This site (busterandfriends.com/stet) will remain as an archive of Lab activities between November 2007 and April 2011.

Han-earl Park, Stephen Davis and Kevin Terry (photos: © 2011 Julia Healy)

Major thanks to Stephen Davis for taking time to visit. In the company of this fine drummer and compelling thinker, the event was a very real meeting of musical minds and bodies, and I think we’ve all been transformed. Thanks also to The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of… Helena Reilly, Kevin Terry and Dan Walsh, to everyone else who performed (Jonathan Deasy, Tonynho Dos Santos, Tony O’Connor, Han-earl Park, Colm Pattwell and Athoulis Tsiopani), and to the entire backstage Lab crew including Veronica Tadman, Kevin, Tony, Athoulis and photographer Julia Healy [see the photographs (new window)…].

And last but not least, thanks to the everyone who came to listen and support this event.

As with all the recordings since December 2008, this month’s recordings are covered under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. [More info…]

Stet Lab featuring Tony O’Connor

Monday, 11 April 2011

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€6 (€3)

The monthly event, Stet Lab, returns on Monday April 11th, upstairs at The Roundy Bar, Castle Street, Cork City. An established platform for all things hybrid, (dis)functional and mutated, sees Stet Lab bass player, Tony O’Connor takes his debut as the headline act.

Kerry born Bass player Tony O’Connor is an award winning Cork based improviser and solo performer, having been given the prestigious ‘Donal ‘Doc’ Gleeson award for Musical Performance in 2008. Regularly seen at Stet Lab, O’Connor has performed alongside such improvisers as: Mike Hurley, Don Malone and Alexander Hawkins; and as a member of the Jitney Trio and Mersk, he is a well conversed and talented Improviser. His highly kinetic and tactile approach to his instrument mixed with empathy for space makes his performances vivacious. “Performing with Tony is like a breath of fresh air,” says Stet Lab regular Veronica Tadman. “I have performed with Tony on several occasions and find that his sensitivity towards other improvisers, yet his solid presence, makes improvising with Tony a pleasure both from a listening and performance point of view.” Other projects include playing bass for an award winning band ‘Drop Hats,’ and co-founder of the KDYS band in Kerry. Tony has also performed in China and featured on Chinese TV.

Also performing at the event will be Stet Lab’s house band, a group of Cork-based improvisers appearing as The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) Of.

The event will begin at 21:00 and entry has been reduced to €6 (€3).

Stet Lab featuring Danny McCarthy and Kevin Terry

Monday, 14 March 2011

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€6 (€3)

Cork’s monthly improvised music event—Stet Lab—continues its fourth season of on-stage mutations and hybrids on Monday, March 14th 2011, upstairs at The Roundy Bar, Castle Street, Cork City. This regular, yet unique meeting between novice and veteran improvisers alike stays close to home and welcomes Cork-based improvisers Danny McCarthy and Kevin Terry.

Seen on a regular basis performing as part of the Quiet Club, Danny McCarthy is a pioneer in the performance of art and sound. His work has been used both on TV and radio and taken him around the world including installations at Hearing Place, Melbourne, Australia; and Museo Fotografia, Milano, Italy.

McCarthy’s respect of space and his surroundings has a key influence on his performance. “The sounds I tend to use have a universality and the work should work in any culture,” says McCarthy in an interview with Slavka Sverkova. “Space influences my work hugely and I really enjoy working with space as a medium. I tend to let the space form the work rather that trying to impose the work in the space.” This passion and ethos should create a night of Improvisation that allows the listener to experience sound and improvisation as apart of the process.

Performing alongside Danny McCarthy is Kevin Terry, a regular to Stet Lab, Terry’s guitar playing should contrast McCarthy’s soundscape, creating a diverse sonic experience.

Also performing at the event will be Stet Lab’s house band, a group of Cork-based improvisers appearing as The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) Of.

The event will begin at 21:00 and entry has been reduced to €6 (€3).

The evening will open a performance by Helena Reilly (voice), Kevin Terry (guitar) and Dan Walsh (drums).

