Category: Performances
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Richard Craig – 10 March 2016
Richard Craig is a performer of contemporary music and improvisation, performing with groups such as ELISION, Musikfabrik, Klangforum Wien and Das Experimentalstudio ensemble, which has taken him to international festivals in Europe. Recent projects include Rodrigo Constanzo’s DFS score, performing in the Manchester Jazz Festival. In September 2015 he was appointed Head of Performance at…
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Coates/Hanslip/Hunter/Simpson – 11 February 2016
This month’s special guest act is a brand new quartet, bringing together familar Noise Upstairs faces with those from slightly further afield. Bruce Coates & Mark Hanslip – saxophones Anton Hunter & Ian Simpson – guitars Bruce is a saxophonist who has performed and recorded with some of the world’s top improvisers including Paul Dunmall,…
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L’Ocelle Mare + Kelly Jayne Jones/Jon Collin Duo + Katz Mulk – 12 February 2016
L’OCELLE MARE Visiting from France Thomas Bonvalent creates amazing musical structures using banjoguitar, feet (special shoes), objects (tuning forks, inside of harmonics, metronomes, others…) and close micing combined with intimate knowledge of the extremes of his amplification system. Its really a wonderful thing to hear. https://ocellemare.bandcamp.com/ KELLY JAYNE JONES/JON COLLIN St margos is going to…
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Space Food – 14 January 2016
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 improvisation, despite the rich timbral possibilties of the instrumentation. Space Food exploit…
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Rachel Margetts / Greta Buituke – 10 December 2015
Rachel Margetts and Greta Buitkute are “Body Marx”. Body Marx explores the absurd tensions of music making. Loosely structured songs and structured improvisation form the basis of experimentation with video and performance. Body Marx’s works often tackle forgotten or hidden contexts, in the process often loosing themselves in it’s own concerns.Listen on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/bbodymarxDig deeper: Rachel Margetts Art https://soundcloud.com/reading-my-eyes Who Rachel…
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Some Some Unicorn – 12 November 2015
Some Some Unicorn Some Some Unicorn is an experiment in communal music making led by Shaun Blezard. Working on the border of composition and improvisation the collective draws together artists from the fields of improv, electronics, jazz, poetry and popular music. After a well received album, Some Some Unicorn and The Golden Periphery, it is…
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Wire Assembly – 8 October 2015
The guitar trio Wire Assembly have been resurrected/disinterred after 20 years of hibernation. John Jasnoch and Neil Carver have coerced Ian Simpson into being the Third Man. Covering an enormous range of sound from a blue tit pecking at an aluminium milk bottle top (there were milk bottles when we last played) to apocalyptic calamity…
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THF Drenching – 10 September 2015
THF Drenching is a dictaphone-player, vocalist and composer of musique concrète from Levenshulme, Manchester. However hedged around with anal, urethral and genital impulses, all his music is essentially oral in character, obsessive and devouring, and all of it aspires to the condition of jazz in the sense of determinate physical decision-making. http://www.councilofdrent.com/ https://thfdrenching.bandcamp.com/ https://freemusicarchive.org/music/THF_Drenching/ http://plushwattle.tumblr.com/…
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Otto Will – 13 August – 2015
Otto is a double bassist and composer living in Manchester. He is interested in improvisation and uncovering moments and areas which might otherwise go unnoticed. Otto plays in many different ensembles and groups, and has played over Europe and the US. His solo record ‘Got Gills’ is due for release in July on the Slip…
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Jafrate/Hunter/Constanzo – 9 July 2015
Saxophonist Keith Jafrate, a veteran of European and North American tours, has led various bands since the late eighties, and played with a host of splendid improvisers, including Paul Hession & Martin Archer. He’s also a poet. “alternates between atonality and lyricism with sublime ease.” Ian Holloway Wonderful Wooden Reasons Anton Hunter is a composer…
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Paul Stapleton – 11 June 2015
