Emil de Waal on drums, percussion, electronics and laptop is one of the most heavily engaged drummers in Danish music, and has toured internationally and appeared on 150 releases since his debut in 1986. Emil de Waal is also known as a band-leader, programmer, composer and arranger. Since 2004, Emil de Waal has released two albums with his “Emil de Waal+” project that have been appraised by reviewers a.o. in British “The Wire”. Emil de Waal+ has toured in China, US, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark with diverse guests such as Wayne Horvitz, Danny Frankel, Erik Sanko, Bruce Tovsky, Andy Green and Yan Jun.
myspace.com/emildewaal
emildewaal.com
Multi-instrumentalist Erik Sanko is the leading light in the much admired Skeleton Key and was an original member of John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards. He also helps out such luminaries as Yoko Ono and John Cale from time to time.
Guitarist and technician Andy Green is known for his work with John Cale & The Velvet Underground, among others.
Bruce Tovsky is a visual/sound artist, who began painting at the age of 7 and started playing with tape recorders at the age of 10. Ever since then he has been figuring out ways of putting sound and pictures together. For the past several years he has been creating live video and sound improvisations, often in collaboration with artists such as John Hudak, David Linton, Kim Cascone and Michael Schumacher in a variety of spaces around New York City, such as Diapason, Experimental Intermedia, ISSUE Project Room, Tonic, and his own installation space 106BLDG30 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. His audio/video duo with video artist Shimpei Takeda has been appearing in planetariums, rural arts festivals and galleries around New York.
Kato Hideki (Kato:family name; Hideki: given) is a Japanese-born composer/bassist/multi-instrumentalist, who lives in NYC. He is the co-founder of Death Ambient with Ikue Mori & Fred Frith. His other groups as a leader are: Green Zone with Otomo Yoshihide & Uemura Masahiro; OMNI wtih Nakamura Toshimaru & Akiyama Tetsuji. His compositions include: solo bass piece Turbulent Zone, Mystic Ship of Life, (commissioned by the Kitchen, NYC) and Tremolo of Joy for his quartet with Charles Burnham, Briggan Krauss & Calvin Weston. Besides his own projects, Kato collaborates with Nicolas Collins and James Fei. He is also a member of analog synthesizer collective, Analogos. (http://www.katohideki.com/)
This is the NY debut for this group and a rare NY appearance for Simon Fell and Alex Ward. The performance will be free improvised music, full of adventure, discovery, sound, energy, melody and as many surprises as possible.
Guitarist Joe Morris has worked with Anthony Braxton, David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Dewey Redman, John Butcher, Han Bennink, Ken Vandermark, Barre Phillips, Joe Maneri, Eugene Chadbourne and many others. He has recorded for the labels ECM, HatHut, Aum Fidelity, Clean Feed, Avant, Not Two, Leo, Incus and his own label RITI. His is on the faculty at New England Conservatory and Longy School of Music.
Bassist Simon Fell was born in the UK and now lives in France. He has performed with John Butcher, Peter Brötzmann, Lol Coxhill, Billy Jenkins, Joe Morris, Keith Tippett, Derek Bailey, Han Bennink, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Ellery Eskelin, Tim Berne and numerous others, plus with John Zorn & Joey Baron (as part of Company) and with Elliott Sharp, Billy Bang & Christian Marclay. He has been awarded numerous Bursaries and Grants from the Arts Council of England and other organisations to further his performing technique and compositional studies. He runs the label Bruces Fingers.
Clarinetist Alex Ward lives in London. In 1986 when he was 12 years old he attended a workshop on improvisation run by Derek Bailey. In 1988 Bailey invited him to play at various events including Company Weeks in 1988, 1990, and 1994. Bailey also organized his first recording and CD release in 1991. He has also performed with Butch Morris, Eugene Chadbourne, Steve Noble, Phillip Clark Mike Westbrook and his group Dead End Kids.