#café oto london

[burlveneer-music]

Nat Birchall has been quite busy, releasing three albums in the last year:

(October 2023)

The fifth “one-semble” album is Songs Of The Ancestors - Afro Trane Chapter II - This album was made in celebration of the ancestors who carried the Music in their blood and bones and spread it around the Earth, from the earliest times until now. Music crosses continents and cultures and time, and when it speaks of the truth it transcends musical genealogy and continues a timeline from the earliest sources up to the present day. This album pays tribute to the music and musicians that spoke to me from their hearts to mine, inspiring me in so many ways, not just musical ones. Cedric Brooks, Count Ossie, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and all those who play selfless music from the heart.

("one-semble" because he plays all the instruments)

(March 2024)

Nat Birchall returns with a new studio album with an expanded Unity Ensemble. Six original compositions played by a seven-piece group featuring the legendary UK tenor saxophonist, Alan Skidmore and guest percussionist Mark Wastell. Both musicians joined the group onstage at a John Coltrane tribute concert at London’s Café Oto last year, the resulting performance showing just how compatible all the musicians were, so Nat thought it would be propitious to record the group in the studio with their special guests. Both Nat and Alan are Coltrane devotees of the highest order, but they each have their own individual style, and at the sessions their playing complimented each other’s beautifully. With no trace of anyone attempting to “outdo” the other one the recording dates were a testament to the whole group’s selfless approach to music making. Personnel – Nat Birchall – Tenor, soprano saxophone, bells, cabasa Adam Fairhall – Piano Michael Bardon – Bass Paul Hession – Drums Lascelle Gordon – Percussion Special guests – Alan Skidmore – Tenor saxophone Mark Wastell – Percussion

(July 2024)

This album was inspired by the music coming out of Jamaica in the mid 1970s, in particular the use of drum machines by Lee Perry and Aston Family Man Barrett (and Sly Stone in the USA) but also the instrumentals and dubs by Keith Hudson and Im & Count Ossie etc. Searching out, buying and listening to those records had a deep and profound effect on me and became a big influence on me as a musician, which continues to this day. All instruments, recording and mixing by Nat Birchall

[chimpgibbon]

Valentina Goncharova at Café Oto, London November’22

#valentinagoncharova

#cafeoto

#gigphotography

[nnjzz]

