NEW - Clip from Maggie's Bar, London, Dec 08: PLAY (7mb)
Press pack inc. live samples & document here (zip file 25mb). Press release (MSWord) here
UK TOUR 08 - Real power focus / chaos, volume and headspin..! In the true renegade spirit of improvisation, this tour was set up before the three musicians (Beck/Giust/Drury) had ever played together! Beck and Drury are regular counterparts and invited Giust from Italy to join them since witnessing his inimitable free drumming while on the same bill in London in '07.
Much in the spirit of Borbetomagus, BLISTRAP combine extreme noise with moments of thrilling and elaborate improvising! The gigs were received extremely well! - see the videos!
Remotion SM1410 CD Setola Di Maiale (Italy) Remotion (remote/dynamic motion) is the first project of collaboration between the improvising artists; Mick and Jonny together in England and Stefano in Italy. Neither had heard each others recordings and furthermore the sections were then mixed together in an almost totally improvised way. We took this idea further and did some actual 'cut-ups' producing three more tracks. The swiftness of execution - around 30 days - is an indication of a focussed drama of forces and the full process, from playing to making, aims to be as relevant as the resulting musical experience." (sleeve notes). BUY HERE
TRACKS
01 _ Bullocks
02 _ Empathy
03 _ Extra thang
04 _ Rats
05 _ Foxed play
06 _ Guts play
07 _ Staggered
08 _ Trapps play
09 _ Rare
(P) 2008
UK December 2008
5th - Sheffield, Freenoise, Bar Abbey.
7th - Brighton, Caroline of Brunswick
9th - London, Klinker, Maggie's Bar
11th - Manchester - The Noise Upstairs, Fuel.
13th - Edinburgh - Grind Sight Open Eye, The Canon's Gait
THANK YOU FOR COMING AND ALL YOUR SUPPORT. 2009 TOUR BEING PLANNED NOW FOR UK / EUROPE and maybe USA. We welcome your booking enquiries to info AT freenoise.co.uk Cheers! BLISTRAP. Sheffield UK.
MICK BECK is an improvising big band leader to solo performer, he is known for his energy and originality: his playing covers the full emotional gamut from heartbreaking to mischievous, and from abstracts to compelling swing.
His improvising big band Feet Packets was unique in the UK and influential in the late 1980s. In the 1990s he led many small groups including the powerful free jazz trio Something Else with Paul Hession and Simon Fell, which released two acclaimed CDs. Since the millennium, Beck's ground-breaking work with the mysterious and humorous bassoon, supplemented by his use of other wind instruments add many new sounds and moods. Since 2005, Gated Community has been revisiting the boundaries between total musical freedom and novel compositions, and has played with Damo Suzuki as guest artist.
Beck's technical innovations and musical ideas are often a source of inspiration to his collaborators on stage, and hehe works with many of free music's best-known exponents covering a wide age range. He is based in Sheffield, plays regularly in London and elsewhere in the UK, and from time to time in Spain, Germany, Austria, France, Canada and Australia.
He has worked with many great musicians such as saxists J.D. Parran to Alan Wilkinson, guitarists Derek Bailey to Hugh Metcalf, percussionists Tony Buck to Steve Noble and Paul Hession, bassists Marcio Mattos to Simon Fell, pianists Chris Burn to Stephen Grew and Pat Thomas.
In the 1990s through to 2004, he was one of the lead organisers of Sheffield's Other Music, a bastion of the UK's free music scene from 1982.
"Ace tenor saxophonist Mick Beck incorporates an amplified bassoon (in a way) that defies even the most oddball stereotypes" - All About Jazz, June 2006.
"Beck's abstract resources extend to all manner of whistles and squeals, but his tenor sax playing is a resourceful development of Evan Parker's" - The Guardian, May 2005.
"..pushed along by beck's scorching post-Ayler tenor sax." - Jazzwise November 2005.
"Able to double- and triple-tongue on a double reed, he creates dissonant textures you wouldn't associate with the usual orchestral instrument" - Cadence Jazz Records no. 1164.
