Otomo Yoshihide is one of the most important musicians of the Japanese underground/avant-garde. He moves between free jazz, noise, improvisation, composition and the unclassifiable with a generosity that opens up the possibilities for expression in all of the constellations with which he's involved. Since the earthquake/tsunami struck his native Fukushima in early 2011 he has played very little outside of Japan and has dedicated a considerable amount of energy to the relief efforts there including the annual international Project Fukushima concerts. We're thrilled to have him back at Cafe OTO for two nights performing with a diverse set of London musicians who share his wide-ranging and adventurous approach to sound.

Photo by Peter Gannushkin / downtownmusic.net

OTOMO YOSHIHIDE / guitar, turntables, ...

Otomo Yoshihide spent his teenage years in Fukushima, about 300 kilometers north of Tokyo. Influenced by his father, an engineer, Otomo began making electrical devices such as a radio and an electronic oscillator. In junior high school, his hobby was making sound collages using open-reel tape recorders. This was his first experience creating music. Soon after entering high school he formed a band which played rock and jazz, with Otomo on guitar. It wasn't long, however, before he became a free jazz aficionado, listening to artists like Ornette Coleman, Erick Dolphy and Derek Bailey; and hearing music, both on disk and at concerts, by Japanese free jazz artists. Especially influenced by alto sax player Kaoru Abe and guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, Otomo decided to play free jazz.

In 1990, Otomo started what was to become Ground Zero. Until it disbanded in March 1998, the band was at the core of his musical creativity, while it underwent several changes in style and membership. Since Ground Zero, Otomo has embraced minimal improvisation, film music and the jazz/big band conceptions of his New Jazz Quartet/Quintet/Orchestra.



SEBASTIAN LEXER / piano+

Lexer has moved the piano/computer interface to a new plain, developing an augmented instrument able to integrate electro-acoustic process and contingency into the acoustic potential of the piano and ensemble – a human, tactile creative technology.

sebastianlexer.eu

"Lexer's music comprises and juxtaposes the whole repertoire of tones, and noises, associated with the piano. All those sounds just faintly associated with the piano are brought into focus and brought to musical life. The piano creates its own delicate accompaniment of quasi aleatoric, electronic noises; these subsidiary 'noises' are always interesting. Lexer's piano is a kind of Pandora's Box; this intrigues me." - John Tilbury

lll人 (PAUL ABBOTT / SEYMOUR WRIGHT / DAICHI YOSHIKAWA)

“I went to a private session of theirs … which I thought was absolutely outstanding. The musicians are Paul Abbott (drum kit), Seymour Wright (alto), and Daichi Yoshikawa (electronics). [...] They tell me they have been playing together for quite a while...” - Victor Schonfield



“convulsing but controlled, reigned and railed, concentrated not opposing between the 3. Sound bending to include others. to be met and slightly connected. Semi-soothed in trilling galloping galactic space” - KiO

“There are some globs of clay inside a cage. The cage is badly made from a gridded, rough, metal wire. It is suspended from the ceiling of a living room … inside the cage, above the clay, is a small glass box with a neat funnel protruding from its base.” - c-Ban

“dancing in a foundry where they're casting ❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚ sculptures. Freedom and molten iron.” - JDM [edit]

lll人 website
Seymour Wright website
Paul Abbott website
Daichi Yoshikawa website

ROGER TURNER / drums, percussion

Roger Turner is applauded for his precision and speed since he entered the London improvising scene in the 1970s. His restricted drum kit is extended by found objects to create a sound comparable to no other. He’s played with Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, Otomo Yoshihide, Shelley Hirsch, Joëlle Léandre, Keith Rowe...

www.roger-turner.com

GUILLAUME VILTARD / double bass

Born in 1975 in the North of Ivory Coast, Viltard grew up in the wild countryside with almost no music. Back in France, he played with many artists of the French underground improv scene, including dancers and poets as well as musicians.

After moving to London in late 2007, Viltard has worked with many of London’s best improvisers, forming strong associations with the circle of musicians centred on Eddie Prevost's experimental workshop, becoming a mainstay of the London Improvisers Orchestra, and playing in a great free jazz trio with Tony Marsh and Shabaka Hutchings that was sadly curtailed by Marsh's untimely death.

It is this eclectic appetite for collaboration across the whole spectrum of improvised music as well as his resolutely unamplified and powerfully physical playing that marks Viltard out as one of the most interesting musicians to emerge from London's fertile improvised and experimental scene in the last few years.

unrevenu.free.fr

ALEX WARD / clarinet

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