Release show for Motion - the new full-length studio album on Dancing Wayang by the London based power jazz trio of Steve Noble on drums, John Edwards on double bass and Alex Ward on electric guitar.

Noble, Edwards and Ward have played together for over a decade and have become one of London’s tightest units locking in and breaking apart with uncanny telepathy and synchronicity. Operating at the junction of free improv and rock, they swing and shred in equal measure. Both modes, and the effortless, deft moves across the spaces between, are represented in fine style on this release.

Pre-Order Motion on Dancing Wayang



Extract from the N.E.W. “Motion” – liner notes by Thurston Moore

"N.E.W. is three contemporary maestros of British free improvisation active and ace on the scene. Steve Noble is a kinetic percussionist who emits a vibe of instant trust and even when he rides to and fro on the 73 bus through the wilds of Stoke Newington you can see the man in contemplation of the actions of daily life. He once told me drummers move in variables: some take it upon themselves to exemplify rivers where they proceed as rushing waters, others who negotiate and play with the rocks and fissures of the natural obstruction. Steve is the latter with a bit of a third category – the animal, where rules are tossed into the nearest bin in favor of wild style alchemy. John Edwards is the most ready-to-play motherfucker on the scene with the skill level to match any and all interweavers. He seemingly is chain linked to his contrabass and can be heard playing on rooftops, cellars and every loci in between in constant practice and exploration and, like Mr. Noble, extending/expanding the language in respect to his craft and instrument of choice. Alex Ward is the kid, even though he’s well on into full adult sophisto action scree, he’s the kid. And he’s beautiful. We’ve watched him unfold as a wonderful reeds improviser in full attention and sensitivity to the elders of the scene and he has developed into a serious and critical player and composer for our day. Here he straps on a six-string electric guitar and rips, shreds and skuzizzles his way in, with and astride the pieces... It is music for the now. And it is new."



STEVE NOBLE / drums

Steve Noble is London's leading drummer, a fearless and constantly inventive improviser whose super-precise, ultra-propulsive and hyper-detailed playing has galvanized encounters with Derek Bailey, Matthew Shipp, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, Stephen O'Malley, Joe McPhee, Alex Ward, Rhodri Davies and many, many more.

In the early eighties, Noble played with the Nigerian master drummer Elkan Ogunde, Rip Rig and Panic, Brion Gysin and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, before going on to work with the pianist Alex Maguire and with Derek Bailey (including Company Weeks 1987, 89 and 90). He was featured in the Bailey's excellent TV series on Improvisation for Channel 4 based on his book ‘Improvisation; its nature and practise’. He has toured and performed throughout Europe, Africa and America and currently leads the groups N.E.W (with John Edwards and Alex Ward) and DECOY (with John Edwards and Alexander Hawkins).

"There’s as much rock here as jazz- Ward is all spidery glissandi and slashing power chords. Edwards is a dark magus of a bass player thundering against the elements, while Noble is a violent, malevolent presence. A white- knuckle ride you’ll be glad to take!” (Duncan Heinig- Jazzwise)

JOHN EDWARDS / double bass

John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke and many others.

ALEX WARD

Alex Ward is a composer, improviser, and performing musician, working primarily with clarinet and guitar.

His involvement in freely improvised music dates back to 1986, when he met the guitarist Derek Bailey. He subsequently took part regularly in Bailey's Company events, and has gone on to become a major figure in British improvised music.

His current work ranges from the duo Dead Days Beyond Help, in which he plays guitar and sings, his group Predicate who perform his compositions, regular improvising groups with Steve Noble, Kay Grant and others, as well as more ad hoc encounters with musicians as diverse as Thurston Moore, Joe Morris and Duck Baker.

He brings a unique energy and inventiveness to all these projects, elevating them far above the ordinary and injecting them with a thrilling sense of danger and possibility.

alexward.org.uk

"The bass player John Edwards turns up on the best British free-jazz recordings. The drummer Steve Noble cleaves through improvisatory rumblings with dramatic, decisive moves. And the guitarist Alex Ward, a compulsively creative polymath of indiscriminately omnivorous appetite, is a reliably unpredictable axe-hero for collaborators of all backgrounds. The trio’s second record posits a bricolage bebop, an ugly ecstatic jazz, played on sheet metal, broken glass and barbed wire. Coming Up for Air bubbles like an electric soup, and an elastically extended Empty Ballroom finds Edwards and Noble stretching back to catapult Ward’s electric guitar far beyond the gravitational pull of Planet Rock." ( Stewart Lee) Bo’Weavil WEAVIL 30CD Deadeye Tricksters: The Sunday Times Review