• Oval and Imbogobom at Cafe Oto

    “Natural events such as the collision of hail or rain with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer field…these sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as a totality, is a new sonic event. This mass event is articulated and forms a plastic mold

  • Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet at Cafe Oto

    Ever the contrarian, there were in fact eleven members of Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet for their three day residency at Cafe Oto. Eleven. This was more than an attempt to simply be “one louder”: in an interview conducted for the BBC beforehand, tentet member Ken Vandermark was rightly insisting Brötzmann’s reputation as the crazy shrieking

  • Keiji Haino and Voltigeurs at Cafe Oto

    In the run up to this show, someone told me that Keiji Haino once insisted upon playing so loud that the sound engineer at the gig quit in disgust. Someone else told me that, despite the volume he plays at, he thinks earplugs should be banned at his shows (Oto, having somewhat more sense, dispensed

  • Chris Watson – In Britten’s Footsteps

    This year marks the 100th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s birth. Aldeburgh Music is celebrating this with a year long series of events based in and around Britten’s home from home, Snape Maltings, as well in his home town of Aldeburgh. Britten used to walk every afternoon around the countryside near his home, the Red House, on

  • Never Say When: 30 Years of Broken Flag

    30 years ago, a tiny record label run out of Croydon resident Gary Mundy’s bedroom was launched on the world, alongside Mundy’s band Ramleh. Although it would always remain an operation ensconced in the underground of British music, it quietly helped shape the nature of that underground and gradually grew in influence until it reached

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