"He plays the tenor with conviction that can border on lawlessness. Mick Beck has been causing jaws to drop by playing the bassoon. He is now getting something personal and unheralded out of the bassoon" - The Wire.
STEFANO GIUST was born in Switzerland in 1968, he is a self-taught musician, improviser, performer and composer of electronic/acousmatic music. He has started to recording his music at the age of 14. Since that period he has recorded 70 albums, as a leader and co-leader, with projects of improvisation, avant-jazz and electronic music. His work develops into many different experimental achievements, in which improvisation and indeterminate music hold a central role. He looks upon contemporary improvisation as an open process compatible with any idiom and musical situation.
Among others he has played with Gianni Gebbia, Luc Ex, Vincenzo Vasi, Roy Paci, Roberto Bellatalla, Edoardo Marraffa, Andy Diagram, Sakis Papadimitriou, Edoardo Ricci, Patrizia Oliva, Carlo Actis Dato, Xabier Iriondo, Renato Ciunfrini, Gianni Lenoci, Roberto Ottaviano, Luca Miti; with projects Camusi, Ògun, Papiers Collés, Ipersensity, L'Amorth Duo, Gbur and many others. He has toured Italy, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenja.
As acousmatic/electronic composer, some of his works have been used and commissioned by experimental film directors and video-artists like Gorazd Krnc, Toni Mestrovic, Alessandro Amaducci, Sammlerfamilie/Filoart, Fabrizio Personeni, Tullio De Gennaro, Renzo Cevro-Vukovic, Giovanni Andreotta, Soda, Iris Ollschewski and others. In 1993 he founded the radical label Setola di Maiale - unconventional music, a catalogue of avant-garde musicians that today has produced about 140 discs and involved about 200 musicians.
Stefano's powerful freestyle drumming has been compared to Robair, Corsano, Hession and his rapid and nimble yet colourful approach and openness to new music has attracted many admirers internationally.
JONNY DRURY is a self-taught improvising musician and multimedia artist and currently a full time student of Contemporary Fine Arts in Sheffield UK. In 2004 he set up and still runs the unique and thriving experimental label and events outfit, Freenoise inviting such diverse names as Whitehouse, Psychic TV, Sony Simmons, Sunburned Hand of the Man and many more to play and cross-pollinate at gigs with local musicians. He has co-organised events with Qujunktions, Harbingersound, Singing Knives, Notes & Sounds, No-Fi and [No.Signal]. Jonny's lengthy sojourn into spirituality he feels, has given him some insight into the personal nature of intuitive, experimental art and spontaneous improvising in music. This has brought him very quickly into contact with some of the best, innovative performers on the circuit, performing regularly with Mick Beck, Charlie Collins, Beatrix Ward-Fernandez, John Jasnoch, Martin Archer, Derek Saw (all prime stalwarts of the UK improv community) and recently played live with Chris Corsano (Sonic Youth, Bjork), John Russell and Stefan Keune. He has collaborated on recordings with John Hackett and Genesis P-Orridge and released thirteen albums to date.
Jonny is founder of a number of groups including BLISTRAP, Sunshine Panic, The Other Orchestra, The Tajalli Vortex, Black Serama and in the 90's one of the first popular European Sufi groups The Hidden Name. Activities include running a successful dance group and production of a commercial DVD with a commissioned soundtrack by the topmost contemporary Scottish musicians. Films continue to be a feature and his offbeat experimental work often provides the projected backdrop for shows. He is also a live artist (performance artist), instrumental in numerous projects in groups and solo.
Jonny’s open-ended and original approach to music and art means he is an innovator and an experimenter: as much at home improvising for the first time ever on piano live recently in a trio’s debut gig as he is playing electric guitar with cutting edge musicians or performing on a cliff-top with a community of live artists.
BLISTRAP carry most of their own gear.
PA's are useful in bigger venues, as is usual refreshments! Price on application - love is included.
BLISTRAP
Sheffield UK Sep 2009
Booking: info AT freenoise.co.uk
Tel: 0114 2017333 / 07754 910156
