tonight: Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders plus Caroline Pugh at Bang the Bore, Bristol

Someone dropping sheets of metal during a Jazz Session
Image © 2015 Han-earl Park.

Tonight (Wednesday, December 2, 2015), at 8:00pm: Bang the Bore presents Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass), Mark Sanders (drums) and Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics). Also performing are Casey Hale, and Dsic. The event takes place at Cafe Kino (108 Stokes Croft, Bristol BS1 3RU). Admission is £6.

Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh will also be performing in London, tomorrow (December 3). See the performance diary for up-to-date info.

Culture Ireland logo

Presented with funding from Culture Ireland, and support from SLAM Productions.

reminder: Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders plus Caroline Pugh at Fizzle, Birmingham

An SUV-sized violin tailgating
Image © 2015 Han-earl Park.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, December 1, 2015), at 7:30pm: Fizzle presents Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass), Mark Sanders (drums) and Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics). Also performing are Lee Griffiths (saxophone) and Olly Chalk (piano). The event takes place at The Lamp Tavern (Barford Street, Birmingham B5 6AH). Admission is £5.

Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh will also be performing in Bristol (December 2) and London (December 3). See the performance diary for up-to-date info.

Culture Ireland logo

Presented with funding from Culture Ireland, and support from SLAM Productions.

performance diary 11-24-15 (Birmingham, Bristol, Brooklyn, Cork, London)

upcoming performances
date venue time details
December 1, 2015 The Lamp Tavern
Barford Street
Birmingham B5 6AH
England
7:30pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics) presented by Fizzle. Also performing: Lee Griffiths (saxophone) and Olly Chalk (piano). Admission: £5.
[Details…] [Fizzle listings…]
December 2, 2015 Cafe Kino
108 Stokes Croft
Bristol BS1 3RU
England
8:00pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics) presented by Bang the Bore. Also performing: Casey Hale, and Dsic. Admission: £6.
[Details…] [Bang the Bore page…]
December 3, 2015 Cafe OTO
18–22 Ashwin Street
Dalston
London E8 3DL
England
8:00pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics). Also performing: John Russell, Terry Day and Billy Steiger. Tickets: £10 (£8 advance) [get tickets…].
[Details…] [OTO page…]
December 12, 2015 New Revolution Arts Series
7 Stanhope Street
Bushwick
Brooklyn, NY 11221
8:00pm Ingrid Laubrock (saxophone) and Han-earl Park (guitar). Also performing: Joanna Mattrey (viola), Leila Bordreuil (cello) and Sean Ali (bass); and James Ilgenfritz’ Trio Caveat.$10 suggested donation.
[Details…] [New Revolution Arts listings…]
December 14, 2015 65Fen Music Series
65 Fenimore Street
Brooklyn, NY 11225
9:00pm Nick Didkovsky (guitar), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Josh Sinton (saxophone). Also performing: Jon Irabagon (saxophone).$10 suggested donation.
[Details…]
January 29, 2016 Aula Maxima
University College Cork
Cork, Ireland
1:10pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics) presented by FUAIM Music at UCC.
Admission free.
[Details…] [FUAIM page…]
2016– Europe I am based in Europe as of 2014, and I am seeking performance opportunities for, in particular, my Europe-based projects including Numbers (with Richard Barrett), Mathilde 253 (with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith), and my trio with Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders. Interested promoters, venues and sponsors, please get in touch!
Culture Ireland logo

Birmingham, Bristol and London performances presented with funding from Culture Ireland, and support from SLAM Productions.

Continue reading “performance diary 11-24-15 (Birmingham, Bristol, Brooklyn, Cork, London)”

reminder: Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders plus Caroline Pugh (Birmingham, Bristol and London, December 2015)

A No Wave guitarist desperately trying to survive in the Appalachian Mountains
Image © 2015 Han-earl Park.

An SUV-sized violin tailgating, a No Wave guitarist desperately trying to survive in the Appalachian Mountains, someone dropping sheets of metal during a Jazz Session, an evolutionary biologist finding themselves speaking in tongues (Awash In Blue).

December 2015: a short tour by Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh:

See the performance diary for up-to-date info. [Details (performer bios, images, etc.)…]

I am beyond pleased, and feel extremely privileged, to be taking this group of stupendously creative, and unique crafty, people on the road. It’d be only a small exaggeration to say that this ensemble, more than any other, embodies the kinds of interactive creativity—an at times discordant tension between autonomy and collectivism—that get me fired up. Excited? Yes. And you should be too 😉 Hope you can make it to a performance; I guarantee it will be something special.

