photos by Mary Lemley/HYG
Hundred Years Gallery is delighted to present John Russell and Phil Minton in a special live recording session.
Phil Minton is best known for his startling vocal improvisations. This sensible looking man proffers slices of his unfettered soul. Not long ago these croaks, burps, high-pitched exhalations, deep-throated drones and shreds of garbled half-language would have seen Minton either burnt or hailed as an emissary of God.
Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times
John Russell began playing the guitar in 1965, playing free improvisation in and around London from 1972 onwards. From 1974 his work extended into teaching, recording, broadcasts (radio and television) and touring in the UK and abroad both as a soloist, and in collaboration with many fine musicians and groups.
In 1981 he founded ʻQuaquaʼ, a bank of improvisers put together in different permutations for specific events. Since then no two of these groups have ever been the same. Each group comes together for the duration of a specific project, and always features some of the most creative and individual improvisers around in previously unheard permutations.
In 1990 he inaugurated and is the driving force behind ʻMopomosoʼ, which has become the UKʼs longest running concert series dedicated to free improvisation and related musics. An audio, video and photographic archive of past events is currently being built. Video clips of most events began in 2008 and can be found by following this link to the past concerts page on the Mopomoso website.
Apart from solo work and heading Quaqua, he is presently involved in a number of regular groups including a trio with Evan Parker and John Edwards, duos with Stale Liavik Solberg, Stefan Keune, Phil Wachsmann, Pascal Marzan, Thurston Moore and Phil Minton, trios with Michel Doneda and Roger Turner (The Cigar that Talks), with Maggie Nicols and Mia Zabelka (Trio Blurb) with Mats Gustafsson and Raymond Strid (Birds) and with Henry Lowther and Satoko Fukuda, The European Contemporary Improvisation Orchestra and various projects with master percussionist Sabu Toyozumi and trombonist/ cellist/film maker Gunter Christmann.
Doors 7:30 | music 8pm | entry £5 / donation
