New ATOPOS release: Morton Feldman - For Christian Wolff

John Tilbury (piano / celesta) and Carla Rees (flute)

Like nature, Feldman’s music has an indestructible quality, for all its surface fragility. As a personality Feldman was abrasive but brittle; he could be insensitive to the feelings of others but one sensed in him a vulnerability. “The real for me is how I can leap into this thing which I call life. Music must have sensuous dimension”, he once said.

The sensuality of touching the instrument. Often, before I start playing the piano I gently caress the instrument. Comparable to love-making, you approach your lover with a degree of trepidation; there is no clear objective. Then, the first touch.

Osterfestival Tirol (Galerie St. Barbara)

This festival was founded in 1989 in Hall in Tyrol and Innsbruck. It is part the Galerie St. Barbara (association existing since 1968) that since it’s beginnings focuses on contemporary art forms and expressions. The link and relation between the different arts is the main topic of the festival: from music (ancient, contemporary, classical non-european) to art, from dance and performance to theatre,… During the years, Hall in Tyrol has become – due to this private institution – a meeting point for Avantgarde and a centre for contemporary thoughts with a high international value. Private friendships arose from this work and invitations to composers like György Ligeti, John Cage, Dieter Schnebel, Christian Wolff, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Conlon Nancarrow, Georg Fr. Haas and many more. Since the contact with John Tilbury – one of the most important interpreters for Feldman’s music – in the 70s, the festival and the association is dedicated to the music of Morton Feldman and has produced the CD “All piano” with Feldman’s complete solo piano works, interpreted by John Tilbury.

Atopos - December 2016

John Tilbury and Carla Rees performing Morton Feldman - for Christian Wolff at Osterfestival Innsbruck- Austria on 16/03/2016

Recording David O'Conor / Guillaume Viltard / Tom Wheatley / Eddie Prevost at IKLECTIK London, 18th January 2017, 8pm.

Eddie Prévost—veteran experimental percussionist on drums in a season of concerts in which he and double bassist Guillaume Viltard meet remarkable saxophone players. For this concert they are joined by saxophonist David O’Connor and double bassiest Tom Wheatley.

David O’Connor – baritone and sopranino saxophones

‘David O’Connor plays saxophone and flute and intends to continue to do so’. He has a long standing relationship with the workshop Eddie Prévost has been convening since 1999 and was one of the organisers of the related As Alike As Trees festival, alongside Eddie and Jennifer Allum. He has played with numerous people in predominantly improvised, including those met at the workshop, as well as in more structured situations such as a stint with avant rock band Perhaps Contraption. Current projects include his song & improvisation project Tsk! with singer Iris Ederer as well as adding a saxophonic din to Rick Jensen’s Apocalypse Jazz Unit. He also takes a lot of photos, often of people he is listening to.

Tom Wheatley is a double bass and electric bass player based in, and native to, London. He plays to open the bass – sonically and physically, musically and surgically – as to open suppressed musics. He is actively involved in new music communities of London and elsewhere, playing with Seymour Wright, Hebronix, Eddie Prévost, John Edwards, CYNTHIA, Mark Sanders, Yoni Silver, Billy Steiger, Denis D’or, Ute Kanngiesser, Guillaume Viltard and many others.

Recording Susan Lynch / Rachel Musson / Guillaume Viltard / Eddie Prevost at IKLECTIK London, 14th December 2016, 8pm.

Eddie Prévost—veteran experimental percussionist on drums in a season of concerts in which he and double bassist Guillaume Viltard meet remarkable saxophone players

Rachel Musson — saxophonist, improviser and composer. Works with a trio with Hannah Marshall and Julie Kjaer, a duo with vibraphonist Corey Mwamba, and a trio with Mark Sanders and John Edwards. She has released three albums under her own name, one featuring drummer Mark Sanders and bassist John Edwards (Bibimbap, Two Rivers Records), one featuring Liam Noble and Mark Sanders (Tatterdemalion, Babel Records), and one featuring her ensemble Skein (Flight Line, F-ire Recorded Music). A member of the London Improvisers Orchestra and, among others, Alex Ward’s Quintet and Sextet.

 “ a free-improviser sensitive to melody-like narrative and dramatic pacing – John Fordham, The Guardian

Sue Lynch — tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute + composition. Part of Caroline Kraabel’s all women saxophone ensemble ‘The Mass Producer’s’ and has been a regular participant in Eddie Prevost’s workshop at The Welsh Chapel. Since 2012 she has been running The Horse Improvised Music Club’ with Adam Bohman. She is member of ‘The Custodians of The Realm’, exploring the use of text, wind instruments, electronics and amplified objects and is regularly in bands on the London scene. In 2015 she performed in Maria Vatentina’s opera ‘Mannequin.’ And in Tarek Atoui’s ‘Reverse Collection’ at The Tate Modern.
Sue Lynch is currently one of the featured musicians in Julie Kjaer’s Interviews with Female Musicians  on The London Improv Scene for The British Music Collection.

Recording Sessions

Concert series focusing on recording projects of free improvisation, free jazz, electro-acoustic improvisation and contemporary compositions.