‘character’ posters

All About That Squeak Bonk (artwork copyright 2015 Han-earl Park). Click to download PDF.Swing Shuffle Tap Flam K’Bang (artwork copyright 2015 Han-earl Park). Click to download PDF.Clock Ooooh and Rewind Squeal (artwork copyright 2015 Han-earl Park). Click to download PDF.

© 2015 Han-earl Park. Click to view PDFs…

trailer

Culture Ireland logo

Presented with funding from Culture Ireland, and support from SLAM Productions.

updates

11–20-15: add Bang the Bore page.

performance diary 09-30-15 (Birmingham, Bristol, Brooklyn, London)

upcoming performances
date venue time details
December 1, 2015 The Lamp Tavern
Barford Street
Birmingham B5 6AH
England
7:30pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics) presented by Fizzle. Also performing: Lee Griffiths (saxophone) and Olly Chalk (piano). Admission: £5.
[Details…] [Fizzle listings…]
December 2, 2015 Cafe Kino
108 Stokes Croft
Bristol BS1 3RU
England
8:00pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics) presented by Bang the Bore. Also performing: Casey Hale, and Dsic. Admission: £6.
[Details…] [Bang the Bore page…]
December 3, 2015 Cafe OTO
18–22 Ashwin Street
Dalston
London E8 3DL
England
8:00pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics). Also performing: John Russell, Terry Day and Billy Steiger. Tickets: £10 (£8 advance) [get tickets…].
[Details…] [OTO page…]
December 12, 2015 New Revolution Arts Series
7 Stanhope Street
Bushwick
Brooklyn, NY 11221
8:00pm Ingrid Laubrock (saxophone) and Han-earl Park (guitar). Also performing: Joanna Mattrey (viola), Leila Bordreuil (cello) and Sean Ali (bass); and James Ilgenfritz’ Trio Caveat.$10 suggested donation.
[Details…] [New Revolution Arts listings…]
December 14, 2015 65Fen Music Series
65 Fenimore Street
Brooklyn, NY 11225
9:00pm Nick Didkovsky (guitar), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Josh Sinton (saxophone). Also performing: Jon Irabagon (saxophone).$10 suggested donation.
[Details…]
2015– Europe I am based in Europe as of 2014, and I am seeking performance opportunities for, in particular, my Europe-based projects including Numbers (with Richard Barrett), Mathilde 253 (with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith), and my trio with Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders. Interested promoters, venues and sponsors, please get in touch!
Culture Ireland logo

Birmingham, Bristol and London performances presented with funding from Culture Ireland, and support from SLAM Productions.

Continue reading “performance diary 09-30-15 (Birmingham, Bristol, Brooklyn, London)”

performances: Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders plus Caroline Pugh (Birmingham, Bristol and London, December 2015)

Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh (image copyright 2015 Han-earl Park)
Image © 2015 Han-earl Park.

Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) plus Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics) will be doing a short tour of England in December 2015 (see the performance diary for up-to-date info):

[Press release (PDF)…]

Culture Ireland logo

Presented with funding from Culture Ireland, and support from SLAM Productions.

details

Expect playful, noisy and inventive musical interactions as the cyborgian virtuoso guitarist Han-earl Park performs with double bassist Dominic Lash, drummer Mark Sanders, and vocalist and electronics performer Caroline Pugh in Birmingham (1 December 2015), Bristol (2 December) and London (3 December). This three-date tour marks the first European performances of Han-earl Park’s Metis 9, a collection of improvisative tactics for ensemble performance.

Described as “a musical philosopher… a delightful shape-shifter” by Brian Morton in Point of Departure, guitarist Han-earl Park has performed with some of the best improvisers from the Americas, Asia and Europe. He is part of ensembles including the London-based Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, the New York-based Eris 136199 with Nick Didkovsky and Catherine Sikora, and the Berlin-based Numbers with Richard Barrett.

The performances will feature Park’s trio with the virtuosic bassist, composer and sound artist Dominic Lash, and Mark Sanders, arguably the most sought-after avant-jazz and free improvisation drummer of his generation. Joining the group will be Belfast-based experimental folk singer and electronics performer Caroline Pugh, bringing an additional layer of levity and exuberance to the already playful interactions of the trio.

