Barkingside (Ward / Hawkins / Lash / May)

4147CD

Label: Emanem Country: UK

"Barkingside features some of the most exciting young players on the UK improv scene. It plays completely improvised acoustic music, drawing on each member's varied musical experiences. Formed in 2005, the group's performances have included the Urban Underworlds conference in Cambridge (where it collaborated with poet Michael Horowitz) and the 2007 Freedom of the City festival in London (an excerpt of which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3).

Dominic Lash has been active on the free improvisation scene since 2001. He is a central figure in the Oxford Improvisers' Collective and important long-term musical collaborators include Angharad Davies, Tim Hill, Steve Noble, Samantha Rebello, Pat Thomas and Philipp Wachsmann. Recent work has included a UK tour with Pat Thomas' quartet SILA, a performance in Trondheim, Norway with a large ensemble convened by Mark Wastell, and festival appearances including the Nickelsdorf Konfrontantionen and Liverpool Frakture.

Alexander Hawkins has played keyboard instruments since the age of six. Possessed of a 'fierce technique' and a 'diamond hard touch', his current improvising ensembles include The Convergence Quartet (a transatlantic group featuring Taylor Ho Bynum, Harris Eisenstadt and Dominic Lash, whose first album Live in Oxford has just been released on FMR), and his own sextet and quartet (including Orphy Robinson, Mark Sanders and Hannah Marshall).

Paul May is a versatile yet still highly individual percussionist, drawing sounds from rubbing and striking the drums with any number of objects, as well as the traditional ones. He works regularly with avant-blues guitarist and singer Duke Garwood, jazz singer-songwriter Rosie Brown and, as an improviser, with Veryan Weston, Steve Beresford, John Butcher and Tom Chant. Paul has released four albums on Leo Records with pianist Carolyn Hume.

Alex Ward is one of the country's most extraordinary clarinettists. He started playing with Derek Bailey aged of 12, he has since collaborated with many of the most significant improvisers in the world. He also has a long involvement in rock music, from his own bands, Camp Blackfoot and Dead Days Beyond Help, to work with the Mercury-prize nominated Guillemots. He is featured on well over 30 recordings, including three on his own label, Copepod. A virtuoso, Alex is as happy interpreting complex compositions by Michael Finnissy as improvising with Evan Parker."-Jazzservices.org