Great to have Paul Metzger back with us after he unfortunately had to cancel his last appearance here in May. Playing the same customised guitar he first picked up over 30 years ago in rotation with a heavily modified 23 string banjo, Metzger has developed a unique style that has seen him described as a virtuoso and a visionary whose live performances are vital, deeply visceral and simply breathtaking. Support comes from Northern Irish (and London-based) guitarist and ‘magnetic and vibrating sources’ player Ross Lambert, who has in his own words, the following fundamental and simultaneous approaches to live performance: to play as though it was both the first time and also the last; and to able to differentiate between what is good and worth conserving and what is not. Also on the bill, the debut performance by Pharmakon, the moniker of guitarist Ario Zamani, who creates an immersive scree of textural overtones, building upon looped phrases that subtly diverge and coalesce in hypnotic fashion.

PAUL METZGER

In 1979, Paul Metzger drilled a few innocent holes into a Yamaha acoustic guitar. A self taught musician with 5 years of playing behind him, Metzger was growing tired of the conventions of the instrument. This lobotomy was the first of many surgeries that would follow in years to come. Strings were added, subtracted, added again; the frets of the neck were disemboweled and retrofitted with a sarod like metal fingerboard plate; paint was splattered over it, a rejigged music box was affixed to the guitar's belly, a crash cymbal mounted to its bottom. On the face of it, the instrument took on the look of a piece of tramp art.

Thirty years on, Metzger plays the same guitar in rotation with a heavily modified 23 string banjo in a tireless - often isolated - search for a musical style of his own which he finally took public for the first time in 2002. His sonic vocabulary ranges from deeply satisfying & impulsive outer cosmos ragadelia to clangorous, rapidly punctuated percussive workouts. Metzger has been described as a virtuoso and a visionary whose live performances are vital, deeply visceral and simply breathtaking.



Metzger has played more than 500 shows worldwide on bills with a diverse array of artists including blues legends Spider John Koerner & Tony Glover, Japanese metal act Boris, new wave revivalists Gang Gang Dance, psych acts Amen Dunes and Six Organs of Admittance, moperockers Low and fellow string journeymen Sir Richard Bishop and Jack Rose. Notable festival appearances include the Festival Météo (France), Suoni per il Popolo (Montreal, Canada), Two Rivers (Portland, Maine) and events sponsored by WFMU and THE WIRE magazine.

"Metzger has a magisterial control over his instrument, playing in a raga style that combines modal inflection with subtle microtonal colour while taking the conceptions of Dock Boggs and Sandy Bull out into the stratosphere." - David Kenan

ROSS LAMBERT

Northern Irish (and London-based) guitarist and ‘magnetic and vibrating sources’ player Ross Lambert, has in his own words, the following fundamental and simultaneous approaches to live performance: to play as though it was both the first time and also the last; and to able to differentiate between what is good and worth conserving and what is not. Ross has been involved in, initiated and been a connector between a very wide variety of improvisatory music since his first exposure and (immediate) commitment to it, in Sheffield via Derek Bailey during the mid-1980s. Although under-recorded (he claims ‘by choice’), Ross has worked with a huge number of musicians from around the world, including Tetuzi Akiyama, Ami Yoshida, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Paul Hession, Rhodri Davies, John Butcher and Evan Parker, as well as his close friends Eddie Prevost, Seymour Wright, and Sebastian Lexer.



PHARMAKON

Pharmakon is the moniker of guitarist Ario Zamani. Teasing repeating patterns out of a stripped down set-up, Zamani creates an immersive scree of textural overtones, building upon looped phrases that subtly diverge and coalesce in hypnotic fashion. This will be his debut performance.

youtube.com/user/ario1zamani