Should be a good one. We hope to see y’all there! Han-earl, who will be stepping down from curatorial duties with this event, would like to thank everyone who supported the Lab over the last 3+ years!

…In the meantime, here’s a couple of contrasting clips of Davis in action. With Matthew Bourne and Dave Kane:

…and with Pedro Rebelo and Franziska Schroeder:

Stet Lab featuring Stephen Davis
with Han-earl Park plus Helena Reilly, Kevin Terry and Dan Walsh

Monday, 7 February 2011

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Cork’s monthly improvised music event, Stet Lab, is thrilled to be presenting the Cork debut of Belfast-based drummer, improviser and composer Stephen Davis on Monday, 7 February 2011, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland.

Hailed by Jazzwise magazine as “a very empathetic performer with a strong percussive voice”, Stephen Davis is a composer, performer, and a rising star of the younger generation of alt. jazzers. Davis is best know as a member of Bourne/Davis/Kane (with Matthew Bourne, Dave Kane) whose records The Money Notes (FogHorn Records) was given four out of five stars, and described as “an intelligent set, in which familiar trio materials are cherished, polished and pared down” by John Fordham in The Guardian. His other records include Moment To Moment (Slam Productions) with Paul Dunmall, and Faint (Creative Sources Recordings) with Franziska Schroeder and Pedro Rebelo.

Davis has performed with some of the best known names in jazz and improvised music including Evan Parker, Joe Morris, Django Bates, Brian Irvine, Reggie Washington, Tom Arthurs, Julian Seigal, Mike Walker, Norma Winston, Rufus Reid and Mark Ribot. He has toured extensively in Europe, America, Russia and elsewhere, and has written music film, dance and theatre. In 2010 Davis helped to instigate the Evan Parker-led 20-piece improvising ensemble as part of the Sonorities Festival (Belfast), and in 2009 Davis was commission to write an original work for the Belfast Festival.

Davis will be joined by Cork-based improvisers including guitarist, and founder of Stet Lab and Mathilde 253, Han-earl Park. The event will open with a performance by a trio of up-and-coming Cork-based improvisers, The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) Of, consisting of vocalist Helena Reilly, guitarist Kevin Terry and drummer Dan Walsh.

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

Stet Lab will return in March 2011 for more real-time, on-stage musical meetings!

the performers

Stephen Davis is a drummer mainly but also composes music. Over the years he has had the opportunity to play music professionally with Evan Parker, Joe Morris, Matthew Bourne, Dave Kane, Django Bates, Brian Irvine, Reggie Washington, Tom Arthurs, Julian Seigal, Paul Dunmall, Mike Walker, Norma Winston, Rufus Reid, Mark Ribot…. and the list goes on. He has toured all over Europe, America, Russia and many other countries with different ensembles.

He has music published on Edition Records with ‘Bourne/Davis/Kane’, on Creative Sources Recordings with ‘Faint,’ and on Slam Records with Paul Dunmall.
As a composer he has written music for various projects including film, dance and theatre as well as his own various ensembles. In October 2009 Stephen was commission to write an original work for the Belfast Festival for a large group.

“A very empathetic performer with a strong percussive voice.”

(Jazzwise)

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park works from/within/around traditions of fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, mostly open improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He feels the gravitational pull of collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries and concert halls in Europe and America.

He is involved in collaborations with Bruce Coates, Franziska Schroeder, Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell, and is part of Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith. Recent performances include Mathilde 253 with Lol Coxhill; duo concerts with Paul Dunmall, and with Richard Barrett; trios with Matana Robers and Mark Sanders, with Kato Hideki and Katie O’Looney, and with Thomas Buckner and Jesse Ronneau; as part of the Evan Parker led 20-piece improvising ensemble; and the performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Droniphonia’ alongside the composer. His recordings have been released by labels including Slam Productions, and DUNS Limited Edition. He has appeared at festivals including Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), Sonorities (Belfast) and VAIN Live Art (Oxford).