In addition to presenting other improvisative and traditional works, this tour will mark the European premiere of Park’s Metis 9, a playbook of interactive tactics for group improvisation. Initially conceived and performed in New York (in collaboration with New York-based musicians, Josh Sinton and Catherine Sikora), Metis 9 is documented on the album Anomic Aphasia recently released by SLAM Productions to great acclaim (“☆☆☆☆½” All About Jazz, “☆☆☆☆” Free Jazz).

With musicians representing diverse strands of present-day improvised musics, prepare for a performance that fragments and recombines musical histories, a performance that leaps unexpectedly between noise, melody, dissonance, harmony and rhythm.

The events take place: Tuesday, 1 December, Fizzle at The Lamp Tavern (Barford Street, Birmingham B5 6AH), 7:30pm; Wednesday, 2 December, Bang the Bore at Cafe Kino (108 Stokes Croft, Bristol BS1 3RU), 8:00pm; Thursday, 3 December, Cafe OTO (18–22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 3DL), 8:00pm.

Presented with funding from Culture Ireland, and support from SLAM Productions.

[Press release (PDF)…]

about the ensemble

Hear guitarist Han-earl Park push and pull on the guitar-amplifier dancing partners, Dominic Lash and his double bass damage hanging artwork, Mark Sanders excavate caverns in the smallest spaces for his percussion, and Caroline Pugh sing the lines that border the intelligible and the cryptic. Somewhere out there, there’s an SUV-sized violin tailgating, a No Wave guitarist desperately trying to survive in the Appalachian Mountains, someone dropping sheets of metal during a Jazz Session, an evolutionary biologist finding themselves speaking in tongues (awash in blue).

about the performers

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park has been crossing borders and performing fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, always traditional, open improvised musics for twenty years. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces across Europe and the USA.

Park engages a radical, liminal, cyborg virtuosity in which mind, body and artifact collide. He is driven by the social and revolutionary potential of real-time interactive performance in which tradition and practice become creative problematics. As a constructor of musical automata, he is interested in partial, and partially frustrating, context-specific artifacts; artifacts that amplify social relations and corporeal identities and agencies.

Ensembles include Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, Eris 136199 with Nick Didkovsky and Catherine Sikora, and Numbers with Richard Barrett. Park is the constructor of the machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++, and instigator of Metis 9, a playbook of improvisative tactics. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Mark Sanders, Josh Sinton, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Andrew Drury, Pat Thomas and Franziska Schroeder, and as part of large ensembles led by Wadada Leo Smith, Evan Parker and Pauline Oliveros.

Festival appearances include Freedom of the City (London), Sonorities (Belfast), ISIM (New York), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), CEAIT (Los Angeles) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). His recordings have been released by labels including Slam Productions, Creative Sources and DUNS Limited Edition.

Park taught improvisation at University College Cork, and founded and curated Stet Lab, a space for improvised music in Cork.

“Guitarist Han-earl Park is a musical philosopher…. Expect unexpected things from Park, who is a delightful shape-shifter….”

Brian Morton (Point of Departure)

Dominic Lash is a freely improvising double bassist, although his activities also range much more widely and include playing bass guitar and other instruments; both writing and performing composed music; and writing about music and various other subjects.

He has performed with musicians such as Tony Conrad (in duo and quartet formations), Joe Morris (trio and quartet), Evan Parker (duo, quartet and large ensemble) and the late Steve Reid. His main projects include The Dominic Lash Quartet, The Set Ensemble (an experimental music group focused on the work of the Wandelweiser collective) and The Convergence Quartet.

Based in Bristol, Lash has performed in the UK, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and USA. For nearly a decade he was based in Oxford and played a central role in the activities of Oxford Improvisers; much of 2011 was spent living in Manhattan. In 2013 and 2014 he is taking part in Take Five, the professional development programme administered by Serious.

Festival appearances include Akbank Jazz Festival (Istanbul), Audiograft (Oxford), Freedom of the City (London), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Hurta Cordel (Madrid), Konfrontationen (Nickelsdorf), LMC Festival (London), Manchester Jazz Festival and Tampere Jazz Happening.