Evan Parker - saxophones

Sebastian Lexer - piano+

Mark Sanders - percussion

Peter Evans - Trumpet

+ Special Guest 

IKLECTIC Art Lab, Old Paradise, 20 Carlisle Lane, London SE1 7LG - (Royal street corner) next to Arcbishop's Park. Nearest tube station Lambeth North.

Thursday 24th November 2016, 8:00pm

Entry: £10/£6, doors open 7:00pm.

This series is curated by Giovanni La Rovere

Recording John Butcher / Guillaume Viltard / Eddie Prevost, at IKLECTIK London, 23rd November 2016, 8pm.

John Butcher, Internationally renowned his music ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback and unusual acoustics.

Eddie Prévost—veteran experimental percussionist on drums in a season of concerts in which he and double bassist Guillaume Viltard meet remarkable saxophone players

Recording Seymour Wright / Eddie Prevost / Tom Wheatley / Guillaume Viltard, at IKLECTIK London, 9th November 2016, 8pm

Seymour Wright – saxophonist, investigator, artist – lives in London. His practice is about the saxophone – music, history and technique ­– actual and potential; an on-going, rigorous and exhaustive exploration of the instrument. The energy of this learning is applied to various collaborations and contexts to access/share what he has called the ‘awkward wealth of investigation’. His work is documented on two widely acclaimed self-released solo collections Seymour Wright of Derby (2008) and Seymour Writes Back (2015). His current collaborations include XT (with Paul Abbott) lll人 (with Daichi Yoshikawa and Paul Abbott), GUO (with Daniel Blumberg) and STEPS (with esw).

Eddie Prévost—veteran experimental percussionist on drums in a season of concerts in which he and double bassist Guillaume Viltard meet remarkable saxophone players

Recording Jason Yard / Eddie Prevost / Tom Wheatley at IKLECTIK London, 26th October 2016, 8pm

Eddie Prévost—veteran experimental percussionist on drums in a season of concerts in which he and double bassist Guillaume Viltard meet remarkable saxophone players *** note: this concert will feature Jason with Tom Wheatley double bass and Eddie Prévost drums.

Jason Yarde – tenor saxophones

Composer, arranger, producer, musical director and saxophonist Yarde casts a wide musical net having worked with Hermeto Pascoal to 4hero, Plan B to Britten Sinfonia, Keziah Jones to Kronos Quartet, Wretch 32 to Wonderbrass and Jonzi-D to Jack Dejohnette. He’s played in the big bands of Andrew Hill, McCoy Tyner, and Sam Rivers and been a member of various bands led by Louis Moholo for near 25 years.

His own projects range from fx’d solo in the Blue Box Diaries to the McCormack & Yarde Duo (MY DUO) to the larger ACOUTASTiC BOMBASTiC. Awards include a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, a Paul Hamlyn Award and the first BASCA for Contemporary Jazz Composition for his BBC Proms compositional début (2009).

He’s written for Hugh Masekela and the LSO and produced award winning albums for Soweto Kinch, Gwilym Simcock, Denys Baptiste and Empirical.

Tom Wheatley is a double bass and electric bass player based in, and native to, London. He plays to open the bass – sonically and physically, musically and surgically – as to open suppressed musics. He is actively involved in new music communities of London and elsewhere, playing with Seymour Wright, Hebronix, Eddie Prévost, John Edwards, CYNTHIA, Mark Sanders, Yoni Silver, Billy Steiger, Denis D’or, Ute Kanngiesser, Guillaume Viltard and many others.

Recording Nathaniel Catchpole / Eddie Prevost / Guillaume Viltard at IKLECTIK London, Wednesday 12th October 2016, 8pm.

Eddie Prévost—veteran experimental percussionist on drums in a season of concerts in which he and double bassist Guillaume Viltard meet remarkable saxophone players

Nathaniel Catchpole has been performing on London’s improvised music scene since 2001. He has long standing associations with many of the musicians who came out of Eddie Prévost’s Friday night workshop, and has performed with musicians as diverse as Steve Reid, John Edwards, Paul Rutherford and Tetuzi Akiyama. He is featured on a number of recordings. Most notably as a solo artist on double CD featuring notable experimental reed players (including Evan Parker and John Butcher) — Horn_Bill (Matchless Recordings mrcd63). And, on Beyond the Barrier with John Edwards double bass and Eddie Prévost drums (Matchless Recordings mrcd95)

Recording Joe Wright / Massimo Magee / Eddie Prevost / Guillaume Viltard at IKLECTIK London, Tuesday 20th September 2016, 8pm.

Meeting With Remarkable Saxophonists

Eddie Prevost - veteran experimental percussionist on drums in a sesson of concerts in which he and double bassist Guilliaume Viltard meet remarkable saxophone players.

Joe Wright  – tenor saxophone

Massimo Magee  – soprano saxophone

Joe Wright is an award winning saxophonist and electronic musician based in London. He has performed around the UK in a variety of settings, from his solo work to groups such as duck-rabbit and ensembles with musicians such as Terry Day, Mark Sanders, Alex Ward, Hannah Marshall and more.