FLORIS VANHOOF + ALTERSGRUPPE + SAMI BERGOLD + LANA SUBDUCTIONS

Le Non_Jazz SAMEDI LE 03.12 FLORIS VANHOOF / be SAMI BERGOLD / fr ALTERSGRUPPE ca / us / il / fr LANA SUBDUCTIONS / fr au Café de Paris 158, rue Oberkampf 75011 M° Ménilmontant P.A.F. 6€ 20:00 portes 20:45 action 23:45 fin d'action FLORIS VANHOOF / be Attaché au grain et au souffle du support analogique, prolifique, " pluridisciplinaire " et indéniablement très doué, il travaille principalemnet sur l'hybridation d'images animées, fixes et de sons produits la plupart du temps via ses " machines " - synthés, oscillateurs & co - bricolées à la maison. " Ses films réalisés en super8 ou 16mm entre 2004 et 2008 aiment  les jeux de lentilles, de netteté, les effets loupe façon la vie à  travers un microscope, et aussi détourner la banalité du quotidien. Ses  performances investissent encore plus la persistence de la vision et la  perception elle-même avec un lien direct avec la musique électronique.  Il existe souvent des liens directs (controleur de voltage) entre les  deux." (Metamkine) " Floris Vanhoof combine des circuits musicaux faits maison et des technologies de projection abandonnées pour des installations, des performances cinématographiques étendues et des sorties musicales. Traduire l'un à l'autre pour découvrir comment fonctionne notre perception et quelles nouvelles perspectives apparaissent. Floris Vanhoof (°1982, lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium) ( Re:Voir ) Floris Vanhoof (1982) is interested in the hybrid form of music, photography and film. His first projections, experimental films on 16 millimeter, evolve towards pure visual experiences in which he questions our viewing patterns. Inspired by structural film and early electronic music he makes audiovisual installations, expanded cinema performances and music releases. Vanhoof builds his own instruments to discover the border between image, light and sound. As media-archeologist, he confronts the digital spoiled audience with flickering 16 mm films and 35mm slide installations, formats doomed to disappear. Purposefully he choses analog technology due to the greater transparency of the workflow and rich dynamic range. Regardless of nostalgia he experiments with what used to be hightech. Vanhoof searches for ways to make new images with old media. He makes his own translations from sound to image and vise-versa, by connecting one medium on the -not always compatible- other. He’s especially curious to what his work elicits in the viewer. How does our perception operates and which new perspectives appear? Installations were shown in LLS387 Antwerp, SMAK Ghent, Castlefield gallery Manchester, Vooruit Ghent, Netwerk Alost, Bozar Brussels, Filmfestival Ghent, Beursschouwburg Brussels, De Centrale Brussels, FOMU Antwerp. Performances took place in ISSUE Project Room New York, Aural Mexico City, UH Budapest, Hangar Bicocca Milan, Centre d’art contemporain Dijon, ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe, Internationaal Filmfestival Rotterdam, Flagey Brussels, Café OTO London, Extracity Antwerp, Witte de With Rotterdam, Kaskcinema Ghent, International Mystery Los Angeles, The Wulf Los Angeles, Ancienne Belgique Brussels, Museum of Elsene, KMSKA Antwerp, Les Urbaines Lausanne, Xing Live Arts Week Bologna, Electrónica en Abril Madrid, Lal Lal Lal Tampere en Helsinki. In 2015 received the price of the public at the Young Belgian Art Prize ( Meakusma Festival ) https://florisvanhoof.com/ https://florisvanhoof.bandcamp.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_6WdDX5RN4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmz-V8zU6Go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lvJ77mQe1o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMLnI3VqhqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG-AXs5SboU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG8nE11zQYI

ALTERSGRUPPE ca / us / il / fr un agglomérat bien composite et cosmopolite d'individus, résidant  tous  à Paris - et tous dotés d'une personnalité forte, distincte et distinguée. On y retrouve ( souvent ) le très charismatique Max K. aka City Dragon ( vocals & some other things ), le plutôt discret Dudi M. aux cassettes, à la batterie ( & co ), le  pince-sans-rire " Willy " à la basse, l'épatant Nicolas R. à l'électronique principalement analogique et l'exubérant Jim S. aux images et à l'électronique aussi. Free form, free no-fi, free-whatever gets you thru the night. ( it's alright it'salright.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaaRvXIGMg4&t=696s

SAMI BERGOLD / fr

Sami Bergold est un auteur-compositeur né au XXème siècle et ayant vécu la majeure partie de sa vie en Île-de-France, dans la partie correspondant au nord-est parisien. Il a récemment changé d’opérateur téléphonique (Mobile + Box), passant de Bouygues Télécom à Free. Il trouve la vie douloureuse et compliquée, remplie d’injonctions inutiles, dégradantes et contradictoires. Il est alcoolique depuis le lycée, et est également un grand consommateur de médicaments. Il s’inscrit totalement dans une vision romantique du poète maudit, quand bien même il tenterait de s’en défendre (ce qu’il ne fait pas).

Sa musique est parfois qualifiée de « non-musique », tant l’écoute pour le « commun des mortels » semble hors d’évidence; toutefois il s’en défend, puisque pour lui tout est musique. Mais il est vrai que dénué de toute capacité objectivement technique, il joue contre les attentes d’un public qui souhaiterait recevoir des sonorités harmonieuses et agréables.

