Lydia Lunch Retrovirus November Tour Dates (feat. Weasel Walter on guitar)

LYDIA LUNCH RETROVIRUS TOUR DATES
featuring
Weasel Walter (guitar)
Algis Kizys (bass)
Bob Bert (drums)

The band will peform a brutal survey of Lydia's material from past and present, including songs from Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, 13.13, 8-Eyed Spy and Shotgun Wedding.

Nov 8 - Los Angeles - FIDM Museum Grand Hope Park
Nov 9 - San Francisco - Verdi Club
Nov 11 - Los Angeles - The Echo
Nov 12 - Toronto - Wrongbar
Nov 13 - Hamilton - This Ain't Hollywood
Nov 15 - Brooklyn - Knitting Factory

Lydia Lunch: Queen of Siam photo session, circa 1980

Early History of The Contortions #4

Early History of The Contortions #1 (Introduction)
Early History of The Contortions #2 (Dec '77 - May '78)
Early History of The Contortions #3 (May '78 - August '78)

10.12.1978 – Max’s Kansas City, New York, NY

1. Bedroom Athlete  2. Disposable You  3. Dish It Out  4. Flip Your Face  5. Design To Kill  6. Anesthetic  7. Almost Black  8. Throw Me Away  9. Jaded  10. Contort Yourself

James Chance (voc, as), Jody Harris (guitar), Pat Place (slide guitar), George Scott (bass), Don Christensen (drums).

The band appears at a New York venue called Club Hollywood on 9.14.1978. At some point Adele Bertei either left the band or was pressured to leave by Anya Phillips. According to various sources, Bertei had been in and out of the band and at one point, Phillips “drove her from the group” as Pat Place reported in the August 1979 New York Rocker. George Scott remarked in same article that Bertei had gained confidence from doing various solo sets and left voluntarily. Regardless, she was not in active duty with the band on the 8.17.1978 Max’s set and only appears on a few songs during the “No Wave Jam” in the second set. It’s unclear when exactly Bertei left Contortions, but it could have been as early as the first half of August 1978. The split must not have been too acrimonious because she would play and sing on a few tracks (including a vocal duo with Phillips) from James White and the Blacks “Off White”, recorded around October 1978.  Anya Phillips assumed official management over the band soon after Adele Bertei’s departure and began trying to place the bands in more “upscale” venues in addition to Max’s. The band opens with a great version of “Bedroom Athlete” which reappears after a long absence. The repetitive “Disposable You” debuts here, based on a bossa nova rhythm with weird guitar that sounds a bit like “The Girl From Ipanema”. “Dish It Out” is extremely fast and excellent here. James Chance’s vocals are particularly aggressive at this performance. “Flip Your Face” is given a typical run-through. As an introduction to “Design To Kill”, James devotes the song to the “hardworking staff of the Chelsea Hotel” – mocking the death of Sid Vicious’ girlfriend Nancy Spungeon earlier that day. “Anesthetic” begins with Chance quoting “I’m In the Mood For Love” on the saxophone. “Almost Black”, one of the tracks by Contortions’ disco alter-ego James White and the Blacks makes an appearance here. “Throw Me Away” has a typical rendition here, still with the noisy, driving middle section which was ultimately rearranged for the “BUY” album. The middle of “Jaded” adopts a nice backbeat here for the first time, making this turgid composition much more interesting than normal. “Contort Yourself” sounds similar to how it finally would on “BUY”. This particular concert was very assured sounding, tight and no-nonsense.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

10.1978 – Blank Tapes Studio, New York, NY
1. Contort Yourself  2. Stained Sheets  3. (Tropical) Heat Wave  4. Almost Black  5. White Savages  6. Off Black  7. White Devil  8. Bleached Black

James Chance (voc, as), Jody Harris (guitar), Pat Place (slide guitar), George Scott (bass), Don Christensen (drums) with Adele Bertei (keyboards, vocals, percussion), Kristian Hoffman (vocals, piano), Paul Colin (tenor sax), Robert Quine (guitar), Ray Mantilla (congas), Lydia Lunch (guitar, vocals),  Anya Phillips (vocals) and Vivienne Dick (violin)

