The City Gallery, Granby Street, Leicester
Saturday 3rd Feb. 8:30pm, prompt start!
£6/£5(concs)
FULBORN TEVERSHAM are the mindblowing new group
of Seb Rochford, the extraordinarily in-demand and prolific drummer/composer, leader
of Mercury Music prize nominees Polar Bear, and winner of BBC Jazz award for Rising
Star 2004.
Fulborn Teversham pursue a more eclectic, and
less overtly jazz direction than Polar Bear, or indeed Rochford’s other acclaimed
group, Acoustic Ladyland, incorporating elements of electronica, Bablicon/Henry Cow-style
prog and post punk. With clever balancing of cosmic and acoustic sounds, Seb
Rochford (drums), Nick Ramm (Nord synthesizer), Pete Wareham (saxophones), and
Alice Grant (vocals), set up an intimate and thrilling improvisational post-punk post-jazz
chamber music for the future.
Forget the jokes about drummers being people who
hang out with musicians - Seb Rochford is a music academy graduate who plays several
instruments and can converse about any genre from modern classical to grind core.
He does, however, hang out with an inordinate number of musicians, playing with
'about 10 different bands', at the last count, including the acclaimed Polar Bear,
whose recent album, ‘Held on the Tips of Fingers’, was nominated for the highly
prestigious 2005 Mercury Music Prize. It went on to appear in the top 100 all time
jazz recordings that shook the World in Jazzwise Magazine in 2006.
Rochford has also performed and recorded with
Pete Wareham's Acoustic Ladyland, Julia Biel, Ingrid Laubrock, Oriole, Juliet Kelly,
and Tim Richards among others. He also appears in various alt rock bands such as
Menlo Park and Paul the Girl. Among his many ventures, Seb appeared at the Patti
Smith Meltdown concert at the Barbican, drumming for Yoko Ono alongside her son and
guitarist, Sean Lennon, and in October 2006, he appeared at the newly renovated
Camden roundhouse for the Electric Proms, in duo with Soft Machine legend, bassist
Hugh Hopper. Seb was also the subject of a recent major feature in the Observer
Music Monthly magazine.
Pete Wareham is a graduate of Leeds College of
Music, and the Guildhall School of Music. He played tenor and baritone sax in the
National Youth Jazz Orchestra (1997-99), and was a prize-winner at the 1997 Young
Jazz Musician of the Year. But it was his masterminding of Acoustic Ladyland and
partnership with Seb Rochford that have brought him the highest accolades. Winning
Best Band at the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards, and 'Last Chance Disco's’ nomination there
for Best Album, has made Acoustic Ladyland a near household name, captivating new
and unexpected audiences with its hip London punk-jazz. Pete has brought his fiery
sax playing to a wide variety of other projects including Polar Bear, and Jonathan
Bratoeff's latest quartet CD.
Alice Grant is a singer with a very distinctive,
punky, deadpan, English-accented vocal style. She also sings (and plays assorted
musical instruments) with Leafcutter John, and has provided vocals on the new
Acoustic Ladyland album. She also has her own group, Normal Gimbel.
Sydney-born Nic Ramm, studied at the Guildhall
School of Music, under Simon Purcell, John Taylor and Bosco de Oliviera. He has
performed as keyboardist/pianist with many of the F-IRE collective projects,
including Acoustic Ladyland, Jade Fox, Timeline, Synergy, and the F-IRE Collective
Large Ensemble. He also has his own group, Clown Revisted, whose debut album of
circus-inspired music, ‘Flashes of a Normal Woorld’ was released on F-IRE in 2006.
Fulborn Teversham's debut album, 'Count Herbert II'
is available now from Pickled Egg. Click here
to purchase online.
LEAFCUTTER JOHN is the recording
name of John Burton, a London-based musician and artist. Much of his style is based
in computer music and use of samples of everyday sounds. However, John also has
roots as a folk musician, and this influence is apparent in his more recent work.
Since his first release on Planet-Mu Records in 2000, Leafcutter John has developed a strong musical identity using processed instrumental and environmental recordings.
After graduating Fine Art Painting at Norwich School of Art (1996-1998), Burton
moved to London, and after a year pursuing a career as a performance artist began
to concentrate on his musical work. He soon secured interest from Mike Paradinas,
owner of independent electronics label Planet Mu. Paradinas encouraged Burton to
develop his electro-acoustic folk hybrid and his first full length release,
Concourse EEP, was released in early 2000. His third album, The Housebound Spirit,
was a response to being mugged outside his London studio. The album deals with themes of increasing alienation and agoraphobia; indeed, Burton was housebound by increasingly severe panic attacks for which he eventually had to seek therapy. It won an Honorary Mention at the 2004 Ars Electronica Awards, and was featured on The Wire Magazine’s top 50 records of 2003.
Burton writes his own music software, has given talks and exhibited software
across Europe (including the ICA), is a regular guest speaker at the London College
of Communication, and has held a teaching post at DIEM (Danish Institute of
Electronic Music) in Aarhus, Denmark during 2005. He has also been involved in the
Contemporary Art scene, with his latest project at the Serpentine Gallery, where he
was invited by artist Tomoko Takahashi (short-listed for the 2000 Turner prize) and
the Serpentine to produce a live show based on Tomoko's solo exhibition.
'My Play-station' was performed in the entire gallery where he turned the
installation into a sound source involving 3 live sound collectors and the audience.
As Leafcutter John, Burton has played at festivals throughout Europe. In 2003, he
headlined the dis.lab event, curated by no.signal in Rome. 2004 was marked by
performances at Berlin's Transmediale festival, Paris Confluences, and others in
Belgium, France, Spain, Manchester and Norwich, together with a live streaming event
between New York and London. He is also a regular participant of the annual
Le Placard festival. He has shared bills with Matmos, Keith Fullerton Whitman,
Yo La Tengo, Otomo Yoshihide, Aki Onda, Phillip Jeck, Janek Schaefer, Tujiko Noriko
and many more. Burton is also now a full time member of the contemporary British
Jazz Mercury Music Prize nominee Polar Bear, founded by drummer Seb Rochford, who
won the BBC Jazz award for Rising Star in 2004. He is also an accomplished remixer,
having worked on projects for: DJ /rupture, Mu-ziq/Speedy J, Electric Company, Badly
Drawn Boy, Capitol K, and others.
Leafcutter John has recently released his 4th album, ‘The Forest and the Sea’, on
the Berlin based Staubgold label. It tells a true story of what becomes of two
people lost in the forest. The compositions feature a dynamic hybrid of electronic and acoustic songs bound together by a meticulous narrative enriched by haunting vocals, acoustic guitar, and traditional Greek instrumentation. Field recordings were made in various locations in Greece, Sweden and the UK and are interwoven throughout the work. This album demonstrates John's consolidated approach towards songwriting, field recordings and processed electronics. A significant development from John’s earlier works, he manages to produce seamless and more importantly meaningful transitions between electronic and folk music.
Leafcutter John is joined live on stage by Seb Rochford (Polar Bear, Fulborn T
eversham), Leo Chadburn (aka Simon Bookish), and Alice Grant (Fulborn Teversham).
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