(Osaka/PA)
TATSUYA NAKATANI Solo
Tatsuya Nakatani drums, percussion
Tatsuya Nakatani is a creative artist / percussionist originally from Osaka, Japan who has released over sixty recordings in North America and Europe. Residing in the USA since 1994 he has performed countless solo percussion concerts and has collaborated with hundreds of artists in international music festivals, university concert halls, art museums and galleries. His latest project is the Nakatani Gong Orchestra, which builds community ensembles performing on multiple bowed gongs under his direction, as recently presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.. Nakatani’s constant touring fosters the raw and fresh quality in his music, which can only survive through an open willingness to share energy, culture, music and self on a global human scale. His master classes and workshops at schools and universities, emphasize his unique musical approach and philosophy in creating visceral, non-linear music. He has created his own instrumentation, effectively inventing many instruments and extended techniques. He utilizes drums, gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, metal objects, bells, and various sticks and bows to create an intense, intuitively primitive, expressive music of unusually strong spirit that defies category or genre. His music is based in improvised/ experimental music, jazz, free jazz, rock, and noise, yet retains the sense of space and beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music.
(Montreal/NZ)
Brick Quartet
Jeff Henderson saxophones Vicky Mettler guitar Raphaël Foisy-Couture bass Jacob Desjardins drums
The Brick Quartet consists of three musicians from Montreal, Canada; Vicky Mettler on guitar, Raphaël Foisy on bass and Jacob Desjardins on drums joined this fall on their first Canadian tour by New Zealand saxophonist Jeff Henderson. Together, they strive to promote ideals of openness and collective sharing, presenting their music in a multitude of challenging settings, in an effort to communicate with as wide an audience range as possible. Jeff is a prolific improviser who has performed internationally with artists such as Evan Parker, Steve Lacy, Peter Brotzmann, Han Bennink, Paal NilssenLove and many more. In addition to performing in many contexts and leading bands, Henderson is a composer and sound artist who has exhibited work and made installations throughout New Zealand and in Europe, Australia and Montreal. For ten years, he operated experimental art and performance spaces in Wellington, and was Artistic Director of the Bomb the Space Experimental Music Festival and the Wellington International Jazz Festival. He is now Director of the Audio Foundation, an organization established to support the experimental music community in New Zealand. In 2008, he was awarded a NZ Arts Foundation New Generation Award. Vicky Mettler, Raphael Foisy and Jacob Desjardins are highly active on the Montreal experimental music scene, performing for the past few years in various formations and venues around Quebec and Canada. Through free improvisation, the Quartet combines sound experimentation with spontaneous composition in order to build a cohesive flow within each piece. The result is a rich musical conversation that blends their individual influences, including jazz, folk, blues and world music, with a unifying noise/punk aesthetic. In September 2013, they recorded their first album ‘Built Like a Brick Shithouse’, released on the Montreal tape label Small Scale Music in 2014, receiving many positive reviews from various music publications in North America and Europe, including being selected as one of the best tapes of 2014 by Tabs Out and receiving extensive airplay on several college and online radio stations.
Tiny MixTapes: Built Like a Brick Shithouse [CS; Small Scale Music]
“It’s punch after punch under a heavy strobe, until all that’s left is a willing pulp of flesh now able to understand that there’s few musics are ferocious and independent as jazz. Those left to still call its name do so with a passion that is unmatched. Henderson, Mettler, Foisy and Lachance are but a chosen few.”
“Their works are worthwhile examples of free improvised statements…In most improvisations they work towards moments of enormous intensity…Fine interplay, great playing by Henderson and absolutely a captivating journey.”