In 1978, the high rollers at ZE Records offered James Chance a substantial budget to record a “disco” album for them.  Essentially, James White and the Blacks is the Contortions playing vaguely disco-oriented compositions. The back cover of the ZE Records 12” featuring “Contort Yourself” b/w “(Tropical) Heat Wave” says the tracks were recorded at Blank Tapes in October 1978 by Bob Blank. The “Off White” album credits simply say “Fall 1978”. It doesn’t sound like a particularly complex production, so it’s probably safe to assume the sessions began in October and were wrapped up soon after. The A side of the album opens with a somewhat discofied version of “Contort Yourself” with Adele Bertei guesting on organ. Some recent editions of “Off White” substitute a six-minute-long August Darnell (Kid Creole and the Coconuts) remix of “Contort Yourself” which is more blatantly metronomic and less cacophonous than the Contortions renditions. There’s a lot of added percussion and some unidentified female backup vocals during the chorus. “Stained Sheets” follows, a slice of S/M audio vérité with James Chance and Lydia Lunch (credited as “Stella Rico”) engaged in a perverted phone-sex call. The vamp behind the vocals is somewhat laid back, but peppered by noisy electric piano stabs by Kristian Hoffman. “(Tropical) Heat Wave” by Irving Berlin is a novel, kitschy track featuring lead vocals and electric piano by Kristian Hoffman (credited as “Tad Among”), some sultry verses by Anya Phillips (a.k.a. “Ginger Lee”) and hyper conga playing by Ray Mantilla. “Almost Black” ends the side, an uptempo instrumental featuring some repartee between Anya Phillips and Adele Bertei (mysteriously credited as “Randy Marlowe” and “Little Willie Feather” and Robert Quine takes a vomitous wah-guitar solo at one point. On some versions of the “Off White” album, the long track “Almost Black” is separated into two parts. Side Two of the album contains four intense instrumentals which sound a lot less like disco and a lot more like harsh Contortions tracks without vocals. “White Savages” may have percolating hi-hat on it, but it also features Lydia Lunch’s patented slide guitar terror as well as nasty saxophone soloing and percussive white noise organ by James Chance. “Off Black” unfolds in mid-tempo, focusing on the warped guitar interplay between Jody Harris, Pat Place and Robert Quine. By the end, the tune double-times and launches into a dense thicket of 6-string skronk and honking saxophones. “White Devil” is a mid-tempo romp with some skronky Lydia Lunch guitar playing. “Bleached Black” slithers by in a sinister manner, aided by the dry violin scrapings of Beirut Slump member and film-maker Vivienne Dick. After the break-up of the original Contortions, the ex-members were all uniformly disappointed with “Off White”, accusing it of being a bad record. It is certainly somewhat incoherent in focus, but has many charms, and the instrumental side is as potent as anything the group ever recorded in a studio. It seem the album was available as a French import during fall 1979 and as a domestic release by October.

The Blacks a.k.a The Contortions, fall 1978. Photos by Anya Phillips

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.28.1979 – Max’s Kansas City, New York, NY
1. Dish It Out   2. My Infatuation   3. Design to Kill   4. Anesthetic   5. Roving Eye   6. Twice Removed   7. I Can’t Stand Myself    8. Disposable You   9. Throw Me Away   10 . Bedroom Athlete

James Chance (voc, as), Jody Harris (guitar), Pat Place (slide guitar), George Scott (bass), Don Christensen (drums).

In November and December, the group appears at Max’s Kansas City, on 11.23.1978 with the L.A. punk group X, and on 12.15.1978 with kiddie-punk group The Blessed featuring Howie Pyro and probably Heartbreaker Walter Lure. A Contortions gig at Club 57 is advertised on 1.12.1979 also. This Max’s performance exists in separate audio and video forms, the video being crudely shot and over-exposed black and white. I’m not sure what the origin of the video is, but it could be by either the Armstrong/Ivers team (who were definitely using black and white cameras in 1978), or possibly Paul Tschinkel, responsible for the NYC cable access show “Inner Tube”. The shot seems like it may have been one camera of a multi-camera shoot, as there are long shots of Chance’s dancing feet and extreme close-ups of various musicians for long durations. The room audio recording sounds like it was made near the bar because the ringing of the cash register is extremely loud on it. The band looks fairly miserable or grim during the concert, particularly bassist George Scott. “Dish It Out”, “My Infatuation”, “Design To Kill”, “Anesthetic”, “Bedroom Athlete” and “Twice Removed”  are executed in a typical manner. “Roving Eye” finally appears with its James Brown-style funk overhaul featuring Don Christensen’s catchy syncopated drum pattern. Chance leaps from the stage and terrorizes the audience a bit during “Anesthetic” and “Throw Me Away”. The bassline to “Disposable You” has changed completely from the dark, chromatic one played on 10.12.1978 into a more consonant sounding line. The middle section of “Throw Me Away” is beginning to resemble the slightly more relaxed-sounding vamp used on the “BUY” album. The other bands on the bill are WKGB (a synth-based act who eventually released a single on Fetish Records) and The Cutthroats (most likely, the garage band led by bassist Gina Harlow).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