Mais Merzbow ne disait-il pas si la définition de la noise était une musique désagréable et agressive à l’écoute, alors pour lui la vraie noise se trouvait dans la pop commerciale

(je crois même qu’il voulait dire la pop tout court) ?

Sami Bergold se défend de faire de la noise (au sens où on l’entend habituellement, c’est-à-dire pas dans le sens où Merzbow le contredit),

mais il ne s’agit peut-être là que de débats sémantiques un peu barbants.

Plus factuellement il utilisait jusqu’à présent un mini-armada de matériel de fortune: synthétiseurs bas-de-gamme (souvent de type « à potards », ou générateurs de fréquences), walkmans (donc K7s), pédales d’effets. Ses dernières prestations scéniques l’ont vu utiliser de plus en plus fréquemment de la guitare électrique, qui est devenu quasiment son instrument de prédilection ces derniers temps (peut-être aussi par lassitude des synthétiseurs à potard), à tel point qu’il prépare un album (un « LP ») sur un nouveau label qui verra le jour en 2023, L’eau des fleurs, centré sur cet instrument. Lui-même dirige un label qui s’appelle Premier Sang, sur lequel il a sorti des disques de Sister Iodine, Macronympha, Mesa of the Lost Women, mais aussi un maxi de techno / house qui est devenu très légèrement culte : « To Live and Die E.P. » par Violence FM; ce label dort sur ses lauriers, la dernière sortie conséquente ayant été un double LP de lui-même sous un autre de ses pseudonymes: Z.B. Aids a.k.a. Valerie Smith (échec commercial malgré la publicité faite par Cameron Jamie sur ce disque dans Art Forum), en 2017. Il est également plasticien, même si il aime se définir plutôt comme un poète, malgré le fait d’être représenté en galerie par Valeria Cetraro (en même temps Henri Michaux avait bien un galeriste, lui aussi…). Depuis 2006 il co-dirige un projet (magazine ? revue ? fanzine ?) avec Jonas Delaborde qui s’appelle Nazi Knife. Il est, comme tout le monde, inquiet pour le futur. Son nom civil est Hendrik Hegray.SEXY WATER est le titre d'un coffret triple K7 - publié par le label Scum Yr Earth ces jours-ci et dont on espère voir les exemplaires ce soir-là.

https://soundcloud.com/user-496765036 https://soundcloud.com/sami-bergold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLSFpJl7-HM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HlJU6OOVm0

LANA SUBDUCTIONS / fr Communiqué officiel : " Méryll Ampe, Élodie Rassell et Romain Perrot collaborent de manière instinctive et radicale, utilisant SUBDUCTION SONORE ET VISUELLE, notre processus d'incurvation et de déplacement d'éléments sonores, plongeant, s'enfonçant et ressurgissant, en dévoilant des états sonores et visuels / sensoriels qui se déploient, des entités qui se croisent, se mélangent ou se décomposent, pour créer une fiction de Lana Del Rey."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZmKQhgPJBU

Fly - Jo L’Indien 

[ryosukekiyasu]

August 24, 2024 Ryosuke Kiyasu snare drum solo show in London, UK Venue: Café OTO https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/day/2024/08/24/

[dustedmagazine]

Space — Embrace the Space (Relative Pitch)

This trio’s singularity has stood out from the start. That’s not a given for a piano-bass-drums trio; there are looming giants who have done standard-setting work with it, and legions more who have turned it into cliches known to those whose familiarity with jazz begins and ends at brunch. But as Space, pianist Lisa Ullén, bassist Elsa Bergman and drummer Anna Lund project a collective identity in which each player’s contributions merit appreciation, but they all make their marks most strongly felt by contributing to acts of instantaneous collective composition.

