Robinson is an award-winning multi- Instrumentalist, One of the few UK musicians to have been signed to the legendary USA Jazz label “Blue Note”.
Robinson has performed on over 100 recordings with numerous internationally acclaimed artists across many genres of music.
These include artists as diverse as Lawrence Butch Morris, Hugh Masekela, Don Cherry, Robert Plant, Thurston Moore, Robert Wyatt, The Jazz Warriors, Cleveland Watkiss, Wadada Leo Smith, Lionel Loueke, Henry Grimes, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Jean Luc Ponty, Marshall Allen, Sun Ra Arkestra to name a few.
Throughout his 40-year career, he has constantly been nominated or won numerous prestigious industry awards. These include 2022 Paul Hamlyn Award, 2 Jazz Fm awards 2017 Live Experience of the Year” & 2020 Gold Award. Nominated for the 2022 ‘Best Jazz Ensemble’ at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards.
2017 – 2019 Orphy held the position of Artist in residence at the Gibraltar World music Festival.
2018 Artistic director at the Gibraltar World music Festival.
Orphy sits on various industry Boards Such as the Ivor’s Academy where he is both Deputy Chair and the Chair of the Jazz + Genre Committee.
ECSA (European Composers & Songwriters Alliance) Trustee & Chair of the ECF - Art & Contemporary music Committee.
Vice Chair for the UK Promoters organization “Jazz Promotion Network”.
Orphy has also written articles for various industry music magazines such as Wire Magazine, Jazzwise & Online platform JAZZED.
Orphy has also presented Guest radio programmes on:
BBC Radio 3, Jazz Fm, Resonance Fm, Worldwide FM, Solar Radio.
Since 2016 Robinson has presented a weekly show on internet Radio station - Delite Radio. www.deliteradio.com
