Orbits
Orbits is a project led by London based drummer, Andrew Lisle. The band consists of a core trio of Lisle (drums), Thomas Lumley (Saxophones) and Otto Willberg (bass) and is augmented by collaborations with James Copus (Trumpet) and Riley Stone-Lonergan (Tenor saxophone). The band plays original compositions by Lisle and interweaves these with pieces by Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Mal Waldron and James Blood Ulmer.
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KODIAN trio
“Are you ready for some meticulously disjointed free improv? If so you’re in luck, as that’s precisely what the Dutch outfit the Kodian Trio excel at. Their first album I was released earlier this year, and it’s full of the scratchy, clicky difficult listening that we all love. One track that stands apart from the rest of the album is V, which sees the group cut loose with amplification and general skronkiness. It also sees them play a bit more with rock tonalities – Dirk Serries’ electric guitar may be chopping and switching, but every so often there’ll be a phrase that sounds like it might have been played by Mick Ronson. Colin Webster is furious on sax, and Andrew Lisle likewise sounds as if he’s acknowledging the rock influences, right up to the point where everything gets blasted into fragments. Really fun noises.” Cyberinsekt - UK
Alex Ward Item 10
Following on from the groups Predicate, Forebrace and the Alex Ward Quintet/Sextet, this new ensemble represents the latest stage in Alex Ward's ongoing work combining composition and improvisation.
Item 10 is Alex's first foray beyond the world of small group leadership into the challenge of composing for a large ensemble, and the program will consist entirely of new pieces written by him for this performance. The musicians in the ensemble range from long-term associates of Ward's to others with whom he will be working for the first time in this group, and their strong musical personalities and varied backgrounds in the worlds of free improvisation, jazz and contemporary composition will be reflected in a evening of dynamic and unclassifiable large-group music, in which the structural and material elements made possible through notation will serve to stimulate rather than trammel the performers' improvisational instincts and responses.
Item 10 is Alex's first foray beyond the world of small group leadership into the challenge of composing for a large ensemble, and the program will consist entirely of new pieces written by him for this performance. The musicians in the ensemble range from long-term associates of Ward's to others with whom he will be working for the first time in this group, and their strong musical personalities and varied backgrounds in the worlds of free improvisation, jazz and contemporary composition will be reflected in a evening of dynamic and unclassifiable large-group music, in which the structural and material elements made possible through notation will serve to stimulate rather than trammel the performers' improvisational instincts and responses.
Alex Ward Item 4
The Alex Ward Item Series was launched in September 2017 at Cafe Oto with the debut performance by ITEM 10, Ward's first foray into the world of composition for large ensemble. Now follows the second group in the series - ITEM 4, a quartet consisting of Alex on clarinet and guitar, Charlotte Keeffe on trumpet and flugelhorn, Otto Willberg on double bass and Andrew Lisle on drums. All the members were also participants in the Item 10 performance (the Item Series being conceived as a pool of musicians from which various sizes of ensemble can be drawn for different musical ends), and are amongst the most idiosyncratic and distinctive improvisers on the current UK scene. In writing for the group, Alex's aim was to exert as minimal limitation on the players' interaction and invention as possible, while still giving rise to a music distinct from that which would come about through pure improvisation - in this case, the means to achieving this was a conception of compositional materials as akin to emotional landmarks in an otherwise wide-open terrain... concentrates of melodic/harmonic information whose structural and affective characteristics resonate through the musical whole without controlling or defining it.
Webster/Lisle
A long running colaberation between two of the most exciting members of the new wave of British improvisers. High energy fire-music.
Terraform Quartet
Searching their London habitat and the world beyond, this tight-knit exploratory group have unearthed a vibrant energy that places itself in the progression of jazz, free improvised and experimental music. Combining moving compositions and ecstatic improvisations to powerful effect, their live performances are an occasion not to be missed.