Ullén, Bergman and Lund first convened as the rhythm section for Anna Högberg Attack, where they shared (and still do) space with three assertive horn players. They recorded their first album in 2021 at Fylkingen, which is to Stockholm what Café Oto is to London, Pioneer Works is to New York, and Elastic Arts and Constellation/Links Hall are to Chicago; not just a venue, but a supportive space for diverse forward-facing arts. Made two years later, Embrace The Space is their second recording, and first in a studio. During that time, they gigged fairly often, and continuous performance has fostered an evolution in their sound away from stratification.

Although one instrument often comes to the fore, soloing isn’t really the point of Embrace The Space. On “All At Once,” the piano draws abruptly shifting lines in the foreground. But tune into the other players and you’ll hear the bass tracing bold counter-lines while the drums create a ceaselessly changing complement to the other two instruments. When the bass and drums drop out for a moment, it’s not so much to create a place for Lund to show her stuff as it is a momentary moderation of intensity folded into a fabric of change. While Bergman states the opening of “Bleach” without company, her initial statement is like a key unlocking everything that will follow. And when Ullén briefly mutes a few notes mid-passage later in the same tune, their truncated decay completes the drumming. In such moments, the ensemble’s commitment to making music that is complete via spontaneous means is what comes to the fore. 

Bill Meyer

[stue1967]

The Necks - Café Oto, London, 4 April 2024

It’s possible that there is not a band that is more Café Oto than the Necks. The Australian three piece have been around since 1987, initially happily improvising together in Sydney. Keyboard player Chris Abrahams and bassist Lloyd Swanton still live within 100km of their original base but drummer Tony Buck has lived in Berlin for over 20 years. Pre-pandemic, they’d get together in Australia to…

[girldigital]

Fingering schemes for saxophone

Currently at Cafe Oto, waiting on show for Palestine to start. Nice place. Cackling at how the majority of the audience seems white though.

I catch myself unashamedly checking out the saxophone player – I guess I have more than one weakness associated with Big though I would argue that that one precedes him. Besides, God knows I’m a fool for any instrumentalist. Sax just so happens to be the most rare and most valued Pokémon in my book.

Anyway, I did spend a considerable portion of my evening fantasizing about Him playing for me. I remember audio recordings he’d sent me when we were still talking, their echoes haunting me long after we ended.

I closed my eyes and pictured his arms wrapped around this favourite organ of mine, fingers prancing, lips blowing rhythm-filled kisses.

I thought about how much better he might be than whoever was playing (sorry).

Does that all make me insane or a hopeless romantic?

Isn’t slight insanity inherent to hopeless romance or am I just trying to make myself feel better about this terminal case of unrequited love?

I don’t really care to answer.

To go back to my previous entry, the date did go exactly as expected. I thought seeing 3 cats in the streets could have been a sign of luck being on my side, but of course, that didn’t mean jack. A’s tarot reading suggested I rely less on logic to guide myself and I've been trying to do so — Perhaps that's a sign of desperation. Like usual, it didn't work though, obviously.

I will say, despite the time I wasted, something I do love about dating after a certain age, is how a date can go well and have no follow-up. Like, thank you for also seeing the obvious lack of chemistry and not wanting to fuck me regardless. Truly.

Currently in the Uber home from the event.

Everything showcased was very good. I wish I was less sleepy, maybe I would’ve spent less time daydreaming. The music was also to blame I think: appropriately transcendent, like a tunnel towards dreams.

We chatted with one of the musicians. Can’t tell if he was flirting but he said he’d take us around south west London and show us all the good Arab food.

Sometimes I wonder if these events actually are for Palestine or only exist to make us feel better. I’d say probably 80% of the latter. Something so ridiculous about the thought of pretentiously watching art in a hip café about a place that’s simultaneously being bombed and starved. Maybe I’m just too big of a cynic, but I don’t know.

As a sidenote, it’s also weird to grow up reading the Hunger Games, identifying with tributes, only to realize we're actually closer to being a cowardly Capitol bystanders.

