Wednesday 24 September 2025, 7.30pm
Terry 85 is an event dedicated to celebrating Terry Day, a first-generation free improviser and artist born in 1940. The evening will feature two sets and highlight some of his close peers and newer generations of artists connected to him through music, art, and friendship.
The first set includes a trio consisting of Terry on drums, his long-time friend and collaborator from People Band, filmmaker Mike Figgis, and the talented double bassist and music producer Neil Charles.
The second set will open with "Trouble Times," a lyric from his book "Love, Sex, and War: Terry Day Lyrics", published by Unpredictable Series in 2023. This will segue into a trio featuring percussionist BeiBei Wang, interdisciplinary artist Blanca Regina, and Peter Cusack, an artist and musician who uses field recordings, electronics, and guitar. Peter is also a member of the group Alterations, which performed with Terry Day, David Toop, and Steve Beresford from 1977 to 1986 and reunited in 2015, continuing to the present day.
As drummer, multi-instrumentalist, poet, painter, singer and free spirit, Terry has been a source of joy and inspiration to many generations since his pioneering forays into free improvisation in the early 1960s. Cafe Oto and Unpredictable Series are proud to host a celebration of his wit, invention and unstoppable energy.
Terry Day is a first generation pioneer improviser from the 1960s: an improviser, multi-instrumentalist, lyricist, songwriter, visual artist and poet.
A self-taught musician in a family of musicians, he began improvising on the drums with his brother in 1955. In the early ‘60s he formed the Hardy Holman Day trio, focusing on free improvisation. Later he became part of the band Kilburn & the Highroads, with Ian Dury. Sharing their interest in visual art and painting they both studied at Walthamstow School of Art and later at the Royal College of Art, London. As an art student in the ‘60s he was also a pioneer of free improvisation, free jazz & experimental music.
He formed a duo with guitarist Derek Bailey in the late ´60s and was a regular member of The Continuous Music Ensemble,The People Band and, later on, Alterations with David Toop, Steve Beresford & Peter Cusack.
Terry has collaborated with many musical luminaries, groups, dancers, painters, poets and performed in theatre. He now plays bamboo reed flutes, drums, recorders, balloons & improvises with his lyrics, prose and verse. Since 2000 he has been part of London Improvisers Orchestra. In recent years he has toured twice in both Japan and Brazil, and has performed with improvising orchestras in Malaga, Tokyo and Madrid.
Mike began playing the drums and trumpet at the age of 11 and picked up the guitar at the age of 15. He started playing with rock bands, which included one with Brian Ferry called The Gas Board when he was 16.
Two years later, Mike went to Trent Park to study music, and during this time he explored the music scene in London. He began playing with a Free Jazz group known as The People Band, as well as joining the associated People Show. He has continued performing in various versions of those groups ever since.
Mike scores his own movies, always motivated by the emotions in the film. He lays down basic tracks and then brings in exceptional musicians to improvise over his structures.
Neil Charles is one of the most in-demand musicians on the scene, with a huge array of credits to his name, including Jack DeJohnette, the Sun Ra Arkestra, Mingus Big Band, Jose James, Jerry Dammers, Courtney Pine, and Terence Blanchard. His own projects have included Zed U, with Shabaka Hutchings and Tom Skinner, and the more recent ensemble Dark Days, dealing with the work of James Baldwin. Most recently, he has been heard across the international scene with Gabriels. As well as being known as a bass player with a huge sound and immaculate sense of time, he is equally renowned as a producer, going by the alias Ben Marc.
"Bassist Neil Charles went flying, from the first moment filling the space with the sound of his mighty wings Henning Bolte," – Europe Jazz Media Chart
Genre-defying percussionist Beibei Wang is an acclaimed international virtuoso percussionist with both a Chinese and British musical education background. Beibei has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the classical music world, receiving international praise for her performances. She was listed in the top 50 Chinese musicians in the “Sound of East” project by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, as well as endorsed by the Arts Council, England receiving an Exceptional Talent visa from the British Government. Following a successful world tour, Beibei now leads a traditional Chinese percussion programme at SOAS, University of London. In 2020, Beibei was named Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. Most recently Beibei was appointed as percussion professor of the Crossover Studies Faculty at London Performing Academy of Music. www.beibeimusic.com
Blanca Regina is an interdisciplinary artist, independent curator, and educator based in London currently involved in creating audio-visual performances, sound works, installations, films, and book arts. She is co-founder of Unpredictable Series focused on spontaneous music and experimentation, visual arts, and archives. With Steve Beresford, she has produced three albums, mixed and mastered by Dave Hunt in London. ‘What Blue’ (2020) Duets with Beresford; ‘Duets with Blanca Regina, Spontaneous Music’ featuring duets with Leafcutter John, Jack Goldstein, John Butcher, Benedict Taylor, Matthias Kispert, Aneek Thapar, Steve Beresford, Sharon Gal, and Hyelim Kim and ‘Art of Improvisers’ (2017) a collection album with several artists concentrating on women improvisers. With long-time collaborator and artist Leafcutter John capturing their live performances in 2017, they created ‘Miga’ limited-edition pen drive and digital release. Other collaborations include performances and projects with Matthias Kispert, David Toop, Matt Black (Coldcut), Art Terry, and Peter Cusack.
She is currently working on Terry Day's archives and finishing a documentary film about him.
Peter Cusack is a field recordist, sound artist, and musician with a long interest in the environment. He initiated the Favourite Sounds Project to discover what people find positive about soundscapes where they live and Sounds From Dangerous Places (sonic journalism) to investigate major environmental damage in areas such as the Chernobyl exclusion zone, the Azerbaijan oil fields, brown coal mining in Germany and the Czech Republic and the Bialowieza Forest in Poland.
He produced Vermilion Sounds - the environmental sound programme - for ResonanceFM Radio, and was DAAD artist-in-residence in Berlin 2011/12, starting Berlin Sonic Places that explores relationships between soundscape and urban development.
He is currently working on Aral Sea Stories, about the destruction and subsequent partial restoration of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan - a much-needed positive example in today’s climate change debate.
Musically he plays guitar and field recordings, improvises, writes tunes, and has worked with Alterations, Kahondo Style, Clive Bell, Nic Collins, Ute Wassermann, Viv Corringham, Michael Thieke, Blanca Regina, and others.
http://favouritesounds.org
http://sounds-from-dangerous-places.org/