as James White and the Blacks:
2.2.1979  - Club 57 at Irving Plaza, New York, NY

1. Off Black   2. White Savages/Sophisticated Cancer   3. Almost Black   4. I Don’t Want To Be Happy   5. White Devil/Melt Yourself Down   6. Jaded    7. Contort Yourself   8. Contort Yourself (cont.)
James Chance (voc, as, organ), Jody Harris (guitar), Pat Place (slide guitar), George Scott (bass), Don Christensen (drums)

Most likely the first live show under the “James White and the Blacks” guise. According to reports, someone tried to sabotage the show and convinced the Village Voice to write “cancelled” over the ad listing. “Off Black” is performed in a similar manner to the “Off White” album version. “White Savages” is performed with a new middle section, but adds lyrics which would eventually surface with completely different music as the song “Sophisticated Cancer”.. Anya Phillips would die of cancer by 1981 – I don’t know if these lyrics are a direct allusion to her condition or not. “Almost Black” appears here in a very song like form with Chance focusing on lyrics before taking off on a saxophone solo. “I Don’t Want to Be Happy”is played in a very fast, aggressive manner with generic offbeat disco hi-hat accents and some noisy organ playing from Chance. It is a similar arrangement to what would appear on “BUY”. “White Devil” from “Off White” is performed with the lyrics from “Melt Yourself Down”, which would later be sung to completely different music before being included on the 1986 Japan-only LP of the same name. “Jaded” is playedd here with an uptempo backbeat as well as mellow-sounding, rolling guitar chords. Pat Place’s slide guitar remains loud and acrid though. “Contort Yourself” is played at a faster-than-normal tempo with the generic disco hi-hat pattern, and for some reason Jody Harris’ guitar gets turned up extremely loud. The band sounds really great and inspired here in general. The other acts on the bill include Mumps (featuring Kristian Hoffman), The Reasons and Information (with drummer Rick Brown). The Contortions are also listed in the Village Voice ad, but I don’t know if they played a separate set under that guise or not.

It's possible this picture was taken at Club 57/Irving Plaza on 2.2.1979. left to right: James Chance,
Kristian Hoffman, Pat Place and Anya Phillips. There is no audible participation from either
Hoffman or Phillips on the extant audio.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next up, part FIVE: The recording of "BUY" Contortions  . . .

This text was written by Weasel Walter, all rights reserved 2011.
If you use this for any reason, please credit the source fairly.

Early History of The Contortions #5
 
Early History of The Contortions #1 (Introduction)
Early History of The Contortions #2 (Dec '77 - May '78)
Early History of The Contortions #3 (May '78 - August '78)

Mars: Upcoming Archival Reissues from the Seminal No Wave band

NO WAVE ICONOCLASTS MARS:
NEW ARCHIVAL RELEASES FORTHCOMING

A slew of new archival releases by the quintessential New York City no wave band Mars is slated for the near future. Hatched in 1975 (under the original band name "China"), and finally self-destructing in December 1978, the band played about thirty shows total in their existence, primarily in classic Big Apple clubs such as CBGB's and Max's Kansas City. Fortunately bassist Mark Cunningham dilligently archived recordings from almost all of the events. He has leaked moments out on various releases through the decades, primarily on a rare 1993 CD "Mars Live" (Les Disques Du Soliel Et De L'Acier) as well as the compilation "Mars '78", originally issued on Lydia Lunch's Widowspeak imprint and later expanded as "Mars 78+" on Atavistic Records. Those particular recordings are fairly low in fidelity - albeit listenable - but the upcoming LP to be released on Feeding Tube Records this winter should prove to be the definitive live Mars release. Reputed to be of stunning quality, this document was recorded at Artists Space in May 1978 during the mythic festival which spawned the classic Brian Eno produced release "No New York" (Antilles, 1978 featuring studio tracks by Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, DNA and Mars). Another album featuring the band's penultimate performance at Irving Plaza in August 1978 may follow soon after. Mark has also assembled a slew of rehearsal tapes which will emerge as a three cassette box. The set includes rarities such as the first version of the group featuring the late Sumner Crane on piano (instead of his usual guitar mutilation) as well as a side of outtakes from the "No New York" session.

