Thanks to Andy Newcombe for these great pics of Open Eye group from St. Margarets gig mid July.
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Tag: pascal nichols
Open Eye Ensemble
Tubers gigs for november
Ludo Mich is a Belgian Fluxus artist, performer and filmmaker, active since the 1960s. Ultra Eczema helmer Dennis Tyfus was instrumental in bringing Ludo to the attention of a younger generation after he saw Ludo’s pansexual aktionist emetic films from the 60s and 70s – nudist adaptations of science fiction and Greek myths. In 2005 Ultra Eczema released an lp cut from the soundtracks of these experimental films which featured Da……daist poetry, savage cries and screams, homemade instruments and junk sound. Through this fresh wave of exposure, recent years have seen Ludo Mich collaborating with, amongst others, Dylan Nyoukis, Kommissar Hjuler und Mama Baer and Wolf Eyes.
Harappian Night Recordings is the solo moniker of Hunter Gracchus member Syed Kamran Ali. Since releasing his critically acclaimed debut album, The Glorious Gongs Of Hainuwele, on Bo Weavil early in 2009 (voted 11th in The Wire magazine’s end of year poll) Ali has produced a slew of increasingly deranged albums on various microlabels across Europe. These releases have seen him move far beyond ‘musical forgeries from an imagined east’ into ambivalent and disturbed psychic territories that have parodied, mutated and ripped apart singular fourth world cosmopolitanisms in a disjunctured maelstrom of frenetic, conflicting and distorted energies. This will be Ali’s debut performance as Harappian Night Recordings in the UK.
Pascal Nichols is one half of improvising duo Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides, who were recently justly described by a conspicuous music critic as the best live band active in the UK right now. Although, as a percussionist, Nichols has collaborated with a number of free improv luminaries it would be wrong to judge him by the criteria of earlier generations. Although technically proficient, the really intriguing qualities of Nichols lie in his insatiable interest in sound and his endless and authentic pursuit of the elusive wild mercury of genuinely collaborative improvisation, undistracted by the idiomatic flippancies and rodomontade of much free improv.
+ Akke Phallus Duo: A long overdue and much anticipated collaboration between Ben Morris of Chora and Jon Marshall of The Hunter Gracchus. Postally sharing raw voice, poached acousmatic sound & brut instrumental ingredients, shitting on Eno’s Fourth World confluence of privilege, they navigate modes of avant-experimentation open to the freedom & potential of this new duo dynamic. Wheezing & stuttering non-musics through broken mics and burst bellowed reeds, they integrate the spectres of position, loss, resistance and the fruits of free-hybridity from the comfort and confusions of the First World.
doors 8pm, first act 8.30 and PROMPT 10.30pm finish
£5 (£4 concessions)
There will be Kelly’s magic punch, beers, snacks and souvenirs as always
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=180442542031258
DEAS & DENTON
cosmic guitar manipulation from two of Sheffield’s finest plus visual accompaniment. LP out now on Present Time Exercises.
http://soundcloud.com/camdeas/deas-denton-inferno-side-b
http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/?p=5227
BIRCHALL/CHEETHAM DUO
highly specialised collapsing of rock elements breeding a delicious free rock/drone/noise mix
http://soundcloud.com/birchallcheethamduo
SOUNDING
one half of Sheffield Forest Creature
http://soundcloud.com/search?q%5Bfulltext%5D=sounding
£5 waged/£4 unwaged 8pm
Open Eye Quartet 20th May
Some great video above from Open Eye gig opening for John Butcher & Okkyung Lee last Friday. Thanks to Dave J. for that.
Also a nice little write up from Daniel Ladd @ citylifer. You can read the whole thing here.
The pictures below are thanks to some fine camera work by Peter Fey.
Having seen PWHMOBS a few times previously, I had some expectations of what the OEQ might be like tonight. Nichols uses (a small set of) drums and effects on his voice as percussion and Jones plays flute, gong and effects. These are all in evidence, along with Birchall contorting over his guitar, scraping, sliding, tapping and drawing some very unusual sounds from the strings. The bass meanders beneath all this, being the most recognisable element of the set up, in that the sounds it made were conventionally that of a bass guitar, but not in the sense that it provided any standard rhythmic underpinning.
The music builds and fades throughout the course of one continuous thirty minute piece. At moments the sounds are genuinely uncomfortable and overwhelming, but the time spent on these elements is well judged, lasting only long enough to create the required tension which is immediately followed by the sounds dissolving and providing the release which became all the more memorable and enjoyable.
The sounds could be cacophonous enough to catch your breath but the quartet never seemed like they were out of control. At other times a particularly sweet sounding element is drawn from one of the instruments and, in this context, stands out as particularly lovely (this could just be Birchall hitting a certain notes on his guitar, or Jones running with a short flowing piece on the flute followed by swinging a small set of chimes around her head.
Open Eye Duo
Some snaps of Monday’s Open Eye gig @ Sandbar
John Tchicai & Tony Marsh 1st October @ Carlton Club, Manchester
THIS FRIDAY!
86 BUS FROM PICCADILLY
MAP HERE
support from trio of :
Rich Harrison: percussion (Spaceheads)
Dave Birchall: guitar (Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra)
Pascal Nichols: percussion (Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides)
new open eye tapes!
Very excited to be handed the new Open Eye Quartet tape on the mighty Ikuisuus label this morning! Its a split with Mick Beck & Herve Perez on the other side. Open Eye side is Dave Birchall: guitar, Pascal Nichols: percussion, Kelly Jones: flute & Ben Knight: voice recorded live @ Cow Lane Studios, Salford August 2008.
