HIJOKAIDAN + BORBETOMAGUS + ROGER TURNER / PAT THOMAS / ALEX WARD (TRIO)

Event information

Colossal triple-bill featuring a coruscating line-up legendary noise / free improv groups Hijokaidan and Borbetomagus, plus a heavyweight new trio of Roger Turner, Pat Thomas and Alex Ward. It was a massive disappointment when Borbetomagus had to cancel their OTO date - along with the rest of their EU tour - last October, and we're thrilled to finally have them over a year later. Joining them on the bill are Japanese Group Hijokaidan, who took the roof off when they closed out the Multipltap festival at OTO in May this year. Support comes in the form of a trio of great English jazz percussionist Roger Turner, the ever-compelling pianist Pat Thomas and polymathic guitarist/clarinetist Alex Ward.

“ ... balls on the line improvisation with enough energy to flatten buildings.” - Byron Coley, FORCED EXPOSURE Magazine on Borbetomagus

HIJOKAIDAN

Hijōkaidan (Emergency Stairs) is a Japanese noise and free improvisation group with a revolving lineup that has ranged from two members to as many as fourteen in its early days. The group is the project of guitarist Jojo Hiroshige (JOJO広重?), its one constant member, who is head and owner of the Osaka-based Alchemy Records. Other regulars include Jojo's wife Junko and Toshiji Mikawa (also of Incapacitants).

The group began at the very end of the 1970s as a performance art-based group whose anarchic shows would often involve destruction of venues and audio equipment, food and garbage being thrown around, and on-stage urination. As the group's lineup changed over time, their focus became less performance-based and more musically based, fine-tuning their sound into a dense wall of noise.

"Junko's wordless associative vocal heightens the white-hot improvisatory feel, with the group so far beyond any notion of mere speed-of-thought musical exchange that their hands and throats seem more like appendages to some massive self-regulating system." - David Keenan, The WIRE

BORBETOMAGUS

Fire-breathing saxophonists Don Dietrich and Jim Sauter duel with Donald Miller’s face-flaying guitar in BORBETOMAGUS. Formed in 1979, the trio play with a savage unity of purpose, coagulating crushing dirges and thick, screaming storms of noise that drag the listener to a point of astonished, exhilarated serenity. They cast a seething, many-tentacled shadow of influence over the Japanese and American noise scenes (attested by collaborations with such as Kevin Drumm and Thurston Moore) and stand as wild, brutish brethren to many of our finest European improvisers. Merciless, undeniable and monstrously beautiful.

"When the first hideously distorted shrieks and roars hit my ears, I nearly fell over from the raw force of it. That couldn't be a saxophone - it sounded like someone being torn limb from limb. Was that a guitar, or someone revving up a gigantic engine to the brink of explosion?" WIRE

ROGER TURNER / drums, percussion

Roger Turner is applauded for his precision and speed since he entered the London improvising scene in the 1970s. His restricted drum kit is extended by found objects to create a sound comparable to no other. He’s played with Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, Otomo Yoshihide, Shelley Hirsch, Joëlle Léandre, Keith Rowe...

“Turner [used] brushes to create a wild spattering and scattering of sound from cymbal and snare, with sudden explosions from tom and kick drums. At times in this early passage he sounded like rain on a caravan roof, at others like a tool box in the back of a moving van” - Molloy Woodcraft, The Guardian

PAT THOMAS / piano, electronics

Pat Thomas studied classical piano from aged 8 and started playing Jazz from the age of 16. He has since gone on to develop an utterly unique style - embracing improvisation, jazz and new music. He has played with Derek Bailey in Company Week (1990/91) and in the trio AND (with Noble) – with Tony Oxley’s Quartet and Celebration Orchestra and in Duo with Lol Coxhill.

"Sartorially shabby as Thomas may be, and on first impression even rather stolid, he has a somewhat imperious charisma that’s immediately amplified when he starts to play. Unlike other pianists whose virtuosity seems to be racing ahead of their thought processes Thomas always seems supremely in command of his gift, and his playing, no matter how free and ready to tangle with abstraction, always carries a charge of authoritative exactitude." The Jazzmann

ALEX WARD

Alex Ward is a composer, improviser, and performing musician, working primarily with clarinet and guitar.

His involvement in freely improvised music dates back to 1986, when he met the guitarist Derek Bailey. He subsequently took part regularly in Bailey's Company events, and has gone on to become a major figure in British improvised music.

His current work ranges from the duo Dead Days Beyond Help, in which he plays guitar and sings, his group Predicate who perform his compositions, regular improvising groups with Steve Noble, Kay Grant and others, as well as more ad hoc encounters with musicians as diverse as Thurston Moore, Joe Morris and Duck Baker.

He brings a unique energy and inventiveness to all these projects, elevating them far above the ordinary and injecting them with a thrilling sense of danger and possibility.