Alex Ward

An evening of improvised music at its most intense and dramatic, featuring solo, duo and trio performances from six musicians who aren’t afraid of venturing into the further reaches of noise in their search for new forms of expression.

ALEX WARD

Alex Ward seems to be very busy at the moment playing loud, skronking electric guitar in groups such as NEW (with Steve Noble and John Edwards), Dead Days Beyond Help (with Jem Doulton, where he sings as well), and with the ecstatic agonies of his own free jazz quartet Predicate (with Tim Hill, Dom Lash and Mark Sanders), so it’s good to see him back on clarinet for a rare solo set.

Perched precariously on top of a bar stool, Ward’s intensely concentrated solo performances draw deep on his own immersion in free improvisation and reference the whole history of his instrument, invoking the experimental extensions of John Zorn and Anthony Braxton, the studied elegance of Jimmy Guiffre, the Ellingtonian rubato of Harry Carney, the classicism of Mozart, and even the prehistoric pipes of frenzied bacchic ritual.

JOHN COXON / MARK SANDERS / PAT THOMAS

The trio of John Coxon (guitar), Mark Sanders (percussion) and Pat Thomas (piano and electronics) first performed at the Southbank Centre at the invitation of The Wire’s Tony Herrington, where their version of ‘Kontakte’ channelled the experimental energy and imagination of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Having done that, the group went on to deliver a memorably dark and anarchic performance at 2009’s Freedom of the City festival, as well as recording the critically acclaimed Abbey Road Quartet album with trumpet legend Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith.

Made up of three of the most distinctive and idiosyncratic improvisers working today, they’re refreshingly unpuritanical in their approach, producing a gloriously life-affirming racket that’s spiky, dense and dripping with energy and ideas.

DOMINIC LASH / EVAN PARKER

Dominic Lash is one of the most exciting and eclectic of a new generation of experimental musicians, equally at home with free improvisation and contemporary composition. His distinctively material style of playing, which makes use of all the timbral possibilities of the double bass in a highly imaginative and idiosyncratic style, is increasingly in demand in the UK, Europe and America. In the last few years he’s played with an astonishing range of people, from the Wandelweiser collective to Nate Wooley and Joe Morris, Lol Coxhill to Tony Conrad, Patrick Farmer to Steve Reid, as well The Convergence Quartet, Predicate, and his own trio. Although he’s played with saxophone legend Evan Parker in both large and small groups, they’ve never before played as a duo and we’re very excited to host what promises to be a highly concentrated and compelling first time duo encounter.