Anyways, still. Palestine will be free 🇵🇸🍉

[unpredictablesite]

‘Love, Sex and War’ Terry Day Lyrics from BlancaRegina+PierreBouvierPatron on Vimeo.

4th October 2023 Café Oto London

‘Segue To Another’ Book launch of ‘Love, Sex and War’ Terry Day Lyrics

‘Segue To Another’ is the celebration of the book launch of ‘Love, Sex and War’ Terry Day Lyrics and a selection of lyrics compiled with Terry, edited by Blanca Regina and published by Unpredictable Series.

For this special event, Terry Day will perform a selection of his lyrics with a small orchestra including Neil Charles, Hannah Mashall, Rachel Musson, Charlotte Keeffe, Benedict Taylor, Iris Colomb, Adrian Northover, Daniel Blumberg, Peter Urpeth and Blanca Regina

In Terry’s words:

‘ The performance on the 4th of October is a “ONE OFF”. ….. To attempt the performance of eight lyrics plus conducting is a step into the unknown for me. Usually, I only perform one lyric with a large orchestra

Generally, the orchestra is given only the chorus of the lyric to briefly rehearse. The rest of the lyric is then improvised, with the orchestra usually hearing it for the first time during the performance. However, the orchestra is only given the title of a lyric with no defined chorus. As such that piece would be almost completely improvised…… …….obviously a ‘ Chorus ’ might arrive

Each word, sentence, phrase and verse of the lyric has been deliberated upon and remains unaltered other than very minor changes. However, the structure, delivery, rhythm, tempo – all the musical aspects of the lyric are subject to improvisation, as is the dialogue and exchange between the orchestra and myself

‘Segue To Another ‘ speaks for itself, ………when the lyric becomes ‘Song’.

I have learnt to accept the banality and profundity of a lyric.

Preorder the book at shipping from October 4th 2023 unpredictableseries.bandcamp.com/merch/love-sex-and-war-terry-day-lyrics

[lcurham]

Wordpress site changes - live

Selected Performances

The Film Remains the Same, You are here 2014;

Spartak at CCAS Nov 2014

Unconsious Archives at Café Oto, London with Alison Blunt, June 2013;

Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre with Alister Spence Trio, April 2013;

Jazz at the Loft, Canberra with Alister Spence, Raymond McDonald & Shoeb Ahmad, Jan 2013;

SoundOut Festival, Canberra 2013, 2014

Melbourne International Arts Festival, Soak, with the Australian Art Orchestra, 2010

Jazz Visions Festival, Sound Lounge, Sydney, 2010

Smack Bang Festival, Red Rattler, Sydney, Jan 2010

NZ International Film Festival- Frames Per Second A Film of One's Own, Auckland, 2009

Waiting to Turn into Puzzles at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, 2008

Val Camonica Pieces, Victorian Arts Centre, 2007

OtherFilm annual festival, Brisbane 2006-8;

NowNow annual exploratory music festival, Sydney, 2006-9

[garadinervi]

Talking to silence – part 1, performed live at Café Oto in London, May 9, 2018, for the record launch Talk in a bit. Hannah Silva (vocals, lyrics), Lionel Friedli (drums, percussions), Luca Xelius Martegani (electronics and keyboards). Promoted by Human Kind Records

[whiteemotion]

Join us to Pianos, Toys, Music, and noise book presentation and performances evening, this Wednesday 16th March at @cafeotodalston Around a year ago, @bloomsburypublishing published ‘Pianos, Toys, Music and Noise’ by Andy Hamilton. Based on a series of conversations with Steve Beresford, it also included notes putting the chats in context and contributions from many of Steve’s collaborators. There was also a section of very good photographs. The cover photo and title (used for the three days at Café Oto on Steve’s 70th birthday) were supplied by Unpredictable’s @blanca_regina As Bloomsbury classified the book as academic, its price was quite high. But now there’s a paperback edition at a much lower price. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pianos-toys-music-and-noise-9781501366468/ Now,@unpredictableseries presents Pianos, Toys, Music, and Noise: an evening that includes a 30-minute conversation with Steve Beresford and author Andy Hamilton and performances by @steveberesfordmusic , @angharaddavie @patthomas_official @blanca_regina and visuals by @pierrebouvierpatron #pionner #music #freeimprovisation #spontaneous #london #cafeoto #soundartist #performance #booklaunch #celebration (at Café OTO) https://www.instagram.com/p/CbGD1LDMzBv/?utm_medium=tumblr