Park founded and curates Stet Lab and teaches improvisation at the UCC School of Music.

Dan Walsh is a Cork-based drummer studying for a BMus degree at UCC, working within a variety of contexts though specialising in jazz. Having begun playing at the somewhat late age of 16 Dan has already had the privilege of playing with some of the country’s top jazz musicians such as Richie Buckley, Myles Drennan and Micheal Buckley. Currently providing the beat for The Roaring Forties as well as running a monthly Blue Note jazz night, Dan continues to play in as many varying situations as possible in order to continue developing musically.

Also performing will be Stet Lab (ir)regulars including Helena Reilly (vocals), Kevin Terry (guitar) and Dan Walsh (drums).

To be informed of future events, please join the Stet Lab – announce, or subscribe to the web feed (news only or all blog posts). [More info…]

Special thanks to John Godfrey for stepping in at the last minute, and thanks to everyone who played on the night (Tony O’Connor, Han-earl Park, Helena Reilly, Athos Tsiopani and Dan Walsh) including Stet Lab newcomer Jonathan Deasy. Kudos to the entire backstage Lab crew including Kevin Terry and Veronica Tadman, to Athos for recording the event, and to photographer Julia Healy [see the photographs (new window)…].

And last but not least, thanks to the everyone who came to listen and support this event.

As with all the recordings since December 2008, this month’s recordings are covered under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. [More info…]

Composer-performer John Godfrey (guitar), however, has very generously stepped in to occupy the Lab’s guest spot. Godfrey will be joined by Han-earl Park (guitar) and Dan Walsh (drums), and the event will open with The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of… Andrea Bonino and Kevin Terry (guitars).

The event takes place this Tuesday (January 4, 2011), same place (Upstairs @ The Roundy), same time (9:00pm). [Details…]

We hope that you will come and participate.

Stet Lab featuring Murray Campbell John Godfrey
with Han-earl Park, plus Andrea Bonino and Kevin Terry

Tuesday, 4 January 2011

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Cork’s monthly improvised music event, Stet Lab, starts a New Year of on-stage mutations and hybrids on Tuesday, 4 January 2011, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland. A unique opportunity to witness the interaction between novice and veteran, and local and visiting, improvising musicians, the January event will feature California-based multi-instrumentalist Murray Campbell John Godfrey.

Last heard at the Stet Lab two years ago (12 January 2009), Murray Campbell has proved to be of the most popular and generous visiting artists at the Lab. His contributions to the Lab were included as part of the Danny McCarthy curated CD Rediscovering Locality: A Sonology of Cork Sound Art+ (farpoint recordings), and his playing has been described by then Stet Lab regular Eoin Callery as “101 other things to be done with a violin” with “movement from long-sustained tone, multiple examples of melodic phrasing, and rapid combinations of whistle-tones, harmonics, bow scrapings, plucking and rhythmic taps—especially during the second trio—left nobody in doubt of his abilities and obvious comfort in many violin/fiddle styles.”

As a fiddler (of Scottish, Balkan and Bluegrass idioms), and a violinist and double reed player in classical, music theater and performance art settings, Murray Campbell has recorded with musicians from California, Scotland, The Netherlands and elsewhere, and performed on four continents. In addition, Campbell was long time musical and technical director of Jan Langedijk’s theatre company De Daders (Amsterdam), co-creator (with Alex Fiennes) of the octaphonic spatialization system for Dialogues (Edinburgh), and co-founder of the Church of Sonology. He regularly performs with musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area and broader Californian improvised and experimental music scenes, including as part of the ensemble Bristle with saxophonists Randy McKean and Corey Wright, and bassist Lisa Mezzacappa.

Murray Campbell will be joined by Cork-based improvisers including guitarist Han-earl Park, and the event will open with Stet Lab’s house band, The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of…, consisting of guitarists Andrea Bonino and Kevin Terry.

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

Stet Lab will return on Monday, 7 February 2011 featuring Belfast-based drummer Steve Davis.

updates:

01-02-11 change of guest artist from Murray Campbell to John Godfrey.