Category: Performances
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Kate Armitage+Gary Fisher / Ctrl Freq – 12 October 2017
Kate Armitage and Gary Fisher will bring together their unique individual styles of improvisation for a collaborative performance involving found objects, percussion and other curious noises. There will be discord, humour and possibly, moments of harmony. Kate’s debut solo album is out now on cassette on Fractal Meat Cuts. katearmitage.com Gary will be composer in…
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Gift Aid Stickers – 14th September 2017
This month’s special guests sees the debut performance of Gift Aid Stickers (aka Mike Walsh on drums and Anton Hunter on guitar). Kickstarting their two-date UK tour right here in Manchester (second and final date is in Stoke the next day), in support of their debut release Money Chops. Mike and Anton have been improvising…
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The New Art Quintet – 10 August 2017
The New Art Quintet play Free-form improvisations, inspired by the music of Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, John Coltrane… Andy French – Tenor Saxophone Joel Stedman – Bass Clarinet, Flutes Ozzy Moysey – Double Bass, Cornet, Vocals, Percussion James Milligan – Guitar Joe Simmonds – Drums, Percussion Who The…
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Ghost Mind – 13 July 2017
Ghost Mind consists of Jon Andriessen on guitar, kalimba and effects, Pete Robson’s horns and Stuart Wilding on percussion. All this combined with a background of found sounds gathered from around the planet. Essentially, Ghost Mind is a four-person trio, the fourthmember being the titular “Ghost”. The concept of Ghost Mind was devised while the…
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10 Year Anniversary / Luigi Marino – 8 June 2017
Next month we have OUR TENTH BIRTHDAY YEAH!! We’re preparing some special presents for those of you who turn up on Thursday 8th June (note: it is election day, and if you’ve voted Tory I won’t let you in). We’ll be starting at the earlier time of 8pm to fit in a series of short…
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David Birchall / Simon Prince – 11 May 2017
This month’s special guest set comes from a brand new duo of familiar faces; Simon Prince and David Birchall. You’ll know Simon from his many appearances with Wolfscarers, and other groups. He’s a fiery tenor sax player who’s equally as fiery on flutes. Listen for yourself if you don’t believe me. https://wolfscarers.bandcamp.com/ David Birchall is another…
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Ensemble 50:50 Octet – 13 April 2017
The Octet will follow Phil Morton’s score 50:50 that is – 50 % freeplay & 50% tacet, silence during the performance of a thirty minute piece.The content, the music, the musicians are driven by free improvisation in music. The improvisers are constrained by the score can the musicians brings a coherence, grace and power to…
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Richard Scott’s Lightning Ensemble – 9 March 2017
The Lighting Ensemble is Richard Scott’s UK-based hyper-interactive free improvising group with longtime collaborators and brilliant improvisers, Phillip Marks, drums and David Birchall, guitar, with Scott playing analogue modular synthesizer. Intricate, intimate, dynamic, molecular and often explosive music. Richard Scott and Phillip Marks first played together in Manchester’s Bark! in the 1990s (alongside Rex Casswell…
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Lee Allatson – 9 February 2017
Lee Allatson is a drum set player from Leicestershire, UK, specialising in free improvisation. His early percussive years included classical tuition and a keen interest in 1970’s film soundtracks – all fused within the cultural melting pot of Caribbean, Asian and Eastern European influences provided from a Leicester city education. Moving to vocals and electronics…
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NUStival – 28 January 2017
NUStival – a mini-festival of improvised music. Featuring selected groupings of: Mick Beck Cath Roberts Otto Willberg Ecka Mordecai Odie ji Ghast Rob Thorpe Geoff Bright Rodrigo Constanzo Anton Hunter and… A performance of John Zorn’s Cobra by the Noise Upstairs Workshop Group. Free entry. 7pm-11pm Sat 28 Jan Supported by Manchester Metropolitan University and…
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Hunter/Willberg/Ward – 12 January 2017
