OTOMO YOSHIHIDE (JP)
Multi-instrumentalist and composer Otomo Yoshihide has been a fixture in the experimental / noise scene since establishing the band Ground Zero in 1990 in which his guitar, turntables and samplers provided the backbone to a large, often changing, constellation of musicians. Delving deeper into free improvisation, noise, avant-garde and even traditional (after a fashion) jazz, as well as composing music for film, tv and commercials, Otomo is also involved in a number of social causes, including workshops for disabled children and “Project Fukushima!”, created to bring a vital music and arts scene back to Fukushima following the earthquake in 2011.
JOHN HEGRE (NO) / JEAN-PHILIPPE GROSS (FR) /
GREG POPE (UK) / XAVIER QUÉREL (FR)
John Hegre is a Bergen-based musician and composer. Best known for working with free improvisation, contemporary and noise-rock projects, Hegre has contributed in such groups as The Golden Serenades, Jazkamer, Noxagt and Public Enema, as well creating and performing music for theatre, dance and film and expanding the boundaries between performer and audience. Jean-Philippe Gro ss, who began his career as a drummer, turned to working with electronics and synths sometime around the year 2000; creating sounds and music that are at once physical, tense and fragmented, exploring sound´s relationship to silence, space and time. With a background in early eighties punk rock and absurdist performance, Greg Pope has found a sort-of home in the world of live cinema, magic lanterns, screens, projections and performance. Pope´s sense of the experimental is often mirrored in his collaborators (Okkyung Lee, Lasse Marhaug, Sult and Ich Bin Nintendo, to mention a few), sitting (un)comfortably next to noise, drone and chaos. Grenoble-based filmmaker Xavier Quére l also focuses on live performance, working with light and film, improvising and manipulating visuals through a cinema projector, referring to this practice as “Expanded Cinema”. Quérel is the co-founder of L’Atelier MTK, a collective working to explore the possibilities of experimental cinema techniques, and a member of the influential expanded cinema group Metamkine since 1991.
STEN SANDELL (SE) / JULIE KJÆR (DK) /
HANNA MARSHALL (UK) / RACHEL MUSSON (UK)
Swedish musician and composer Sten Sandell has been one of the strongest and most influential voices on the Scandinavian improvised music scene for years. Working with piano, organs, voice and electronics, Sandell’s musical output has been consistently innovative and characterized by a strong sense of independence and artistic integrity. Saxophonist and flautist Julie Kjær uses experimentation to push her instruments to their very limits, with remarkable results. She is active as a player in many big ensembles and as a leader of numerous smaller groups, such as her trio Kjær3 with Steve Noble and John Edwards. Hannah Marshall is a classically trained cellist, now mainly working in the field of improvised music She regularly collaborates with artists such as Fred Frith, Steve Beresford, Kay Grant and Roger Turner, combining fine-tuned skills with imagination and openness to create new sounds. Rounding out this Anglo-Scandinavian quartet is Rache l Musson, a London-based saxophonist, improviser and composer, known for her involvement in a series of constellations, among them a trio with Marshall and Kjær, as well as a duo with vibraphonist Corey Mwamba.
RYU HANKIL (SK) / YAN JUN (CHN) /
SIGNE IRENE TIME (NO)
Originally a successful Korean indie pop keyboardist, Ryu Hankil was turned onto noise and improvisation after collaborating with noise duo Astronoise, and witnessing live performances by artists such as Otomo Yoshihide. He now primarily uses clockworks and typewriters as his instruments, uncovering and enhancing musical structures with contact mics and speakers. Musician and writer Yan Jun works across a range of practices, approaching music from all angles. From improvisation and noise to field recording and site-specific performance and installation art, Yan Jun often performs to and with small groups, or in the case of his Living Room Tour, in audiences’ private homes. As a writer he has written extensively about Chinese underground music, and he also runs the guerilla label Sub Jam. The two are joined by Norwegian vocalist Signe Ire ne Time , who will also be performing at the festival as part of Oslo 14. Her distinctiveness as an improvising vocalist and composer is also shown in the group Significant Time, in collaboration with Frode Gjerstad and Per Zanussi, and in constellations where music meets theatre and performance.
CHRIS CORSANO (US) / METTE RASMUSSEN (DK)
Through solo work and genre-defying collaborations, Chris Corsano has rightfully gained a reputation as one of the most imaginative drummers working today. His long-running duo with Paul Flaherty “dedicated to the promise and purpose of free improvisation” has appeared on stage and recordings with among others Thurston Moore, Jim O’ Rourke and C. Spencer Yeh. For this edition of ALL EARS, he’s teaming up with another equally adventurous saxophonist- the Trondheim based Mette Rasmussen. The duo released “All the Ghosts at Once” (Relative Pitch) in 2015, following regular collaborations. Rasmussen’s raw, textural and occasionally ear-piercing approach to sound has also been demonstrated in her work with her own Trio Riot (with Sam Andreae and David Meier) and Mats Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra.