I’m an improviser, sound artist, inventor and writer originally from Southern California, currently based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I design and perform with a variety of modular metallic sound sculptures, custom made electronics, found objects and electric guitars in locations ranging from experimental music clubs in Berlin to remote beaches on Vancouver Island. Since 2007,…
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Sound Quartet – 14 May 2015
SQ (Sound Quartet) explores music inaccessible to contemplative composition. Devoting many hours to develop skills which circumvent learning and amplify responses to the moment. Each piece is a sortie into uncertainty along paths never followed before, with assiduous unpremeditation and susceptibility of mind and body as our guides. States far from equilibrium can branch on barely perceptible quantum…
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David Birchall/Odie Ji Ghast/THF Drenching – 12 March 2015
David Birchall/Odie Ji Ghast/THF Drenching Three of Manchester’s finest. Anti-guitar, anguished screams and punctured dictaphones wishing they were Jazz. For this performance ONE night only the trio features pataphysical broadcast content from Odie Ji Ghast accompanied by Drenching Birchall. Debut album “YEA YOU SORRY NOW due out very soon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fAucfRXa2w Who David Birchall/Odie Ji Ghast/THF…
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Inclusion Principle / Joseph Kudirka – 9 April 2015
Martin Archer – electronic keyboards, laptop, saxophones, clarinets, recorders Hervé Perez – laptop, saxophones Peter Fairclough – drums and percussion IP was formed in 2006, released it’s first eponymous CD that year, and follows up with a second release ‘The Leaf Factory Fallback’ in March 2010. subsequent releases include documents of performances: Inclusion Principle –…
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Beck Hunters – 12 February 2015
Mick Beck (reeds and whistles) Anton Hunter (guitar, fx) Johnny Hunter (drums) Stopping off in Manchester on their UK tour to promote the debut album, The Hunt Is On (Discus 2014). – http://discus-music.co.uk/dis46cd.htm “Agressive when it needs to be, but comfortable winding down into unhurried, meandering humour, it sounds like a miniature Art Ensemble at play.”…
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Yeah Yeah Industrial – 8 January 2015
Ian Simpson & Shaun Blezard are Yeah Yeah Industrial. A kosmiche duo from the Northern Wastelands who have been working together and around each other for over 10 years. They have now become YYI, ambient improv/free prog soundscape improvisers. Noise Upstairs regulars will know them as members of Kipple, Wire Assembly and Orfeo 5. http://yeahyeahindustrial.co.uk/ Who…
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bird rat centipede 11 December 2014
bird rat centipede is a collection of performer/composers who share a view for honest and democratic music making bird rat centipede is: Sam Andreae Rodrigo Constanzo Angela Guyton Linda Jankowska Braxton Sherouse http://www.birdratcentipede.com Who bird rat centipede 11 December 2014 When Thursday, December 11, 2014 8:00pm – All Ages Where Fuel Cafe (map) 448 Wilmslow…
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dfscore – 18 September 2014
We’re really excited to invite you to the first public performance using Rodrigo Constanzo’s new networked improvisation system, dfscore. The dfscore system is a dynamic score display system built to function over a local network to display a variety of musical material. The primary motivations for building the system were to allow for a middle…
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errk! – 10 July 2014
errk! are Richard Knight on mixer and samples, Rob McWhirter on guitar and Keith Jafrate on saxophone. They wander into and mostly away from structures to make dramatic abstractions that sometimes achieve significant velocities, sometimes wide open spaces. Preceding and following their set will be the usual name-in-the-hat frolics you know and love. Who errk!…
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KUBOV – 14 August 2014
KnowUsByOurVelocity (KUBOV) is a duo of violin and electronics. Incorporating minimalist textures and lush sustains as well as harrowing dissonance and distortion, their music ranges from the esoterically tingly to downright disturbing. Their eclectic sonorities are a result of the hybridisation of electronics and acoustic instrument, with which they explore and combine spaces and places, warping perspective and effecting…