Combinations selected from
Phil Durrant – octave mandola
Maggie Nicols – vocals
Douglas Benford – harmonium/objects
Daniel Thompson – guitar
Dominic Lash – double bass
Photo of Phil Durrant and Daniel Thompson by Dawid Laskowski
doors 7pm | music 8pm | entry £8 (cash only)
Phil Durrant : Born near London in 1957, Phil Durrant is a multi-instrumentalist improviser/composer/sound artist who currently performs solo and group concerts.
As a violinist (and member of the Butcher/Russell/Durrant trio), he was one of the key exponents of the “group voice approach” style of improvised music. In the late 90s, his trio with Radu Malfatti and Thomas Lehn represented a shift to a more “reductionist” approach.
Recently, he has been performing solo and duo concerts with Bill Thompson, Mark Wastell, as well as his seven-piece group ‘If Herbie Went West Coast’, using a modular synthesizer system. As a mandolinist, he has been performing with guitarist Martin Vishnick, mandolinist Richard Scott and drummer Emil Karlsen.
Durrant still performs regularly with the acoustic/electronic group Trio Sowari (with Bertrand Denzler and Burkhard Beins) and Mark Wastell’s The SEEN.
sowarimodular
Maggie Nicols joined London’s legendary Spontaneous Music Ensemble in 1968 as a free improvisation vocalist. She then became active running voice workshops with an involvement in local experimental theatre. She later joined the group Centipede, led by Keith and Julie Tippets and in 1977, with musician/composer Lindsay Cooper, formed the remarkable Feminist Improvising Group.
She continues performing and recording challenging and beautiful work, in music and theatre, either in collaborations with a range of artists (Irene Schweitzer, Joelle Leandre, Ken Hyder, Caroline Kraabel) as well as solo.
Douglas Benford, composer and sound artist, has been involved in various audio genres and monikers since the late 1980s, performing at institutions in the UK (Bristol’s Arnolfini, London’s Science Museum, Tate Modern, The Roundhouse, ICA and Glasgow’s CCA), festivals worldwide (Mutek, Synch, Transmediale) and has had installation work in numerous UK galleries (London, Swansea, Stroud and Essex). His pieces and performances have been aired on the radio internationally, and regularly on BBC Radio 3’s Freeness programme and the Ambrosia Rasputin show on Resonance FM. After numerous electronica releases and activity in the 90s and 2000s, he now plays using acoustic sources (eg harmonium, toys, objects) with the London Improvisers Orchestra and Confront Recordings / Mark Wastell’s The Seen collective, as well as being a regular contributor to the Lonely Impulse Collective. His collaborators include Alan Wilkinson, Dominic Lash, Blanca Regina, poet Tamar Yoseloff, Angharad Davies, sculptor Rob Olins, Matt Atkins, Lina Lapelyte, Marjolaine Charbin, Sylvia Hallett, Steve Beresford, Hannah Marshall, Adam Bohman, Clive Bell, John Edwards, Jennifer Allum, Emily Shapiro and Sue Lynch.
dbenford.bandcamp.com
Daniel Thompson was born in Norfolk, England. Largely self-taught, he moved to London in 2005 and studied with the guitarist John Russell for two years. Since then, he has performed at many venues and festivals across the UK and Europe. In addition, he has also been organising concerts including the ‘The Shoreditch Church Concert Series’ with Benedict Taylor.
Currently you can hear and see Daniel performing solo, with other musicians in many ad-hoc improvising situations and in long-term collaborations or ‘working groups’.
Recent collaborations include performances and/or recordings with Neil Metcalfe, Steve Noble, Caroline Kraabel, Max Reed, John Edwards, Benedict Taylor, Tom Jackson, Vid Drasler, Evan Parker, Adam Bohman, Sue Lynch, Alex Ward, Kay Grant, Roland Ramanan, Adrian Northover, Marcello Magliocchi, Alan Wilkinson, Colin Webster amongst others.
Daniel is the founder and artistic director of ‘Empty Birdcage Records’, a label dedicated to releasing documents of free improvisation.
emptybirdcagerecords.bandcamp.com
Dominic Lash is an improviser and composer. Some of the musicians he has worked with are Cristián Alvear, Antoine Beuger, Tony Conrad, Angharad Davies, Terry Edwards, Jürg Frey, Matthew Grigg, Elizabeth Harnik, James Ilgenfritz, Charlotte Keeffe, Paul Lytton, Joe Morris, Steve Noble, Evan Parker, Éliane Radigue, Mark Sanders, Roger Turner, Lisa Ullén, Fay Victor, Alex Ward, and Jason Yarde.
He has recently released the first three CDs on his Spoonhunt label: Limulus with Javier Carmona, Ricardo Tejero, and Alex Ward; Distinctions with a 20-piece group including Steve Beresford, Marjolaine Charbin, Chris Cundy, Angharad Davies, Phil Durrant, Yoni Silver, and many more; and Discernment with John Butcher, John Russell, and Mark Sanders. See dominiclash.bandcamp.com
