Caroline Kraabel, Crystabel Riley, Ivor Kallin, Douglas Benford
Door 3.30pm | music 4pm | donation/£5
Caroline Kraabel
Caroline Kraabel came to London from Seattle as a teenager, just too late to realise her punk dreams and instead discovering the saxophone, street performance and busking. There were ideas about freedom in the air, including the punk ideal of music as something anyone could do, which led to music in which one could, with application and inspiration, do anything: improvisation. London’s vibrant improvised music scene and its many great musicians gave Kraabel opportunities to explore extended techniques (especially the use of voice with the saxophone) and to spend time thinking about acoustics and the interactions of electricity and music: reproduction, synthesis, and their implications. Caroline is committed to improvisation as a way of living and working, making music in unexpected ways and places (Taking a Life for a Walk; Going Outside) but also composing and playing written music (Mass Producers and Saxophone Experiments in Space for large groups, and many pieces for smaller groups). She has worked with Anri Sala, Maggie Nicols, Andrea Zarza Canova, Evan Parker, Annie Lewandowski, John Tchicai, Cleveland Watkiss and Susan Alcorn, among many fine artists, and was a director of the London Musicians Collective, which created Resonance 104.4fm, London’s art radio station. Caroline has been playing with and conducting the London Improvisers Orchestra for many years, exploring improvisation and conducted improvisation for large groups (up to 50 musicians).
http://www.masskraabel.com/
Crystabel Riley
During late naughties Crystabel toured Japan and Europe playing drums and electronics with industrial noise trio Maria and the Mirrors. She is also a pivotal member of ongoing improvisation project Debbie Leggo; a collaboration with Scottish poet Gerry Mitchel and musicians such as Tom Jackson. She has played drums and percussion for Micheal Rother and improvised alongside Daniel Thompson, Sue Lynch, Seymour Wright and John Edwards, as well as being a regular member of the London Improvisers Orchestra
https://youtu.be/YOjBVMfrtC4
Ivor Kallin
Ivor left Strathbungo three decades ago and has always looked back. His bedroom antics recently reported in a national newspaper, the pibroch viola improvisations project being favourably reviewed. Ivor currently plays bass with Ya Basta, and has done for at least two decades, bass with the Horseless Headmen, viola with the improv string trio Barrel alongside Alison Blunt and Hannah Marshall (check out Gratuitous Abuse, the CD) and in the London Improvisers Orchestra (CDs on Emanem and Psi), previously played bass guitar with the London Electric Guitar Orchestra (several CDs on 213Music), made a CD on location in Glasgow with John Bisset, and collaborates with the same person regularly making stupid but intelligent films for www.2-13.co.uk and occasionally rants bloody awful poetry as Ambrosia Rasputin, which was also the moniker adopted whilst hosting a regular radio show on Resonance FM. He is an Orient season ticket holder, and keeps a close eye on the results of Queen’s Park and Pollok FC. He has recently become a grandfather, so that shows you how old he might be.
https://www.alisonblunt.com/
Douglas Benford
As a composer and sound artist, Douglas 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, Cafe Oto, Tate Modern, The Roundhouse, ICA and Glasgow’s CCA), festivals worldwide (Mutek, Synch, Transmediale) and had installation work in numerous UK galleries (Inc. London, Swansea, Gloucestershire and Essex). After numerous electronica releases in his ‘si-cut.db’ guise, in the past decade he has focused on acoustic improvisation and installations, using field recordings, classical instruments, vocals and children’s toys. As well as playing with the London Improvisers Orchestra and Confront Recordings / Mark Wastell’s The Seen collective, his regular collaborators include Blanca Regina, poet Tamar Yoseloff, Angharad Davies, Lina Lapelyte, Steve Beresford, Adam Bohman, Clive Bell, Sue Lynch, sculptor Rob Olins, as well as – in the past – pop group Saint Etienne, Jem Finer (The Pogues), Momus, Rod Thomas (Bright Light Bright Light), Scanner, Stephan Mathieu and Andrew Weatherall. He was also co-curator with Iris Garrelfs, established in 1996, of Sprawl audio events in London.
http://douglasbenford.org.uk