His work has been broadcast on a number of radio stations, including BBC Radios 1 and 3 and Germany’s SWR2, and released on labels including Another Timbre, b-boim, Bead, Cathnor, Clean Feed, Compost and Height, Emanem, Erstwhile, FMR, Foghorn, Leo and NoBusiness.

Since moving to Bristol he has been involved in organising concerts under the banners of Bang the Bore and Insignificant Variation. A new venture is the monthly series happening every second Wednesday at the Arnolfini entitled Several 2nds. Events include performances, workshops, film screenings and discussions.

“Following in an illustrious lineage from Barry Guy through Simon Fell… breathtaking.”

John Sharpe (All About Jazz)

Mark Sanders has played with many renowned musicians from around the world including Evan Parker, Peter Brotzmann, Derek Bailey, Myra Melford, Paul Rogers, Henry Grimes, Roswell Rudd, Okkyung Lee, Barry Guy, Tim Berne, Otomo Yoshihide, Luc Ex, Ken Vandermark, Sidsel Endresen and Jean Francois Pauvrois, in duo and quartets with Wadada Leo Smith and trios with Charles Gayle with Sirone and William Parker.

New collaborative projects include ‘Riverloam Trio’ with Mikolaj Trzaska and Olie Brice, ‘Asunder’ with Hasse Poulsen and Paul Dunmall, duos with John Butcher and DJ Sniff, ‘Statics’ with Georg Graewe and John Butcher, and trio with Rachel Musson and Liam Noble.

Mark and John Edwards play as a rhythm section with many groups including Trevor Watts Quartet, ‘Foils’ with Frank Paul Schubert and Matthius Muller, Mathew Shipp’s ‘London Quartet,’ also playing with Fred Frith, Wadada Leo Smith and Shabaka Hutchins amongst many others.

Christian Marclay’s ‘Everyday’ project includes Mark with Christian, Steve Beresford, John Butcher and Alan Tomlinson, he also works regularly in the projects of Mikolaj Trzaska, Gail Brand, Paul Dunmall, Peter Jaquemyn, and Simon H. Fell.

Mark has performed in the USA, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Morrocco, South Africa, Mozambique and Turkey, playing at many major festivals including, Nickelsdorf, Ulrichsburg, Glastonbury, Womad, Vancouver, Isle of Wight, Roskilde, Berlin Jazz days, Mulhouse, Luz, Minniapolis, Banlieue Bleues, Son D’hiver and Hurta Cordel.

He has released over 120 CDs.

“A gifted player capable of seamless movement between free-rhythms and propulsive swing.”

John Fordham (The Guardian)

Scottish vocalist and composer Caroline Pugh borrows old-fangled technologies and honours oral histories to create new performances. With a background in both folk and improvisation, her solo works You’ve Probably Heard These Songs Before, Timing By Ear, Measuring By Hand and Platform Audio also draw on performance art and pinhole photography.

Originally from Edinburgh, Caroline has performed across Europe and North America with new improvisation performances including Los Angeles’ Betalevel in 2012, NIME 2011 in Oslo, Just Listening 2011 in Limerick and Experimentica09 in Cardiff. She is also in a band called ABODE and an improvisation collective called E=MCH.

Now based in Belfast, Caroline sings in a folk duo with Meabh Meir and together with Myles McCormack they run traditional song sessions at the Garrick Bar on Mondays from 7.30-10pm.

In 2011, Caroline was awarded an Art Council Northern Ireland grant for her solo work and gained a Distinction for her AHRC-funded Master of Music at Newcastle University. She coaches students at Queen’s University Belfast and has worked in collaboration with visual artists (Connecting through Scape 2008), theatre practitioners (hour8+9 2009), video artists (SAAB 2009), dancers and psychologists (Newcastle and Northumbria Universities 2010). She also got a BA in Scottish Music from the Royal Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and studied Contemporary Music at the University of Central Lancashire for a wee while too.

“Every once in a while you happen upon a gig or event that’s so fundamentally unlike anything you’ve experienced before that you can’t help but reconsider your own thoughts on what defines music, performance and entertainment.”