[aquariumdrunkard]

Natural Information Society & Evan Parker :: descension (Out of Our Constrictions) / Mind Maintenance

Fans of Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society’s methodical, meditative 2019 LP mandatory reality might have been a little surprised by the live shows that followed in its wake. This wasn’t a band interested in lulling its audience to sleep. Instead, Abrams and NIS gave audiences a harder-edged, sometimes downright aggressive version of their hypno-jazz.

That energetic approach is ratcheted up even further on the new double LP, recorded live in 2019 at London’s Café Oto.

[ryosukekiyasu]

August 21, 2023

Ryosuke Kiyasu snare drum solo show in London, UK

Venue: Café OTO

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/ryosuke-kiyasu/

[dustedmagazine]

Pelt — Resistance Reticence (Three Lobed)

Reticence / Resistance by Pelt

The long track “Diglossia” takes up all of the opening side of this first Pelt album since 2012, running on like a river going downhill, swirling around obstacles, sparkling in the sunshine but retaining a distinct subterranean chill, changing all the time, every second, but also remaining fundamentally static. It’s cascading piano tumbles over deep stringed notes, an agitation paired with deep calm. All four musicians try new things occasionally, a flicker of variation that pops up then sinks just as suddenly into the depth of drone. Still, it’s remarkable how consistent and centered the track remains, and how little problem that presents. It’s all the same, it’s always shifting and it never gets boring, even for a minute.

The other side of Resistance Reticence is also a long, uninterrupted cut, though it contains three separate sections which are not delineated by track breaks. The first “Sundogs,” revisits a song that Pelt first performed with Jack Rose and that Rose later revisited in his 2016 EP I Do Play Rock and Roll. It opens here like Rose’s version does, in a skree of high, mysterious bowed sound. But Pelt has more instruments at play, so more timbres to lay out. These long tones materialize as if through a Star Trek transporter, hover weightlessly, interact with each other and fade out. There’s a ghostly aura to them. When the gong rings to end this section, it’s like spirits dispersing into the ether. In the second section, called “Chiming,” you are made to listen intensely to various sorts of bells and chimes, as a roar of cymbal roll builds up behind them and as various instruments pick notes from the air like tuning forks. Mike Gangloff traces a half heard melody with funereal fiddle, the bow touching so lightly on the strings that the sound wavers, hesitates, then moves on. I am not really sure where “A Door in the Hill” picks up, though perhaps it’s the suite of fiddles that swells, ultimately, into a grand monolith of piano, percussion and plucked banjo. It’s possible that it doesn’t matter where you are in the cut at any given time because that moment is always now.

The whole album has a roving, organic quality to it, as if it might hare off in any direction at any minute (while remaining, somehow, exactly where it was). That’s likely due to the fact that it was recorded live at Café Oto in London during two shows in 2017. The concerts were captured without a lot of frills, just a few mics, distilling whatever magic four musicians could make with standard acoustic instruments. Quiet a lot, it turns out.  

Jennifer Kelly

[bluetapes]

TODD BARTON - MULTUM IN PARVO - OUT NOW! CD, cassette AND digital!

CD version comes in digipack sleeve with obi strip, and the cassette is packaged in 'Maletese cross'-style fold-out recycled card.

A must for any fans of analogue electronics and cosmic soundscapes! 

GET IT HERE.

Come to the album launch party in London on 14th October at Café OTO

TICKETS!