Return to OTO for this heavyweight quartet after their performance here last year that reprised the line-ups for the three discs in Treader's series "The Founder Effect". Recorded over a day at London's Abbey Road, they include a duo - 'The Both' - between Pat Thomas and Steve Noble and two quartets: one with Pat Thomas on Piano and John Coxon on Synth and the second with Pat on Synth and John Coxon on Guitar.
"The mood, at first, is one of brooding restraint and suppressed, irruptive energy. Unsurprisingly, the channelling of that energy takes an unexpected course. For a while, the players’ interactions become playfully, scabrously rodential. Coxon’s synth then takes on a firmer, bass-rich funk inflection. When Thomas responds, there’s no second guessing how things will develop; the possibilities are endless." - Dalston Sound, review of The Founder Effect...
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Return to OTO for this heavyweight quartet after their performance here last year that reprised the line-ups for the three discs in Treader's series "The Founder Effect". Recorded over a day at London's Abbey Road, they include a duo - 'The Both' - between Pat Thomas and Steve Noble and two quartets: one with Pat Thomas on Piano and John Coxon on Synth and the second with Pat on Synth and John Coxon on Guitar.
"The mood, at first, is one of brooding restraint and suppressed, irruptive energy. Unsurprisingly, the channelling of that energy takes an unexpected course. For a while, the players’ interactions become playfully, scabrously rodential. Coxon’s synth then takes on a firmer, bass-rich funk inflection. When Thomas responds, there’s no second guessing how things will develop; the possibilities are endless." - Dalston Sound, review of The Founder Effect
ALAN WILKINSON / saxophone
There can be few more daunting sounds in free music than that of Alan Wilkinson in overdrive, whether the headlong flights of his alto playing, or the beefier heft he gets from the baritone. Often featured lately with bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble ( their CD ‘Live at Cafe Oto’ was among the CDs of the last decade in the Times) he’s also appeared with Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzmann, Chris Corsano, Talibam!, Eddie Prevost, and his trio with Simon Fell and Paul Hession, among others.
"At its highest points, this session unleashes some of the most preposterously powerful energy jazz heard since Peter Brötzmann's Yatagarasu trio with Takeo Moriyama and Masahiko Satoh" - Daniel Spicer, The WIRE
PAT THOMAS / piano, synth
Pat Thomas studied classical piano from aged 8 and started playing Jazz from the age of 16. He has since gone on to develop an utterly unique style - embracing improvisation, jazz and new music. He has played with Derek Bailey in Company Week (1990/91) and in the trio AND (with Noble) – with Tony Oxley’s Quartet and Celebration Orchestra and in Duo with Lol Coxhill.
"Sartorially shabby as Thomas may be, and on first impression even rather stolid, he has a somewhat imperious charisma that’s immediately amplified when he starts to play. Unlike other pianists whose virtuosity seems to be racing ahead of their thought processes Thomas always seems supremely in command of his gift, and his playing, no matter how free and ready to tangle with abstraction, always carries a charge of authoritative exactitude." The Jazzmann
STEVE NOBLE / Drums
Steve Noble is London's leading drummer, a fearless and constantly inventive improviser whose super-precise, ultra-propulsive and hyper-detailed playing has galvanized encounters with Derek Bailey, Matthew Shipp, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, Stephen O'Malley, Joe McPhee, Alex Ward, Rhodri Davies and many, many more.
In the early eighties, Noble played with the Nigerian master drummer Elkan Ogunde, Rip Rig and Panic, Brion Gysin and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, before going on to work with the pianist Alex Maguire and with Derek Bailey (including Company Weeks 1987, 89 and 90). He was featured in the Bailey's excellent TV series on Improvisation for Channel 4 based on his book ‘Improvisation; its nature and practise’. He has toured and performed throughout Europe, Africa and America and currently leads the groups N.E.W (with John Edwards and Alex Ward) and DECOY (with John Edwards and Alexander Hawkins).
JOHN COXON / guitar, synth
John Coxon, perhaps uniquely for an improvising guitarist, is inspired as much by the plangencies of Reggie Young as by the astringencies of Derek Bailey. As irascible and as spiky as it gets, his playing is always haunted by the ghosts of popular song and fragments of the blues.
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