Massimo Magee is a writer, artist and musician based in London. His work is wide-ranging, including fiction, text art, combined text, sound and image digital art pieces, improvised and/or experimental music, free jazz, obsessive and repetitive drawing pieces, radically extended saxophony, electronics, data manipulation and much more. His trilogy of novels, Counter Culture a Novel In Three Parts, has recently been published through [Array] Press, as part of a larger multimedia project called The Triptych.

Recording Trevor Watts / Eddie Prevost / Guillaume Viltard at IKLECTIK London, Wednesday 14th September 2016, 8pm.

Meeting With Remarkable Saxophonists

Eddie Prevost - veteran experimental percussionist on drums in a sesson of concerts in which he and double bassist Guilliaume Viltard meet remarkable saxophone players.

Trevor Watts (alto & soprano saxophones), In 1965 he and drummer (the late John Stevens formed the Spontaneous Music emsemble, which became one of the crucibles of Brithish free improvisation. Watts left the band to form his own group Amalgam in 1967, then returned to SME for another stretch that lasted until the mid-1970s. Watts has toured the world over and he has collaborated with some of the great jazz musicians including Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy, Don Cherry and Jayne Cortez.

Recording the music of George Butterworth, performance by Roderick Williams (tenor voice) and Iain Burnside (piano) at The Science Museum, London 28 June 2016 as part of the opening exhibition "Wounded: Conflict, Casualties and Care"

On 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, British forces sustained 57,000 casualties, creating a medical emergency of unprecedented scale and severity.

This new exhibition at the Science Museum commemorates the centenary of this momentous battle and the huge medical and human impact of wounding during and beyond the First World War.

Wounded: Conflict, Casualties and Care draws on the Science Museum’s extensive First World War medical collections as well as the words of the wounded and those who cared for them to explore the remarkable medical responses and innovations catalysed by this conflict.  

Beyond the battlefields, the exhibition also focuses on the longer-term impact of the war on the soldiers who were left physically and mentally affected, and shows how the medical lessons learnt still carry relevance today.

Recording Sessions

Concert series focusing on recording projects of free improvisation, free jazz, electro-acoustic improvisation and contemporary compositions.

John Butcher - saxophones

N. O. Moore - guitar/electronics

Eddie Prevost - percussion

IKLECTIC Art Lab, Old Paradise, 20 Carlisle Lane, London SE1 7LG - (Royal street corner) next to Arcbishop's Park. Nearest tube station Lambeth North.

Saturday 28th May 2016, 8:00pm

Entry: £7/£5, doors open 7:00pm.

This concert series is organised by Giovanni La Rovere

Recording John Butcher / Thomas Lehn / John Tilbury at Cafe Oto London, Thursday 26th May 2016

Fataka presents: John Butcher / Thomas Lehn / John Tilbury (trio)

Exiting performance of a captivating pairing of French saxophonist Bertrand Gauguet and the great pianist John Tilbury.

Recording John Tilbury and Carla Reeds performing - Morton Feldman for Christian Wolff at Osterfestival Innsbruck- Austria on 16/03/2016

This two-hour work is one of Morton Feldman’s last compositions. He was 16 years old – Orpheus in tennis shoes. Christian Wolff was a close friend of Feldman and part of the circle surrounding John Cage and Earle Browne during the 1950s.
My experience when listening to the piece was wonderful and interesting – some sections depart from our (Morty’s, John Cage’s and my) original occupation with tone and tonal colour; the listeners’ own experience is the central point of focus. (Christian Wolff)

Carla Rees – flute, John Tilbury – piano, celesta

Recording John Tilbury and Carla Reeds performing - Morton Feldman for Christian Wolff at Cafe Oto, Thursday 10/03/2016

The great pianist, John Tilbury, presents the first UK performance of Morton Feldman's extraordinary late work, for Christian Wolff, with flautist Carla Rees and Tilbury on piano/celeste.

“First performed in 1986, a little over a year before his death, Morton Feldman's For Christian Wolff belongs with the other vast, obsessive scores of his final years, such as For Philip Guston and the Second String Quartet. This is a single movement for flute and keyboard (piano doubling celesta), lasting almost three hours... In such a vastly expanded musical landscape the smallest shift or inflection assumes huge significance, while the tonal variety Feldman wrings from this limited palette is extraordinary.” – The Guardian

FATAKA Label is very pleased to announce the new Fataka release: Sebastian Lexer & Steve Noble's Muddy Ditch. It will be available on CD and download on 24 February 2016.

There will be a launch concert at Cafe Oto for the release on Tuesday 23 February and it would be great to see you there.

Muddy Ditch

(Fataka 13)

Sebastian Lexer (piano+) and Steve Noble (drums and percussion) first played together in the winter of 2011 and what seemed like an unlikely, even oppositional, pairing quickly proved itself to be an extremely well-matched one. Muddy Ditch presents two live sets: their first revelatory encounter and a more considered and spacious meeting in 2014. In both, Noble's sharp vertical hits and Lexer's sustained horizontal textures echo, disrupt and enrich each other, producing music full of complex slants and intricate resonances.