An evening bringing together many familiar faces to the Vortex in a kaleidoscope of musical directions.
BEDMAKERS
Robin Fincker – tenor saxophone
Mathieu Werchowsky – violin
Dave Kane – double bass
Fabien Duscombs – drums
Bedmakers combines the lyrical flights of traditional Irish folk music,
illuminated blues and the richness of free improvisation.
The Franco-British quartet storms the meanders of Anglo-Saxon folk music.
The four unclassifiable improvisers dig, scratch and rumble this fertile
sonic ground, nourished by multiple decades of oral tradition in order to
excavate its melodic essence. These tunes that one hums without realising,
that feel familiar without being able to point their source, find themselves
out of their original context, superposed or extended, declaimed or only
suggested, sometimes buried under a storm of concrete-noise music or
distilled in a minimalist blow.
Put together in 2016 by anglophile saxophonist Robin Fincker (Vincent
Courtois, Loop Collective, Whahay), Bedmakers reunites four musicians from
polymorphic and singular musical universes with French drummer Fabien
Duscombs, violinist with electroacoustic drifts Mathieu Werchowsky and Irish
bassist Dave Kane. The group has performed over 70 concerts all over Europe,
expanding their repertoire in an inexhaustible reservoir: a mix of collected
and original compositions. The quartet seeks to evoke the feeling of letting
go, the trance, the collective jubilation on a dance floor by a greatly
dynamic musical experience. A backwash of noise gestures, ceaseless loops of
the bow, heady melodies of the saxophone and the quartet’s new rhythm
section’s polymorphic sound converge towards a common goal of invisible
dance and molecular shock.
Their European tour in May 2019 takes them from Moscow to Edinburgh, through
Estonia, Finland, France and England.
Video links:
ALCYONA MICK – piano
Alcyona started playing piano at the age of three. She has been performing internationally for many years working regularly with Anglo/Egyptian singer Natacha Atlas, and has performed extensively in France in recent years. She is a member of the London Jazz Orchestra, Tori Freestone/Alcyona Mick Duo, Eddie Parker’s Debussy Mirrored ensemble, Bachar Zarkan Ensemble, Josephine Davies’ ‘Orenda’ trio w Brigitte Beraha, Merit Ariane’s ‘Moonlarking’, Noel Langley’s ‘Edentide’, John Warren nonet, Paul Clarvis/Stuart Hall trio, Samy Bishai quartet, The Exiles w Scott Stroman/Cennet Jonsson. She has performed in Turkey for TRT music series with many Turkish artists, and worked with a wide array of other musicians including Yazz Ahmed, Mircan Kaya, Jerry Dammers Spatial aka Orchestra, Ibrahim Maalouf, Macadi Nahhas, Zoe Rahman and many more.
As a composer she has a Master’s in Composing music for film from the National Film and Television school. She has written and produced music for many independent short films, documentaries, animation and silent cinema. She has released four albums: ‘Around the Sun’ (Audio-b) under her own name, ‘Blink’ (Loop) and ‘Twice’ (Babel) with Blink and cellist Vincent Courtois, and ‘Criss Cross’ with saxophonist Tori Freestone (Whirlwind Recordings). She also writes for the London Jazz Orchestra and an electronica project with violinist Samy Bishai.
‘world class ingenuity’ the Guardian
‘Alcyona Mick is an unusual powerhouse of a talent’ – MOJO
SMITH/CALVERT/NICHOLLS
Known collectively as London avant-garde supergroup Strobes, Dave Smith, Matt Calvert and Dan Nicholls assemble for a special one-off improvised set incorporating modular synths, spaced-out drones, glitchy live sampling and their signature off kilter beats.
Dave Smith (Fofoulah, Robert Plant, Eddie Henderson) – drums
Matt Calvert (Three Trapped Tigers, Goldie, Anton Eger) – Electronics
Dan Nicholls (Free Movements, Squarepusher, Matthew Herbert) – keys/synths