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1 | 13.1.25 | 10:43 |
To celebrate our 17th birthday, we're delighted to offer a free recording of the phenomenal first meeting between Theodora Laird (voice), John McGrath (guitar) and Douglas Benford (harmonium). Recorded at OTO as part of Phil Durrant's 'Combinations' event in January 2025, the set may only be 10 minutes long, but contains so many layers that we'll be unravelling it for a long time to come.
Laird's remarkable voice swoops and flutters with a stark, intimate quality that feels almost confessional, conjuring an atmosphere all its own. McGrath's guitar blurs the lines between acoustic and synthetic as clusters of notes fizz and sputter, refracting and evolving with a granular intensity as distinctive as it is complex. Ebbing and flowing through the fragments, Benford's juddering, yearning reeds pitch and yaw, sometimes swelling like a spring tide, sometimes sharp and fractured like splinters of ice.
All too soon, the myriad swirling strands settle, but their reverberations linger for a long while. Representing three great improvising musicians fully in the moment, and embodying so much of what we want OTO to provide a home for, this is something very special indeed.
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Recorded by Billy Steiger
Mixed and mastered by Oli Barrett
Cover photo by Stuart Wilding
Free to download – if you're a member the download will not remove a credit.
Theodora Laird is a vocalist and multidisciplinary artist. Releases under her solo project ‘feeo’ have received critical acclaim. Theodora's practice has involved in tandem with an interest in situating narratives within freely improvised music, specifically through frequent involvement in the GRAIN residency.
As a composer and sound artist, Douglas Benford has been involved in various audio genres since the late 1980s, performing at many institutions/venues in the UK (Bristol’s Arnolfini, London’s Science Museum, Tate Modern, The Roundhouse, ICA and Glasgow’s CCA), festivals worldwide and had installation work in numerous UK art spaces. He is a regular contributor to the London Improvisers Orchestra, as well as playing with Confront Recordings’ The Seen collective. His collaborators in recent years have included Blanca Regina, Dominic Lash, Martin Vishnick, Crystabel Riley, poet Tamar Yoseloff, Olivia Moore, Matt Atkins, Lina Lapelyte, Jem Finer, Clive Bell, John Edwards, Jennifer Allum, Sue Lynch, sculptor Rob Olins and many more.
Dr John McGrath is an Irish guitarist, writer and educator based in London.
His music explores the boundaries of the ancient and modern as traditional elements meet improvisation and experimental tendencies. McGrath's compositions (available from Crooked Stem Recordings) have been featured in The Wire, RTE Radio 1, BBC Radio, aired on several television programmes, and sounded at Tate Modern and FACT.
A professional guitarist from the age of 17, John has performed thousands of gigs including in ensembles with Dustin Wong, Sharon Gal, Cavalier Song, History of Harry, Black Snow Rodeo, Tequila Sunrise, Rhys Chatham, Howard Skempton and the aPAtT Orchestra. Recent session work includes two records with The Unattached (Gare du Nord). McGrath has been commissioned to write for the IMMIX ensemble and performed new music alongside large arrangements of his work with the group. As a solo performer John has performed at various festivals and has supported Richard Dawson, Gwenifer Raymond, Laraaji and Sun Araw. Recent appearances include a solo set at King's Place, London.
He is co-editor of the collection 21st Century Guitar for Bloomsbury (2023) and is currently working with Alan F. Moore on a monograph about English Folk Song.