Brian Coney (BBC Across The Line)

images

Iconography/graphics

.zip archive of .jpg files
.zip archive of .jpg images (© 2015 Han-earl Park).
.zip archive of .pdf files
.zip archive of .pdf files—solid color vector images (© 2015 Han-earl Park).

portraits

Han-earl Park (Photo © 2010 Seán Kelly)Dominic Lash (Photo © 2013 Peter Gannushkin)Mark Sanders (Photo by Andrew Putler)Caroline Pugh

All photographs copyright the respective photographer: respect the terms of usage where stated. (Thumbnail images, above L–R: © 2010 Seán Kelly; © 2013 Peter Gannushkin; and by Andrew Putler.)

From SLAM Productions…

CD cover of ‘Anomic Aphasia’ (SLAMCD 559) with Han-earl Park, Catherine Sikora, Nick Didkovsky and Josh Sinton (artwork copyright 2015, Han-earl Park)

Anomic Aphasia (SLAMCD 559) [details…]

Performers: Han-earl Park (guitar), Catherine Sikora (tenor and soprano saxophones), Nick Didkovsky (guitar), and Josh Sinton (baritone saxophone and bass clarinet).

© 2015 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2015 SLAM Productions.

updates

10–13-15: embed video teaser.
10–20-15: add Facebook events.
11–20-15: add Bang the Bore page.

Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders plus Caroline Pugh (Birmingham, Bristol and London, December 2015): stay tuned…

Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh (image copyright 2015 Han-earl Park)
Image © 2015 Han-earl Park.

Heads up! Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) plus Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics) will doing a short tour of England in December 2015 (see the performance diary for up-to-date info):.

More info to follow…

[About the Park-Lash-Sanders trio…]

Culture Ireland logo

The performances have been made possible with the support of Culture Ireland.

performance diary 08-15-15 (Birmingham, Bristol, London)

upcoming performances
date venue time details
December 1, 2015 The Lamp Tavern
Barford Street
Birmingham B5 6AH
England
7:30pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics) presented by Fizzle. Also performing: Lee Griffiths (saxophone) and Olly Chalk (piano). Admission: £5.
[Details…] [Fizzle listings…]
December 2, 2015 Cafe Kino
108 Stokes Croft
Bristol BS1 3RU
England
8:00pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics) presented by Bang the Bore.
Admission: £6.
[Details…]
December 3, 2015 Cafe OTO
18–22 Ashwin Street
Dalston
London E8 3DL
England
8:00pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) [about this trio…] with Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics).
Tickets: £10 (£8 advance) [get tickets…].
[Details…] [OTO page…]
2015– Europe I am based in Europe as of 2014, and I am seeking performance opportunities for, in particular, my Europe-based projects including Numbers (with Richard Barrett), Mathilde 253 (with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith), and my trio with Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders. Interested promoters, venues and sponsors, please get in touch!
Culture Ireland logo

The performances in Birmingham, Bristol and London have been made possible with the support of Culture Ireland.

Continue reading “performance diary 08-15-15 (Birmingham, Bristol, London)”

Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders plus Caroline Pugh: seeking performances (UK, 2015)

Seeking performance opportunities; particularly in the UK early-December (maybe late-November) 2015: Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) plus Caroline Pugh (voice and electronics).

[About the Park-Lash-Sanders trio…] Contact me for further information (availability, technical rider, etc.).

about the ensemble

Hear guitarist Han-earl Park push and pull on the guitar-amplifier dancing partners, Dominic Lash and his double bass damage hanging artwork, Mark Sanders excavate caverns in the smallest spaces for his percussion, and Caroline Pugh sing the lines that border the intelligible and the cryptic. Somewhere out there, there’s an SUV-sized violin tailgating, a No Wave guitarist desperately trying to survive in the Appalachian Mountains, someone dropping sheets of metal during a Jazz Session, an evolutionary biologist finding themselves speaking in tongues (awash in blue).

audio samples

Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders

Fizzle, Birmingham, October 28, 2014. Music by Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders. © + ℗ 2015 Park/Lash/Sanders.

Caroline Pugh and Han-earl Park with Arif Ayab

The Guesthouse, Cork, May 15, 2015. Music by Caroline Pugh, Han-earl Park and Arif Ayab. © + ℗ 2015 Pugh/Park/Ayab.

about the performers

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park has been crossing borders and performing fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, always traditional, open improvised musics for twenty years. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces across Europe and the USA.

Park engages a radical, liminal, cyborg virtuosity in which mind, body and artifact collide. He is driven by the social and revolutionary potential of real-time interactive performance in which tradition and practice become creative problematics. As a constructor of musical automata, he is interested in partial, and partially frustrating, context-specific artifacts; artifacts that amplify social relations and corporeal identities and agencies.