Mars, live at CBGB's. left to right: Connie Burg, Nancy Arlen, Sumner Crane, Mark Cunningham

For the uninitiated, the progression of Mars' output gradually descended into a maelstrom of chaos and madness. Their early sound is documented on a debut 7" recorded in September 1977 and released in March 1978 on the French Rebel Records label. Rebel was the label of Michel Estaban, who then went on to help run John Cale's Spy imprint briefly before founding ZE Records with Michael Zilkha. ZE would soon become a major player in the New York Underground scene, releasing full-length efforts by Contortions, Suicide, Kid Creole and the Coconuts and many others. The A-side is a brisk number with propulsive, marching snare drum and endlessly jangling drone guitar work topped by Sumner Crane's urgent vocals. "3E" is still identifiable as a rock and roll song, but it conveys a bracing amateurism, light texture and sense of anti-machismo separating it decidedly from the typical punk rock prevalent at the time. The flipside "11,000 Volts" is a more accurate harbinger of the Mars to come, with its slow-motion drum patter, skittering guitar motifs and Connie Berg's nascent vocal glossolalia. According to Cunningham, the song is about "a sadomasochistic relationship between an imprisoned robot and its cruel keeper", and despite the fact that the lyrics are completely incomprehensible, the music conveys this bleak scenario in an undeniably expressionistic manner. In 1979, ZE Records reissued the 7" as a 12" EP.

The next Mars recordings, from June 1978, appeared as four tracks on the seminal "No New York" compilation album. Clearly the band had chosen to pursue the more abstract possibilites of their concept and these classic cuts are a watershed of ideas. Mark Cunningham's racing bass chords open "Helen Fordsdale" before an onslaught of tom-tom drumming and percussive guitar jabs treated with a jarring, short delay
effect impact the listener. The second guitar whines away in the background, its highest possible pitches elicited with a metal slide played near the bridge. Crane's vocals have now reached the same psychotic incoherence that Burg's feline "11,000 Volts" performance foreshadowed. "Helen" ends where it begins,
suddenly cut off by a stumbling drum figure and a long tail of distant reverb from the voice. "Hairwaves" is something completely different: an insectoid, pointillistic threnody of space and silence. There is an extremely slow bass figure underlying the song as more cricket like guitar chatter and sparse, freely-rhythmic drumming underlines Connie Burg's tortured moans. It is a sonic construction governed by a tight but elusive set of rules, appearing to be completely free, but easily recognizable as a composition. "Tunnel" is a bracing assault of Grand Guinol proportions, led by more martial drumming by Nancy Arlen as Crane's violent gibberish fights for space, spitting manically through a forcefield of guitar racket. The succinct conclusion to Mars contribution on this album is the masterful "Puerto Rican Ghost". The song opens with a pugilistic drum fragment which repeats itself in spite of the song almost immediately heading in another direction, lead by the chanted vocal patterns of Crane, Burg and Cunningham. "Puerto Rican Ghost" is the first evidence of the distinctively disruptive morse-code bass style Cunningham would use as a foundation for many of the future band compositions.

