Ken Vandermark (USA): tenor saxophone & clarinet
Paal Nilssen-Love (Norway): drums & percussion
Doors 7.30 | music 8pm | £15
The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together at an accelerated rate since 2002, and they have put out seven albums of exceptional and wide ranging improvised music since then. Though they have both worked in many critically acclaimed groups- from the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Lean Left (with Terrie Hessels and Andy Moor of The Ex) to Double Tandem (with Dutch saxophonist, Ab Baars)- they have continued to return to their duo for more than a dozen years because it remains crucial to their creative output.
Nilssen-Love and Vandermark began this collaboration when they recorded their initial album, Dual Pleasure, for the label Smalltownsupersound. Shortly afterward, they performed their first concert at the Molde International Jazz Festival. Since then, they’ve performed on an international basis every year- in Europe, North America, and Japan. Their approach to the duo context is ferocious in its intensity, combining extreme rhythmic velocity with formal deconstruction and re-assembly, and a freedom to use any genre at any time. In many ways, Nilssen-Love and Vandermark are more open this setting than in any of their other playing situations, creating a unique approach to improvised music that is riveting for both its ideas and execution.
In September of 2015 their duo hit the road in the United States, performing in the Midwest and on the West Coast to celebrating the release of their eighth album, entitled, The Lions Have Eaten One of the Guards (Audiographic Records), recorded live during a blistering performance in Antwerp during their European tour of October, 2013. Since that time, the Nilssen-Love and Vandermark have toured on a regular basis all over the world, most recently in Brazil during June of 2019. The duo’s latest album, Screen Off, has been hailed as a conceptual breakthrough for the band. Before the pandemic broke loose, they did an extensive tour of Japan with many legends as guest; Akira Sakata, Yuji Takahashi and Masahiko Satoh. These recordings became part of their 7CD box set which was released in connection with another extensive tour of Japan in January 2024.
“This one comes with a fascinating twist: the musicians teamed up with producer Lasse Marhaug who trolled through hours of recordings that fans have uploaded to YouTube, raw audience recordings, compressed and occasionally distorted by the web site’s format… They use a musical version of a William Burroughs cut-up novel, by piecing the album together with the idea of creating a musical narrative at the forefront, so there may be snippets from different concerts even from different years sewn together, creating a cohesive flow for the music to follow… The entire album comes through like an imaginary concert of the mind, where powerhouse squeaks and crashes demonstrate the potency of the duo, making way for high pitched reeds and rolling drums, clearing the path for spacier sections only to take flight again, soaring high into the next gear shift. This album is highly recommended, but very difficult to explain, it really must be be experienced to be fully understood. It is an interesting way to move forward for the music, using avant-garde techniques from other artistic disciplines and folding them into progressive jazz in a very thoughtful manner.”
Tim Niland, Jazz and Blues Blog, August 2019
“The Lions Have Eaten One of the Guards is yet another album solidifying Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love as one of the most powerful improvisational duos around. Vandermark and Nilssen-Love have been playing together for more than ten years now (with almost as many records) and in that time, they’ve pared away the excesses, trimmed the fat, and stream-lined their sound. In essence, they’ve become leaner, meaner, and extremer”.
Derek Stone, freejazzblog, December 2015