Ensembles include Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, Eris 136199 with Nick Didkovsky and Catherine Sikora, and Numbers with Richard Barrett. Park is the constructor of the machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++, and instigator of Metis 9, a playbook of improvisative tactics. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Mark Sanders, Josh Sinton, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Andrew Drury, Pat Thomas and Franziska Schroeder, and as part of large ensembles led by Wadada Leo Smith, Evan Parker and Pauline Oliveros.

Festival appearances include Freedom of the City (London), Sonorities (Belfast), ISIM (New York), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), CEAIT (Los Angeles) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). His recordings have been released by labels including Slam Productions, Creative Sources and DUNS Limited Edition.

Park taught improvisation at University College Cork, and founded and curated Stet Lab, a space for improvised music in Cork.

“Guitarist Han-earl Park is a musical philosopher…. Expect unexpected things from Park, who is a delightful shape-shifter….”

Brian Morton (Point of Departure)

Dominic Lash is a freely improvising double bassist, although his activities also range much more widely and include playing bass guitar and other instruments; both writing and performing composed music; and writing about music and various other subjects.

He has performed with musicians such as Tony Conrad (in duo and quartet formations), Joe Morris (trio and quartet), Evan Parker (duo, quartet and large ensemble) and the late Steve Reid. His main projects include The Dominic Lash Quartet, The Set Ensemble (an experimental music group focused on the work of the Wandelweiser collective) and The Convergence Quartet.

Based in Bristol, Lash has performed in the UK, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and USA. For nearly a decade he was based in Oxford and played a central role in the activities of Oxford Improvisers; much of 2011 was spent living in Manhattan. In 2013 and 2014 he is taking part in Take Five, the professional development programme administered by Serious.

Festival appearances include Akbank Jazz Festival (Istanbul), Audiograft (Oxford), Freedom of the City (London), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Hurta Cordel (Madrid), Konfrontationen (Nickelsdorf), LMC Festival (London), Manchester Jazz Festival and Tampere Jazz Happening.

His work has been broadcast on a number of radio stations, including BBC Radios 1 and 3 and Germany’s SWR2, and released on labels including Another Timbre, b-boim, Bead, Cathnor, Clean Feed, Compost and Height, Emanem, Erstwhile, FMR, Foghorn, Leo and NoBusiness.

Since moving to Bristol he has been involved in organising concerts under the banners of Bang the Bore and Insignificant Variation. A new venture is the monthly series happening every second Wednesday at the Arnolfini entitled Several 2nds. Events include performances, workshops, film screenings and discussions.

“Following in an illustrious lineage from Barry Guy through Simon Fell… breathtaking.”

John Sharpe (All About Jazz)

Mark Sanders has played with many renowned musicians from around the world including Evan Parker, Peter Brotzmann, Derek Bailey, Myra Melford, Paul Rogers, Henry Grimes, Roswell Rudd, Okkyung Lee, Barry Guy, Tim Berne, Otomo Yoshihide, Luc Ex, Ken Vandermark, Sidsel Endresen and Jean Francois Pauvrois, in duo and quartets with Wadada Leo Smith and trios with Charles Gayle with Sirone and William Parker.

New collaborative projects include ‘Riverloam Trio’ with Mikolaj Trzaska and Olie Brice, ‘Asunder’ with Hasse Poulsen and Paul Dunmall, duos with John Butcher and DJ Sniff, ‘Statics’ with Georg Graewe and John Butcher, and trio with Rachel Musson and Liam Noble.

Mark and John Edwards play as a rhythm section with many groups including Trevor Watts Quartet, ‘Foils’ with Frank Paul Schubert and Matthius Muller, Mathew Shipp’s ‘London Quartet,’ also playing with Fred Frith, Wadada Leo Smith and Shabaka Hutchins amongst many others.

Christian Marclay’s ‘Everyday’ project includes Mark with Christian, Steve Beresford, John Butcher and Alan Tomlinson, he also works regularly in the projects of Mikolaj Trzaska, Gail Brand, Paul Dunmall, Peter Jaquemyn, and Simon H. Fell.

