ALCORN / BRANDON
SUSAN ALCORN pedal steel guitar
AMY BRANDON classical guitar
Along with such peers as the USA artist Mary Halvorson and Montreal’s Vicky Mettler Amy Brandon is part of an exciting new wave of women improvising guitarists. Brandon holds degrees in jazz guitar performance and composition, and has performed internationally (Canada, USA, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, UK) and at many experimental music festivals. Nick Storring in Musicworks Magazine, has praised her “mesmerizing nylon-string guitar work. Anchored by a droning backdrop of stretched and scrambled guitar sounds, she traced rapid, tangling trajectories in a performance that was one of the festival’s highlights.” For her Hamilton debut, Brandon is joined by Baltimore pedal steel virtuoso Susan Alcorn. A blend of cultures and technologies come together in the pedal steel, from Hawaiian slide to blues vocalizations to country fingerpicking, and the blend of Alcorn’s shimmering microtonality with Brandon’s nylon guitar results in a distinctive and unexpected sound.
WILL GUTHRIE Solo
WILL GUTHRIE drums, percussion
Drummer/percussionist Will Guthrie comes to Hamilton fresh from a solo tour of Japan, as well as a French tour last fall in duo with the great American saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell. While studying jazz at Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts in his native Australia, Guthrie was a co-founder of the Make It Up Club, Australia’s longest running performance space dedicated to experimental and improvised musics. Now based in Nantes, France, he is part of the collective CABLE#, presenting regular concerts and an annual festival, and runs the record label and mail-order service Antboy Music. Guthrie works in many different settings: live performance, improvisation and studio composition using various combinations of drums, percussion, objects, junk, amplification and electronics. His latest records feature him with the Sommes Ensemble on Canada’s Small Scale Music label, with the French group Cheval Retrecci with Japanese scream queen Junko, and on the CD Mosquitoes and Crabs with Korean noise artist Chulki Hong.
SICK BOSS w/ LÖVE
COLE SCHMIDT guitar
JAMES MEGER bass
DAN GAUCHER drums
LISEN RYLANDER LÖVE sax, voice, electronics
“Sick Boss consistently delves deep beyond musical boundaries, blurring borders between genres, and scenes.”– Discorder Magazine. Drummer Dan Gaucher, bassist James Meger and guitarist Cole Schmidt are among Vancouver’s busiest musicians, all involved with a wide range of musical projects. In their debut CD, the Vancouver trio runs the gamut between genres and styles with incredible ease and dexterity. Drawing from creative improvisation, folk, and Hendrix, guitarist Cole Schmidt, bassist James Meger and drummer Dan Gaucher bring to Hamilton an unafraid collage of big bold ideas that will carry listeners to unexpected places, especially with the edition of Lisen Rylander Löve. From Gothenburg, Sweden, Löve is an internationally acclaimed Swedish musician and composer who inhabits a unique territory between jazz, electronic music, and improvisation. From 2003 to 2015, Löve toured Europe, Africa, and South and North America as part of the electronica duo Midaircondo. Her singular style melds saxophone and voice with live electronics to create compelling soundscapes.
LEE / PALMER / BENNETT + STEWART
CONNOR BENNETT reeds
CHRIS PALMER guitar
DAVID LEE double bass
JESSE STEWART drums, percussion
With its “chamber jazz” lineup of tenor & soprano saxophone (Connor Bennett), electric guitar (Chris Palmer) and double bass (David Lee), the exciting new trio, LEE/PALMER/BENNETT, has made a special niche for itself in Hamilton’s expanding new music scene. Radical New Zealand guitarist Palmer, saxophonist Bennett (known for his work in Haolin Munk and Eschaton) and bassist David Lee (veteran of such groups as Eric Stach, the Artists Jazz Band, and the Bill Smith Ensemble) take a variety of new approaches to planning and devising an especially focused and mature style of group improvisation. Acoustic music with electric intensity… Add percussion great Jesse Stewart and expect acoustic fireworks!
Regular Admission: $25 door or $20 advance
Students, Seniors, Under-waged Admission: $28 door or advance
Passes: $125 regular (up to $225 value) / $100 students, seniors, under-waged for all 7 ticketed events