The final studio output by Mars came in the form of the 1980 Lust/Unlust Records release "The Mars EP". The extremely minimal packaging and credits add immeasurable mystery to the impact of the completely warped, deranged contents of this disc. Recorded in December 1978 in an empty theater soon after the group's final concert at Max's Kansas City, the flat, unenhanced live-to-two-track master recording is a clear representation of the culmination of the unit's effort. Immediately, the first track "N.N. End" roars out of the gates, with Cunningham's disembodied bass thrusts, a cloud of static-y white noise guitar, retarded drumming and distant slide guitar glissandos. The vocalists randomly grunt, bleat and scream nonsense and, at one point, some flatulent trumpet is heard. A 15-minute version of this piece is heard on the August 4, 1978 Irving Plaza tape, which features additional six-string torture from Red Transistor/Blue Humans anti-guitar legend Rudolph Grey. "N.N. End" is a nightmarish vision of insanity, as startling today as it must have been when it was made. "Scorn" is more obviously rhythmic, but still extremely disjointed, featuring more brass bronx-cheering before Crane enters with catatonic vocals comprising simply of a series of dates and the title word. There's a hint of African drumming here as the guitars are used percussively rather than tonally. "Outside Africa" raises the aggression again as all four instrumentalists stab away manically in opposing short figures. Connie (or "China" as she is called in the credits) Burg enters with piercingly nasal high-pitched monotone vocals before Crane interrupts her with a short aside. She continues briefly before the entire band breaks down and finally plays an inexplicable, one-second coda. "Monopoly" opens with stampeding drums and sparsely deployed accents from the guitars. Crane enters after 30 seconds with more bizarre babbling countered by quasi-Dopplar-effect vocalizing by Burg. Occasionally, the trajectory is slashed with loud outbursts of slide guitar debris, but the piece is basically one consistent mood throughout. The final piece, "The Immediate Stages of The Erotic" begins with the intermittent shocking sounds of hands manipulating the end a live guitar cable before more spastic African drums enter. Crane caterwauls in a strained falsetto range - eventually lapsing into coughs and fart noises - and Cunningham shouts ancient Egyptian consonants. The sonic gestalt is extremely debased, bordering on infantile. At this point, Mars have completely devolved into total musical destruction. Their mission, accomplished. The complete Mars studio recordings were issued on CD (in 2004 on the Spanish G3G label and 2008 on No More Records) and LP (2005 and 2010 on Important Records), containing a far better sounding master of "The Mars EP" than the original issue (which reputedly used a master tape which had been damaged in a flood).

After Mars was dissolved, Crane, Cunningham and Burg, joined by DNA drummer Ikue Mori, spent a year working on a crazed adaptation of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" renamed "John Gavanti", released on Cunningham's Hyrax label as an LP in 1980, and reissued on CD in 1998 by Atavistic Records. The album, improvised using primarily brass, bass clarinet, guitar and strings, is far more organic and acoustic in nature than anything Mars did, but still has bears all the conceptual hallmarks of their classic approach. Sumner Crane died of lymphoma on April 15, 2003. Nancy Arlen died on September 17, 2006, following heart surgery. Mark Cunningham has lived in Spain for more than a decade. Connie Burg collaborated with Cunningham on the liner notes for the complete studio CD in the mid 2000s. There is no known film or video footage of Mars.

ugEXPLODE blog

Welcome to the ugEXPLODE blog. I will use this to update people about new ugEXPLODE label releases as well as a platform for my reminiscences and random writing related to myself and musicians associated with the label. Available October 15th, from http://www.ugEXPLODE.com will be two new compact discs: Jack Ruby - a collection of newly unearthed NYC proto-punk/no-wave from '74-'77 featuring George Scott (Contortions/Raybeats/8-Eyed Spy) and Boris Policeband; and Weasel Walter's "Ominous Telepathic Mayhem", featuring frenetic duos with Mary Halvorson, Peter Evans, Darius Jones and Alex Ward.

These will be available from the site and are also distributed by Revolver, Carrot Top, Stickfigure, CD Baby, Wayside Music and Downtown Music Gallery. If you work at a record store: order these releases from a distributor! They carry other great backstock items from the catalog and you can get them! If you want to order direct, don't hesitate to ask! Many of our releases are available digitally either directly from the site or from all the major digital stores like I-Tunes, Emusic, etc.

Here are blurbs on the new releases. I promise the blog will get much meatier ASAP . . .

============================================================



JACK RUBY CD ug50

THE FIRST RECORDINGS UNEARTHED OF THIS SEMINAL PROTO-PUNK/NO WAVE UNIT FROM NEW YORK CITY, CIRCA 1974-1977!!! TWISTED, AGGRESSIVE, WEIRD ROCK ON PAR WITH THE ELECTRIC EELS, ‘DEBRIS AND MX-80 SOUND!

“Seven years ago, a guy named Gary Reese wrote me and said he was friends with the late Contortions bass player George Scott, and that he could probably help me out with some information on the mythic band Jack Ruby. Up until that point, nobody knew of any surviving recordings by this unit. They remained a shady footnote in underground rock history. After years of cajoling and pursuit, Gary finally convinced George’s brother to let him make a dub of a ratty old cassette tape with two Fall ‘77 Jack Ruby rehearsals on them. Those rehearsals belied an incredible amount of guitar-skree bombast. I mastered the tracks to eke out the most clarity possible from them and the result was circulated amongst very few cognoscenti with little fanfare.