Mark has performed in the USA, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Morrocco, South Africa, Mozambique and Turkey, playing at many major festivals including, Nickelsdorf, Ulrichsburg, Glastonbury, Womad, Vancouver, Isle of Wight, Roskilde, Berlin Jazz days, Mulhouse, Luz, Minniapolis, Banlieue Bleues, Son D’hiver and Hurta Cordel.

He has released over 120 CDs.

“A gifted player capable of seamless movement between free-rhythms and propulsive swing.”

John Fordham (The Guardian)

Scottish vocalist and composer Caroline Pugh borrows old-fangled technologies and honours oral histories to create new performances. With a background in both folk and improvisation, her solo works You’ve Probably Heard These Songs Before, Timing By Ear, Measuring By Hand and Platform Audio also draw on performance art and pinhole photography.

Originally from Edinburgh, Caroline has performed across Europe and North America with new improvisation performances including Los Angeles’ Betalevel in 2012, NIME 2011 in Oslo, Just Listening 2011 in Limerick and Experimentica09 in Cardiff. She is also in a band called ABODE and an improvisation collective called E=MCH.

Now based in Belfast, Caroline sings in a folk duo with Meabh Meir and together with Myles McCormack they run traditional song sessions at the Garrick Bar on Mondays from 7.30-10pm.

In 2011, Caroline was awarded an Art Council Northern Ireland grant for her solo work and gained a Distinction for her AHRC-funded Master of Music at Newcastle University. She coaches students at Queen’s University Belfast and has worked in collaboration with visual artists (Connecting through Scape 2008), theatre practitioners (hour8+9 2009), video artists (SAAB 2009), dancers and psychologists (Newcastle and Northumbria Universities 2010). She also got a BA in Scottish Music from the Royal Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and studied Contemporary Music at the University of Central Lancashire for a wee while too.

“Every once in a while you happen upon a gig or event that’s so fundamentally unlike anything you’ve experienced before that you can’t help but reconsider your own thoughts on what defines music, performance and entertainment.”

Brian Coney (BBC Across The Line)

performances: Han-earl Park and Dominic Lash (Manchester, Cambridge and London, May 2015)

May 2015: Han-earl Park and Dominic Lash perform in Manchester (with Corey Mwamba), Cambridge and London (see the performance diary for up-to-date info).

Hope to see y’all at these events!

Above videos from the last times I performed with Dominic Lash. With Mark Sanders at Fizzle and LUME. Video collages by Han-earl Park.

Happy New Year: 2015

Original photographs/images © 2014 Don Mount; © 2014 Dee Byrne/LUME; and (cc by-nc) 2014 Han-earl Park. Images/artwork pertaining to cuttlefish: design (cc by-nc) 2014 Peter O’Doherty; cover artwork © 2014 Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh; score/artwork © 2014 Han-earl Park; photo © 2013 Emilio Vavarella.
Original photographs/images © 2014 Don Mount; © 2014 Dee Byrne/LUME; and (cc by-nc) 2014 Han-earl Park. Images/artwork pertaining to cuttlefish: design (cc by-nc) 2014 Peter O’Doherty; cover artwork © 2014 Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh; score/artwork © 2014 Han-earl Park; photo © 2013 Emilio Vavarella. [Listen/watch 2014…]

thanks: Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders (Birmingham and London, October 2014)

Quick note of thanks to all involved in the October 28 and October 30 performances. Thanks mightily to Cath Roberts and Dee Byrne, instigators of LUME, and Andrew Woodhead, the new mastermind behind Fizzle, for hosting the performances, and for their support and enthusiasm. Thanks to Ben Lee (who also managed Fizzle on the night) and Roberto Sassi (and Roland Ramanan for the intro) for allowing this itinerant guitarist to borrow the use of their amplifiers. Thanks to the other ensembles who shared the bill: Lee Allatson, Stewart Brackley and Bruce Coates (Lee, Bruce, great to see you guys again!); and Sam Andreae and Rodrigo Constanzo.

Mondo kudos to Dom Lash and Mark Sanders. I am indebted to these two smart, perceptive, crafty and imaginative improvisers. They make every moment sound that much more brilliant, and every turn that much more unexpected. Looking forward to playing again! (tell your local music org to book us! 😉

Finally, as always, thanks to all who came to listen to the real-time noise, and to witness the jump-cuts between chaotic frenzy and delicate, pretty open spaces. It’s been a while since I performed in these two cities; always a pleasure.