Acoustic post-post-truth improv trio featuring Manchester legend Johnny Hunter on drums, young experimentalist Otto Willberg on double bass and triple-doubler Tom Ward on reeds and winds. Inspired by the avant-garde, improvisation, jazz, rock, noise and more, the trio’s members have collaborated with many great improvisers including Steve Beresford, Adam Fairhall, Dave Birchall, Mark Hanslip, Hannah…
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Deemer – 8 December 2016
Deemer is a continuing conversation that is always inquisitive, searching and fresh. We are constantly shedding old skin, evolving and innovating. The brain-child of Merijn Royaards and Dee Byrne, Deemer started life in 2006 as a weekly improvisation/electronics session in a warehouse in Hackney Wick. The project has since evolved into an installation/performance based electro-acoustic…
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Instant Places – 10 November 2016
In their Instant Places projects Kavanaugh and Birse use hardware/software systems of their own design to present generative installations and performances.They began making performances and installations as a team in 1997, and from 1997 to 2002 traveled throughout Canada and Europe, making installation and performance works for festival venues and art galleries. Highlights from that…
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Barrington Brook – 13 October 2016
Barrington Brook and Gabriel Williams are a duo whose music occupies the boundaries between free improvisation, post-rock, folk and 20th century classical music. They met at university and started playing together after discovering a mutual appreciation of Derek Bailey, but move past his influence to explore further possibilities when improvising on the guitar. Who Barrington…
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Sound Quartet – 8 September 2016
SQ (aka Sound Quartet) is imaginary soundscapes, electronic experimentalism, composed impro art of electrified sounds and images. SQ often tour as a duo with multi-instrumentalists Paul Pignon and Thomas Bjelkeborn. SQ is currently involved in music projects with Nadia Ratsimandrecy(FR) and experimental research at SOPI Helsingfors with Koray Tahiroglu(T). www.sound quartet.se Thomas Bjelkeborn is a sound…
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Shelly Knotts & Anton Hunter – 11 August 2016
Monthly improvisation jam session with special guest set this month from Shelly Knotts (laptop) and Anton Hunter (guitar). Shelly Knotts produces live-coded and network music performances and projects which explore aspects of code, data and collaboration. Her experimental and collaborative tendencies have seen her engage with diverse musical practices and styles ranging from electroacoustic tape…
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Wolf Scarers – 14 July 2016
Wolfscarers are Simon Prince and Keith Jafrate. They’ve known each other for years but never played together until, after appearing on the same bill at Huddersfield’s Inclusive Improv in 2011, it occurred to Simon to suggest some duets, and Wolfscarers emerged. Since then they’ve experimented with various line-ups, the largest being a quintet, but for…
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Space Food – 9 June 2016
Noise Upstairs Is Nine Years Old! Come celebrate with Space Food! Space Food is a new group in which three fine Manchester improvisers take on the format of the traditional organ trio; Adam Fairhall on organ, Johnny Hunter on drums and Dave Birchall on guitar. The organ trio is still a rarity in free…
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Otto Willberg – 12 May 2016
Otto is a composer and improviser with an open attitude towards the possibilities of what music can and should be. Heregularly performs with the likes of THF Drenching, Odie Ji Ghast, Sam Andreae, Birchall/Cheetham/Webster/Willberg and Human Heads, amongst others. www.ottowillberg.com Who Otto Willberg – 12 May 2016 When Thursday, May 12, 2016 8:00pm – All Ages…
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Jorge Boehringer – 14 April 2016
Jorge Boehringer is an composer, artist, musician, and researcher exploring large scale landscapes, microscopic layers of process and form and how they interact with perceptual experience. Utilizing a protean platform for experimentation and presentation, Boehringer creates performances, recordings, music, installations, texts, three-dimensional objects, and visual phenomena. Inspired by, and at times modeled after observed environmental…