In 2009, another Jack Ruby tape surfaced. Gary was in contact with Scott’s old girlfriend Leslie, who had a mysterious 1/4 reel of tape with the band’s name and some song titles scrawled on it. It took some time, but I had the reel baked and transferred . . . and, lo and behold, it featured four crystal clear-sounding ‘74 studio demos!  I kept playing these great demos and I thought to myself, “If I’m listening to this stuff so much, somebody else is going to want to hear it too!” That’s the point where I knew it was my duty to release this anthology.

So, we found all the surviving ex-members of the group and put together this fully-authorized package featuring eight killer tracks of noisy, high-energy greatness and designed a full-color package featuring extensive liner notes and tons of period photos. This release is a must-have for those who crave those truly bizarre missing links from the pre-punk past. Jack Ruby’s tough, sleazy sound is a direct antecedent to both PUNK and NO WAVE.”

 - WEASEL WALTER, SEPTEMBER 2011

“Maybe it was 1976. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe I stumbled into Bleecker Bob’s.
Maybe a lanky giant with an immense toxic cloud of frizzy hair and huge hands lumbered toward me.
Maybe it was Chris Gray. Somehow I ended up in a dank rehearsal space. Face to face with George Scott.
Having my head torn off by my ears. Jack Ruby. Music to murder by.
Like 3 hits of acid and a shot of crystal meth after a month long beer binge.
A brutal psycho-delic teenage scream of sexual frustration, disappointment and misery
channeled into sonic overdrive. A beautifully violent horrible throttling. I loved it”

- LYDIA LUNCH, AUGUST 2011

==============================================================

WEASEL WALTER - OMINOUS TELEPATHIC MAYHEM CD ug51

Frenetic, high-speed improvised duos featuring iconoclastic drummer Weasel Walter with trumpeter Peter Evans, guitarist Mary Halvorson, alto saxophonist Darius Jones and clarinettist/guitarist Alex Ward. Total Communication!

This CD contains 72 minutes of intense, fast, articulate improvised music featuring superhuman drummer Weasel Walter in duos with some of his favorite contemporary sparring partners: Mary Halvorson (guitar), Alex Ward
(guitar/clarinet), Darius Jones (alto saxophone) and Peter Evans (trumpet). Over the course of ten action-packed cuts, a stunning array of musical ideas are investigated as well as some serious instrumental virtuosity. This music is clear and articulate with a complex sense of structure and interplay.

Drummer Weasel Walter is best known as leader of and primary composer for the long-running cult band
The Flying Luttenbachers. Living in Chicago, the Bay Area, and most recently New York, Walter has spent the past two decades bridging numerous factions within the experimental music scene. He has performed with seminal noise-rock acts like Lake Of Dracula, Burmese and XBXRX, maintaining all the while his career as a free improviser.  Walter has collaborated with luminaries like Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, Henry Kaiser, Jim O’Rourke, Mick Barr, Ken Vandermark, Kevin Drumm, Vinny Golia and many others. Walter is also a current member the technical metal band Behold . . . The Arctopus and the no-wave trio Cellular Chaos

Guitarist Mary Halvorson has been active in the New York music scene since 2002.  In addition to leading her own bands, she is a veteran of Anthony Braxton’s ensembles and has performed with Tim Berne, Trevor Dunn, Tony Malaby, Marc Ribot and John Tchicai, amongst others. Mary is “the most original jazz guitarist to emerge this decade,” (Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader).

 In addition to leading his own ensembles, classically-trained trumpeter Peter Evans performs with groups ranging from terrorist-bebop unit Mostly Other People Do the Killing to the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). Other collaborators include Steve Beresford, Keiji Haino, Jim Black, Evan Parker and Christian Marclay.

Saxophonist Darius Jones is a critically acclaimed bandleader whose 2009 AUM Fidelity release “Man’ish Boy (A Raw and Beautiful Thing” topped year-end critics lists as well as garnering overwhelming praise in publications from The New York Times to The Wire. Jones also performs in the brutal, rock-influenced band Little Women. He recently released an album of duos with pianist Matthew Shipp.

London-based instrumentalist Alex Ward first became known as a prodigious, teenaged clarinettist during the mid-80s in an association with guitar legend Derek Bailey. Since then, he has added guitar to his arsenal and has appeared with a wide range of players including Eugene Chadbourne, Joe Morris and Joe McPhee.