Latvia’s Skaņu Mežs festival for experimental music will happen on October 3-4 at Hanzas Perons (16A Hanzas Street). On its first evening, renowned improvisers – British saxophonist John Butcher and American guitarist Bill Nace – will play together for the first time. Tickets can currently be purchased at www.ticketservice.lv for 55 EUR.
John Butcher writes thus of this upcoming collaboration with Bill Nace: “We were meant to play at Cafe OTO in 2020 – but Covid killed that. We haven't ever met or spoken.”
Born in Brighton (1954) and living in London, John Butcher is a saxophonist whose work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces, and explorations with feedback, unusual acoustics, and non-concert locations. He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with a sense of place. “Resonant Spaces”, for example, is a collection of performances recorded during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands.
“John Butcher is without question the most jaw-dropping technician we’ve ever heard wielding a tenor, equally capable of brawny assault and textural meditations at the very edge of audibility,” says a review in Time Out New York.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym4QYCOmSFY&t=1292s
Butcher originally studied physics, but after publishing a Ph.D (1982) on quantum chromodynamics, he left academia and took off with music. He has since collaborated with hundreds of artists, some for many decades, including Derek Bailey, Eddie Prévost, John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Steve Beresford, Okkyung Lee, Andy Moor, Christian Marclay, Pat Thomas, Phil Minton, Rhodri Davies, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, John Russell, Chris Corsano, Sophie Agnel, Ståle Liavik Solberg, Angharad Davies, and Matthew Shipp.
Additionally, he values occasional encounters – ranging from the WDR Sinfonieorchester and Ex Orkest to duos with Akio Suzuki, Liz Allbee, Keiji Haino, Isabelle Duthoit, David Toop, Fred Frith, and Joe McPhee.
Recent compositions include “Fluid Fixations” (an hcmf// commission), “Penny Wands” for Futurist Intonarumori, “Good Liquor…” for the London Sinfonietta, and “Tarab Cuts” (shortlisted for a British Composer Award).
Bill Nace is an artist and musician based in Philadelphia, PA. He has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including Michael Morley, Graham Lambkin, Sakina Abdou, Twig Harper, Jooklo Duo, chik white, John Truscinski, Thurston Moore, Jake Meginsky, Jessica Rylan, Paul Flaherty, Wally Shoup, Aaron Dilloway, and Kim Gordon, with whom he regularly plays as one half of the duo Body/Head. His last solo LP, “Through a Room”, was released on Drag City Records.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVdFVQxPWxc
He has been a featured musician in festivals such as ATP (curated by Jim Jarmusch and held in Monticello, NY), Colour Out of Space (Brighton, UK), Supersonic Festival (Birmingham, UK), International Festival Musique Actuelle (Victoriaville, QC), and Homegrown (Boston, MA). He has performed in a wide variety of venues, running the gamut from the Musée d'Art Contemporain (Strasbourg, France) to The Stone (NYC) to Bennington College (Vermont). Nace’s range has been described as “veering from sculptural, almost Remko Scha-esque chime to Loren Connors-style elegance in only a few short moves” (Mimaroglu Music, 2010).
In addition to Drag City and Three Lobed, recordings can be found on Ecstatic Peace (Northampton, MA), Ultra Eczema (Belgium), Holidays (Italy), Throne Heap (VA), HP Cycle (Toronto, ON), as well as on Nace’s own label, Open Mouth.
At the end of 2024, Bill Nace’s solo album “Through a Room” was published by Drag City. In its review, Matthew Blackwell of Pitchfork wrote the following: “Nace achieves a remarkable variety across the album, but his distinctive guitar sound is always identifiably his. Nace's body of work with improvisatory duos and trios is vast and enviably good, a testament to his adaptability to a range of contexts and performers.”
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